Philadelphia Chesterton Society

Next Meeting: December 14th - "The God in the Cave"

11/10/2014

Join us for a great Advent-themed discussion!

Click here to RSVP and for date and time information.

"The God in the Cave" is the pivotal chapter in Chesterton's masterpiece, The Everlasting Man, published in 1925.

You can read the chapter online here.

If you'd like to purchase the book, you can buy a paperback copy of the Ignatius Press edition or an audiobook read by American Chesterton Society President Dale Ahlquist from the A.C.S. web-store.

Of The Everlasting Man, Dale Ahlquist has written:

Of all of Chesterton’s literary monuments, this is perhaps his greatest, for he eloquently and concisely packs the whole human story between the covers of one book. He begins by pointing out that the main problem with the critics of the Church is that they are too close to it to see it properly. They cannot see the big picture, only the small picture that directly affects them. With their sulks and their perversity and their petty criticism they are merely reacting to the Church. What they need to do is back up. And that’s what Chesterton has the reader do in this book. Back up far enough and to see the Church in all its startling beauty and unexpected truth.

The focal point of this investigation, many would argue, is the cave in Bethlehem: "Bethlehem, says Chesterton, is emphatically a place where extremes meet. It is where heaven meets earth. God comes to make a home in the world and finds himself homeless."