Purpose Driven – Body Parts

G. K. Chesterton

So what does G.K. Chesterton, the renowned turn-of-the-(20th)-century author, journalist and theological thinker, have to do with the left-leaning philanthropic/activist group ACORN? What might link these two disparate entities together?

Well, according to The New York Times and GetReligion.com, it’d be James E. O’Keefe.

O’Keefe, the conservative “gotcha”-journalist who caught ACORN officials, on tape, helpfully offering advice on how to set up illicit brothels, is a big Chesterton fan. The Times says:

Mr. O’Keefe said he considers the British writer G. K. Chesterton his “intellectual backbone” and called himself a “progressive radical,” not a conservative, because he wants to change things, “not conserve them.” But his pro-market, anti-government views, as he described them, sounded like mainstream conservatism.

The article doesn’t say whether O’Keefe thinks Chesterton’s theological musings are groovy, as well, but it would stand to reason: Much of Chesterton’s most popular work is in the realm of Christian apologetics, and he was a critical influence (as GetReligion notes) on a certain C.S. Lewis, who also was something of a Christian thinker. Moreover, Chesterton’s best-known theological work, the century-old “Orthodoxy,” is not only intellectually stimulating but has a beautifully poetic, post-modernist bent that feels incredibly contemporary — a persuasive work for a provocateur like O’Keefe

 who’s all of 25 years old. While paradox tends to make modernists feel all queasy-like (and most of the modern evangelical movement is based on modernist thinking), Chesterton embraces it, and it shows in his every turn of phrase. And yet he revels in traditionalism, as well. And it contains some of the prettiest moments you’ll ever read.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. … All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

I’d highly recommend cracking open a copy of “Orthodoxy,” if you haven’t already. While I didn’t find everything he said persuasive, there were moments of, I think, pure genius.