Chesterton

Lita Sanders, née Cosner wrote an article on him.

It's generally very good and it's also good in what Chesterton had to say against Science Worship and Evolutionism.

G.K. Chesterton: Darwinism is ‘an attack upon thought itself’
by Lita Sanders, prepublication version then revised for Journal of Creation 23:1 (2009)
https://creation.com/gk-chesterton-darwinism-is-an-attack-upon-thought-itself

Now it contains a passage with a footnote, which taken together sound a bit quaint to me:

G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific British writer, whose poetry, fiction, books and essays argued for a Christian¹ worldview in the early 20th century, long before the term ‘worldview’ was coined.

¹ Chesterton was a Roman Catholic, but most of his works defend generic Christianity as defined by the ancient Apostle’s Creed, accepted by most Christian denominations.

He would have answered, there are some people who find it hard to get that Roman Catholicism and Christianity are one and the same thing. Protestants are only Christians, because they retain parts of Roman Catholicism. Calvin was a Christian precisely as much as he was a Catholic, he was a heretic precisely as much as he was diseased as a Catholic, ill in his faith.

The Rosary is as Christian as the Bible. The Gospel is as Catholic as the Mass.

What Lita, now Mrs. Sanders, calls "most Christian denominations" are a minority of all Christian persons. Slightly more than half of the Christians are Catholic, last time I viewed statistics, if it's now slightly less than half, I'd find even that surprising. Of the remainder, 1/3 are Orthodox, and the remaining 2/3 of the remainder (less than 1/3 of the Christians) contain the Protestants, largest of which are 1/3 Anglicans / Episcopalians.

Orthodox and Anglicans share things with Catholics that many Evangelicals are against.

Let's ignore Copts and Armenians for the moment. Let's go by these statistics, even if they are old.

Evangelicals and Calvinists = 1/2 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 22.22 %. That's the section which contains "most Christian denominations" ...

Yes, Chesterton did defend "generic Christianity" because, that is a very important part of Roman Catholicism. It is also an important part of Anglicanism, and he was Anglican prior to becoming Roman Catholic. But next to Atheism, Communism and Eugenics, the groups he is most against are Calvinists and Capitalists. He also sees that as the real origin of Atheism, Communism and Eugenics. I'm glad for Evangelicals that find the fruits of Calvinism bitter. Partly because they share generic Christianity with us Roman Catholics, but also partly because it's a hopeful sign of possible recovery.

You see, James Hutton, the old age pioneer from Siccar Point, which CMI loves to poke at as much as Chesterton loved to poke at Calvin and the Calvinist lords, educators of Edward VI, educators of James VI (and later I), James Hutton was from Edinburgh and University of Leiden, two strongholds of Calvinism, he's buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard, but this is no longer run by Franciscans, it's the churchyard of St. Giles, which is Kirk of Scotland = Calvinist. Meanwhile, Darwin started out as an Anglican, Lyell seems to have transitions from Kirk of Scotland to Anglicanism.

I suppose it was somewhat bitter and disingenious to state 22 % contain "most Christian denominations" as Lita wasn't excluding Catholics and Orthodox, but it gives a wry humour which might have been appreciated by Chesterton. He could have made the point by saying, as he said of The Hound of Heaven, by the Roman Catholic Francis Thompson, "a Salvation Army officer would recognise its theology" ....

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Camillus de Lellis
18.VII.2024

From the memory of Revd. Bryan Houghton, Unwanted Priest I recall (retranslating from French), how he started out with a tense relation to the Sacristan in his Chapel, until one morning the sacristan thought he had a gotcha "It's not white, Sir!" — "Sure it is, it's St. Camillus de Lellis!" — "You are an honest and pious man! My name is Camille de Chaussinand! Here, take the keys!" ... Revd. Houghton was no fan of Darwinism either.

Sancti Camilli de Lellis, Presbyteri et Confessoris, Clericorum Regularium infirmis ministrantium Institutoris, caelestis hospitalium et infirmorum Patroni; cujus dies natalis pridie Idus Julii recolitur.