EngineeredTheology

G.K. Chesterton followed himself into heresy only to find he ended up discovering Orthodoxy. This book discovers the reformation. The main difference is Chesterton realized the irony of “discovering” something like Orthodoxy.

With a warning on the first page like “You might throw this book down in disgust; you might pick it back up again in curiosity; you might shake your head in frustration as you wonder, ‘How could I have missed this before?’ or ‘Is this guy crazy?’” (15), I was expecting something different than what I found. I have been to my share of churches around the world, and I suspect there would be very few reformed churches who would have any issue with the foundational theology of this book.

Following deeply in current reformed theology, the book is a cheerleader for total depravity and perseverance of the saints. Unfortunately, by the end of the book we end up with a good reason why Jesus died, but no real reason for why he lived. We need to seriously work through why the gospel writers thought it so important to document all those events between Christmas and Easter. We can not just short circuit it all and have our Christology consist totally of a virgin birth and a sacrificial death. We would then be missing Christianity at the point where it is so important. We dishonor the memories of the early Christian martyrs when we say that they must have died because people didn’t like them going around preaching that humanity needed to relax and stop trying so hard. Just coast it out because Jesus has done it all is not a particularly dangerous message. This is where the inaugurated eschatology needs to step; this is where the Kingdom of God really meets Rome.