I intended to finish two or three more books, but alas! This month is a very short list. Next month won’t be much better, I don’t suppose, as I’ll be at Polishing the Pulpit for half the month.

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Chesterton, G. K. What’s Wrong with the World. Read by Stewart Crank. 2019 Museum Audiobooks, 2019. Audible audio ed., 7 hr., 12 min.

Echoing themes occurrent in his previous (and more popular) work Orthodoxy, Chesterton argues in defense of tradition—not merely for tradition’s sake, but because it became tradition on purpose. While the former treatise largely discussed tradition as it pertains within Christianity, this work analyzes the socio-political sphere, including Christianity as a whole. He calls his readers to embrace idealism instead of making concessions and sacrifices. The problem is that everyone fears they won’t get what they want, so they don’t even ask. This is the real reason Christianity is so often rejected.

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

Chesterton writes in 1910 London, and many of the apparently troubling societal trends are peculiar to his environment. Most of these are obscure. To an American reader, the most recognizable is the British suffrage movement, against which G.K. argues aggressively. This will (no doubt) startle the modern reader, as we are so accustomed to women participating in the political realm.

Chesterton’s reasoning is not what one might assume, however, as it rests primarily on his view that women are the only sane entities in the modern world. Allowing them to enter the public sphere as political forces forces them to make the kind of vulgar decisions politics always admits, rather than allowing them to retain their God-appointed role as the makers of homes.

Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales—better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women.

Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades.

Regardless of whether you find this argument compelling, it at least warrants consideration. How might our society appear if we had returned to a more traditional family structure a hundred years ago?

Beyond his contemplations on the home, Chesterton also introduces some of his famous economic ideals, later collated under the term distributism. He recognized (as have many in our present age) the capitalist evil in accumulation of goods, leaving the average man to neglect his family for mere pennies. Yet he foresaw the illusory inefficacy of socialism, mourning,

I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly the same.

An ardent idealist, Chesterton refused to kowtow to the twin compromises, for

…both Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as necessities—not as naked ideals or desires. Nobody liked the Manchester School; it was endured as the only way of producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody’s real heart is in the idea of preventing a free man from owning his own farm, or an old woman from cultivating her own garden, any more than anybody’s real heart was in the heartless battle of the machines.

Instead, he suggested aiming at what everybody actually wants: promote small businesses and allow the private sphere (the home) to remain private. Enforce property rights and encourage familial autonomy. In turn, the family structure would be free to conform to divine design.

For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. I often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic feeling.

5/5. I listened to the audiobook here, and could not find a hardcopy I liked. Caveat emptor if you seek a physical book.

McInerny, D. Q. Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking. New York: Random House, 2005.

I started this short volume in the Critical Thinking class at Brown Trail, but apparently I never finished it (apologies to Jeremy, if you’re reading this!). In preparation for a brief class on Logic, I decided to read this in supplement to a few other resources. While you might anticipate a religious book, this is more secular and focuses on the basic principles of logic, as applied to all areas of life.

Additionally, it is not a textbook, but more of a handbook.

4/5. Buy here.

Papavassiliou, Vassilios. Thirty Steps to Heaven: The Ladder of Divine Ascent for All Walks of Life. Munster, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2013.

This work is not a product of its author’s own mind, but an adaptation of a medieval work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. The Ladder, as it is known, was composed in the early seventh century as a manual for monks on how to develop themselves spiritually. As most people do not choose to pursue the ascetic/celibate life, Mr. Papavassiliou reframes the specifics for a general audience. Note that the author writes from an Eastern Orthodox perspective

He argues that the challenges of married life are remarkably similar to those of celibate, though in clearly different forms. Throughout the book, he and his predecessor John Climacus challenge the reader to fend off worldly passions and reach for the highest tiers of holiness.

I could not help but fill with conviction and shame as I read about mourning sin, talkativeness, despondency, vainglory, meekness. I realized that I have committed virtually every sin, and although I might assuage my own conscience with regard to degree, I am personally guilty of the whole law (cf. Matt 5:18–30; Jas 2:8–11). Eventually, I intend to preach through the steps. I also hope to read this book annually.

5/5. Buy here.