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    Orthodoxy
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    Orthodoxy
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    Orthodoxy
    Audiobook6 hours

    Orthodoxy

    Written by G.K Chesterton

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    "In these pages I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set of mental pictures rather than a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me."

    Chesterton's Orthodoxy makes Christian apologetics both compelling and delightful. Here is equilibrium of the mind's reason, the soul's imagination, and the belly's laughter!

    An EChristian, Inc production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEChristian, Inc. Audio
    Release dateMay 1, 2006
    ISBN9781596443563
    Author

    G.K Chesterton

    G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English journalist and author best known for his mystery series featuring the priest-detective Father Brown and for the metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Baptized into the Church of England, Chesterton underwent a crisis of faith as a young man and became fascinated with the occult. He eventually converted to Roman Catholicism and published some of Christianity’s most influential apologetics, including Heretics and Orthodoxy. 

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    Reviews for Orthodoxy

    4/5

    695 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" and Lewis' "Mere Christianity" are classics of contemporary Christian apologetics. Both write to a similar audience, namely, secular academics. Lewis' appeal was broader, however, for he was reaching out to those people influenced or educated by these academics. Consequently, these books are full of reason and logic but are devoid of Bible quotes. This might dismay some fundamentalists, but this type of apologetic is absolutely necessary. Just as a Muslim will not convince a Christian regarding Islam by quoting the Qu'ran, so, in most cases, a Christian will not convert a secular academic by quoting the Bible. The appeal must be made on common ground, in this case, reason and logic. In this regard, Chesterton succeeds.That being said, I give him only 3 1/2 stars because of his rambling, time-sensitive style. It is easy for an American reading in the 21st century to become completely lost in Chesterton's quips and references to late-modernity intellectuals.Lewis' broader appeal makes him more accessible to Chesterton, so I recommend "Mere Christianity" over "Orthodoxy" to the average 21st century American, whereas I recommend "Orthodoxy" to those who are educated in late 19th and early 20th-century intellectualism.Both books are useful for Christians in developing apologetic skills and for non-Christians, especially seculars, in understanding a traditional, intellectual, and non-fundamentalist brand of Christianity.
    • 5/5
      brilliant!
    • 4/5
      A thoughtful and fascinating account of the author's move from agnosticism, in his teens, through to a profound faith in God, and subsequent adoption of the Christian faith.

      GK Chesterton uses analogies to good effect, and describes his gradual search for meaning in life, looking at objections to God posed by atheists, and - one at a time - realising that they were all based on fallacy.

      It took me several weeks to read this book; some of it was a bit long-winded, and there was much to ponder. I found his thought processes a bit convoluted in places, yet reassuring and often refreshing.

      He wrote the book, apparently, to answer his critics... and in doing so produced an excellent apologetic for his beliefs. Recommended to anyone who is happy with a somewhat lengthy - and, inevitably, dated - discussion of faith from a fully rational and logical standpoint .
    • 5/5
      Chesterton at his philosophical best. He presents his personal arguments for the existence of God and skewers all the puffed up, empty-headed modern philosophers and worthless aristocrats and oligarchs. His wit is as fresh and sharp as Mark Twain's.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I'm in the peculiar (and rather frustrating) situation of being a book lover living in a foreign country with no access to an English library and (temporarily, I hope) in a financial situation that prevents me from buying books. Therefore, I've had to fall back on the collection of books that I already own. I've just recently finished reading G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy for the 3rd time. If you're familiar with Chesterton then you well know his penchant for paradox and mirth. This writer had a knack for showing familiar things in a startling new light.Orthodoxy doesn't disappoint. It constantly amazes and stimulates from the first page to the last. It's as good as a book on religion and philosophy can get.I won't write about this book what's already been written in other reviews below. I'll only add that in my 3rd reading of this book I came across a passage that somehow I had forgotten after my first 2 readings. This passage is a prime example of how Chesterton can astonish:"All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself is it probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary . . . The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity; but to my inactivity . . . it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising . . . The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they especially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore."That's from a chapter titled 'The Ethics of Elfland' and I think that's a good example of the flavor of the entire book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      G. K. Chesterton was a brilliant figure who for nearly a century has loomed large in the world of Christian Apologetics. Though one of his most famous fans, C. S. Lewis, has overtaken him in prominence as an apologist, or perhaps because of this, Chesterton's work is well worth reading.In his book, Orthodoxy, Chesterton examines the evidences for the Christian faith via looking at how the supposed “evidence” against Christianity made little sense to him as he researched the issues as a young man. Up front, he apologizes for the largely autobiographical nature of the volume, while explaining that this is the only way he knows how to truly proceed. Chesterton argues that the totality of experiences, ideas, evidences, and so forth, that make up a man's beliefs are, in large part, inseparable from those beliefs. To leave out these pieces of the puzzle, these autobiographical elements, leaves us with disparate philosophical ramblings that really explain nothing at all. So with this in mind, Chesterton explains in detail how he went from an agnostic to a Christian, by way of detailing the blessings of the Church, and the defects of her critics and of other religious and philosophical systems. Such an approach seems like it may be very narcissistic on Chesterton's part, and so won't work at all. On the contrary, it is quite brilliant. Chesterton actually focuses very little on himself, except for as a vehicle for expounding his ideas. While we do gain some insights into Chesterton the man, they are always strongly intertwined with the story of his faith in Christ Our Lord, and the reasons he came to that faith. While this work is overall quite brilliant, there are some parts of the book one may find annoying. Chesterton takes some very gratuitous potshots against Calvinism and Protestants to an extent where I believe not just evangelicals, but even many Catholics may find it to grate on their nerves. But this was, in a strange way, a great blessing of the book for me. Chesterton, for all of his brilliance and the effective way God uses him, was, when he lived, still a sinner saved by grace. We all need Christ, and we all continually have to return to the Father to gain reconciliation with Him for our sins. Even the best of us. Yet, God grants His children forgiveness continuously. What a wondrously merciful God we serve. Granted, this isn't a lesson that the author meant to include in the book, but, by God's grace, it is a lesson the Lord used this book to teach me. Whether one is looking for a good book on Apologetics, or is just a tad shaky on defending the faith (and in need of some intellectual firepower), this book is worth picking up. Highly Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Although Chesterton included many references to his contemporaries and to the issues of his day, most of them now obscure, the clarity of his writing and the force of his argument made this an interesting and surprising read for me.
    • 5/5
      Chesterton argues that Christianity is the answer to a riddle:"It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence."From the Preface
    • 4/5
      Chesterton is clearly a genius. And his influence on CS Lewis is obvious. However, his style and points of emphasis are clearly of the 19th century. So, while this work is very well argued, I just didn't find it as personally engaging as I had hoped that I would.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant. One to read again and again.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful exploration of one man's faith. Well thought-out, and yet passionate and personal, Orthodoxy shows how Chesterton explored the issues of faith, came to a mighty conclusion, only then to realize that his conclusion was what Christianity had been preaching for centuries.The book is a heavy one, despite its short length, but should be studied carefully by anyone who might be looking seriously at the issue of religion.
    • 4/5
      Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" and Lewis' "Mere Christianity" are classics of contemporary Christian apologetics. Both write to a similar audience, namely, secular academics. Lewis' appeal was broader, however, for he was reaching out to those people influenced or educated by these academics. Consequently, these books are full of reason and logic but are devoid of Bible quotes. This might dismay some fundamentalists, but this type of apologetic is absolutely necessary. Just as a Muslim will not convince a Christian regarding Islam by quoting the Qu'ran, so, in most cases, a Christian will not convert a secular academic by quoting the Bible. The appeal must be made on common ground, in this case, reason and logic. In this regard, Chesterton succeeds.That being said, I give him only 3 1/2 stars because of his rambling, time-sensitive style. It is easy for an American reading in the 21st century to become completely lost in Chesterton's quips and references to late-modernity intellectuals.Lewis' broader appeal makes him more accessible to Chesterton, so I recommend "Mere Christianity" over "Orthodoxy" to the average 21st century American, whereas I recommend "Orthodoxy" to those who are educated in late 19th and early 20th-century intellectualism.Both books are useful for Christians in developing apologetic skills and for non-Christians, especially seculars, in understanding a traditional, intellectual, and non-fundamentalist brand of Christianity.
    • 5/5
      A great work by a great writer. I wish I could have his faith!
    • 5/5
      This book is simply amazing. I've already written a lengthy review of it, and i'll post that here soon.