G.K. Chesterton on modernism and orthodoxy

Contents - Aug 2009 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Feast of Our Lady's Assumption, 15 August - Michael Gilchrist Caritas in Veritate: Benedict XVI's social encyclical: public life needs Christian principles - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Human rights: Small victories for pro-lifers at the UN - Babette Francis Priesthood: Benedict XVI's Letter to priests: follow example of the Curé of Ars Is this where 'progressive' religious life is heading? - AD2000 REPORT Magisterium: Authentic Catholicism: neither progressive nor conservative - Fr Martin Durham G.K. Chesterton on modernism and orthodoxy Foundations of Faith: Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone): a recipe for doctrinal chaos - Dr Frank Mobbs God's Messengers: Angels: what Scripture and Tradition reveal - Susan McKinley Poetry: Nkosi J - Will Elsin Letters: Pope Pius XII vindicated - Tony Evans Letters: Religious freedom - Fr Brian Harrison OS Letters: Ecumenism? - Moya and Leo Morrissey Letters: Content of faith - Chris Hilder Letters: Moral decline - Frank Bellet Letters: Poems appreciated - Margaret Healy Letters: Appeal - World Congress of Families - Jenny Davies Books: THE WINE OF CERTITUDE: a Literary Biography of Ronald Knox, by David Rooney - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: JESUS, THE APOSTLES AND THE EARLY CHURCH, by Pope Benedict XVI - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: FLOWERS OF HEAVEN: One Thousand Years of Christian Verse, ed. By Joseph Pearce - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: BECAUSE GOD IS REAL: Sixteen Questions, One Answer, by Peter Kreeft - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: ... AND YOU ARE CHRIST'S':The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life, Dubay - Br Barry Coldrey Books: This month's selection from AD Books Reflection: Mary in God's plan of salvation - Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli

The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is especially up to date or particularly 'in the know'. To flaunt the fact that we have had all the last books from Germany is simply vulgar. To introduce into philosophical discussions a sneer at a creed's antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady's age. It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion (All Things Considered, p. 5).

* * *

People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It is easy to be a madman; it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.

It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect (Orthodoxy, p. 187).

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, a convert to Catholicism, and one of the Faith's outstanding 20th century apologists.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 22 No 7 (August 2009), p. 9