G.K. Chesterton Archives ~ Page 3 of 13 ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Singing in the Rain

By Joseph Pearce|2021-07-22T12:07:58-05:00July 23rd, 2021|Categories: G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

In days of relative darkness, when shadows envelope everything, we should seek the light that is reflected and refracted in our neighbors. As an Englishman, I have a tendency towards sun-worship. There’s a very good reason for this. England is a gloomy country in terms of the weather. It rains a lot, and even when [...]

G.K. Chesterton Meets Dorian Gray

By Joseph Pearce|2021-07-08T11:28:23-05:00July 8th, 2021|Categories: G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Last month, in an essay entitled “Chesterton Meets the Devil”, I discussed the period of youthful morbidity which characterized Chesterton’s time at the Slade School of Art in the early 1890s. This gloom-laden period inspired “The Diabolist,” one of Chesterton’s darkest and most powerful essays. Published in Tremendous Trifles in 1909, it recounts an episode [...]

G.K. Chesterton, the Jolly Journalist

By Joseph Pearce|2021-06-26T10:29:43-05:00June 25th, 2021|Categories: G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Journalism, Senior Contributors|

Though known to posterity as a wit, a controversialist, and a Christian apologist, G.K. Chesterton considered himself primarily to be merely a “jolly journalist” and it was through the writing of essays for newspapers and magazines that he made both his reputation and his living. G.K. Chesterton is known to posterity as a wit, a [...]

Chesterton’s “Manalive”: “Friends” a Century Earlier

By David Deavel|2021-06-23T23:00:29-05:00June 23rd, 2021|Categories: David Deavel, Friendship, G.K. Chesterton, Senior Contributors|

Want a real happy ending for twenty- and thirty-somethings? G. K. Chesterton’s 1912 novel, "Manalive," is a tale about young, bourgeois people living in the modern world. It is also a tale about what is necessary for such people to come alive and enjoy real friendship and communion. The entertainment world fluttered a few weeks [...]

G.K. Chesterton and the March of the Church Militant

By Joseph Pearce|2021-06-19T15:46:54-05:00June 19th, 2021|Categories: Architecture, Christianity, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

G. K. Chesterton, a truly humble soul, enrapt in gratitude and wonder, was moved to contemplate the deepest meaning of gothic architecture. More than a century later, our own souls find themselves singing in harmony with Chesterton as they hear and contemplate the beauty of his voice, and the beauty of the song he is [...]

Chesterton Meets the Devil

By Joseph Pearce|2022-05-28T22:47:03-05:00June 11th, 2021|Categories: G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

G.K. Chesterton is so full of wisdom and wonder, and sanity and sanctity, that it comes as a surprise to learn of his darker side. Yet there were two particularly dark and bitter periods in his life that should not be overlooked. The first was the unholy and unhealthy darkness that descended during a period [...]

Walking With Chesterton and Lewis

By Joseph Pearce|2021-06-01T17:52:29-05:00May 29th, 2021|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christian Humanism, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, Truth|

Why is it that those who like both G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis almost invariably prefer one to the other? This question is best answered with a sweeping generalization: There are two types of people in the world—hikers and walkers. Readers who are hikers prefer Lewis; readers who are walkers prefer Chesterton. There are two [...]

Ordinary Things, Extraordinary Genius

By Joseph Pearce|2021-05-20T18:35:05-05:00May 20th, 2021|Categories: Christian Humanism, Culture, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Philosophy, Senior Contributors, Truth|

We see, in his poetry and prose, the humour and humility of G.K. Chesterton, but also the extraordinary genius who sees that the ordinary things of life are not merely a matter of life and death but a matter of eternal life and eternal death. The genius of G.K. Chesterton is hard to pin down [...]

Chains, Change, and Chesterton

By Joseph Pearce|2021-04-27T20:50:54-05:00April 7th, 2021|Categories: Christian Humanism, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

I recognize G.K. Chesterton as a guide who led me from the doldrums of disbelief into the glorious light of the Gospel. Unbeknownst to me, the gloom in my prison cell was the gloaming of a new day in which the Son would rise, Easter-like, in my soul. The debt I owe to him is [...]

Chesterton and the Meaning of Education

By Joseph Pearce|2021-01-26T14:34:46-06:00January 26th, 2021|Categories: Christian Humanism, Education, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

The anti-religious spirit of modernity is so antagonistic to the idea of a unifying truth that it prefers a meaningless education to an education informed by the underlying meaning inherent in the truth-claims of religion or philosophy. And this, according to G.K. Chesterton, is not really education at all. “It is typical of our time,” [...]

Positive and Negative Morality

By G.K. Chesterton|2020-08-09T17:36:56-05:00August 9th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Civilization, Conservatism, G.K. Chesterton, Hope, Modernity|

When our hopes for the coming time seem disturbed or doubtful, and peace chaotic, let us remember that it is really our disappointment that is an illusion. It is our rescue that is a reality. A vast amount of nonsense is talked against negative and destructive things. The silliest sort of progressive complains of negative [...]

Questioning Chesterton’s Own Judgment of “The Man Who Was Thursday”

By Joseph Pearce|2020-05-28T15:29:37-05:00May 28th, 2020|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, Fiction, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Senior Contributors|

The paradoxical heart of G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday” is the tension that exists between the childlikeness demanded by Christ and the childishness that St. Paul tells us to avoid. The first is the wisdom of innocence, or the sanity of sanctity, whereby we see the miracle of life with eyes full of [...]

G.K. Chesterton on Scientific “Experts”

By Chuck Chalberg|2020-04-21T11:41:43-05:00April 19th, 2020|Categories: Coronavirus, Culture, G.K. Chesterton, Science|

As we all deal with the latest pandemic, it’s good to know that we can call on experts to help us through—and eventually out—of it. But it’s also good to know that we can also call on non-experts to help us as well. Included among them might even be a non-expert who had his suspicions [...]

G.K. Chesterton’s Socialist Friend: Robert Blatchford

By Chuck Chalberg|2020-02-18T15:49:53-06:00February 18th, 2020|Categories: Conservatism, England, G.K. Chesterton, Government, Politics, Socialism|

Today’s enthusiasts for a socialist America will not be likely to know the name of Robert Blatchford or his story. If they did, they might think twice about their current enthusiasm. […]