Orthodoxy

In this classic of Christian apologetics, Chesterton lays out a sort of “spiritual autobiography”—how he personally came to believe. Chesterton considered it a companion book to his earlier work Heretics. Where Heretics was a collection of essays defending the Christian faith, Orthodoxy is Chesterton’s own story of how he came to believe that faith. G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was one of C. S. Lewis’ primary mentors in apologetics, and an influence even in his conversion. Novelist, poet, essayist, and journalist, Chesterton was perhaps best known for his Father Brown detective stories. He produced more than 100 volumes in his lifetime, including biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas. His Everlasting Man, which set out a Christian outline of history, was one of the factors that wore down Lewis’ resistance to Christianity. Chesterton was one of the first defenders of orthodoxy to use humor as a weapon. Perhaps more important was his use of reason to defend faith.