Books with title Heretic

Heretics is a religious studies classic by G.K. Chesterton.Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him.Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936), was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, biographer, and literary and art critic. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox".Time magazine has observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. Chesterton is well known for his fictional priest-detective Father Brown,[5] and for his reasoned apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man.[4][6] Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. George Bernard Shaw, his "friendly enemy", said of him, "He was a man of colossal genius."[4] Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and John Ruskin. Chesterton was born in Campden Hill in Kensington, London, the son of Marie Louise, née Grosjean, and Edward Chesterton.[8][9] He was baptised at the age of one month into the Church of England,[10] though his family themselves were irregularly practising Unitarians.[11]According to his autobiography, as a young man Chesterton became fascinated with the occultand, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards. Chesterton was educated at St Paul's School, then attended the Slade School of Art to become an illustrator. The Slade is a department of University College London, where Chesterton also took classes in literature, but did not complete a degree in either subject.In September 1895 Chesterton began working for the London publisher Redway, where he remained for just over a year.[14] In October 1896 he moved to the publishing house T. Fisher Unwin,[14] where he remained until 1902. During this period he also undertook his first journalistic work, as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in The Illustrated London News, for which he continued to write for the next thirty years.Early on Chesterton showed a great interest in and talent for art. He had planned to become an artist, and his writing shows a vision that clothed abstract ideas in concrete and memorable images. Even his fiction contained carefully concealed parables. Father Brown is perpetually correcting the incorrect vision of the bewildered folks at the scene of the crime and wandering off at the end with the criminal to exercise his priestly role of recognition and repentance. For example, in the story "The Flying Stars", Father Brown entreats the character Flambeau to give up his life of crime: "There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime.

"Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox." So begins "Heretics" by Gilbet K. Chesterton. "Heretics" is a classic piece of religious exposition.

Though he was on the whole a fun loving and gregarious man, during adolescence Chesterton was troubled by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found answers to many of the dilemmas and paradoxes of life. Throughout Heretics he provides a very personal critique of contemporary religious notions. His consistently engaging but often wayward humour is mixed liberally with daring flights of fancy and some startling turns of thought. A highly original collection of essays, providing an invaluable contribution to one of the major debates of the last century - one that continues to exercise leading thinkers in the present one.

Famous in our own time as the author of the 'Father Brown' detective stories, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a highly respected Victorian author, and on his frequent lecture tours met with many 'progressive' and 'free-thinking' philosophies, such as those expounded by H G Wells, Rudyard Kipling and George Bernard Shaw. 'Heretics' is a rebuttal of all such theories, written in Chesterton's inimitable style, a rare mix of humor, wisdom and biting prose. The book is crammed to bursting with profound and paradoxical thoughts: 'only when hope is unreasonable is it useful'; 'worldly ideals are more dangerous than otherworldly ones'; and 'it is only acceptable to be proud about something that is not creditable to oneself'. The publication of 'Heretics' prompted reviewer G. S. Street to declare that he would worry about his own philosophy only after "Mr. Chesterton has given us his." In response, Chesterton penned 'Orthodoxy', his famous defence of Christianity, and the companion volume of this present work.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

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'Heretics' (1905), 'Orthodoxy' (1908) and 'The Everlasting Man' (1925) form a trilogy of Christian apologetics, chronicling Chesterton's journey to faith, and his reasons for it. Using endless paradox to whip the complacency of rationalism, here is both sweeping argument and comic turn that is at once generous and savage; engaging and furious. In 'Heretics', Chesterton starts from his belief that the most important thing about a person is their view of the universe, as this determines all else; and he decries the rationalist view for having no vision of ultimate good. Such failure of nerve is expressed in George Bernard Shaw's epigram: 'The golden rule is that there is no rule.' Taking on Ibsen, HG Wells, Kipling, Oscar Wilde and Nietzsche, Chesterton rails against 'the great mental destruction', in which everything is denied, and nothing affirmed. It is a plea for people to believe in something, but not to believe in anything. 'Orthodoxy' describes Chesterton's discovery of faith - a journey which is compared to an English adventurer who gets lost and unknowingly, discovers England all over again. Here he is doubly blessed, enjoying both the excitement of exploration, and the security of being home. Again, modernist blind spots are exposed, as the reader is invited into 'the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy...there was never anything so perilous or so exciting.' 'The Everlasting Man' is a slightly denser work, an outline of history, which sets itself against the view of comparative religion that Christianity is just one belief amongst many; and that all of them are equal. For Chesterton, Christ is not as others, but restores sanity to the world through being both an historical figure and an ideal figure; with the church, 'a winged thunderbolt of thought and everlasting enthusiasm; a thing without rival or resemblance and still as new as it is old.' Here is exuberant writing that turns all things on their head; to be enjoyed, put aside and returned to.