The Sacramental Principle of G.K. Chesterton

By Ian Boyd

January 1, 2013

Father Ian Boyd's 40 years of dedication to the great Edwardian writer.

C: Speaking of the parallel relationship between civilization and barbarism, you started your work as a Chestertonian in Saskatchewan but moved to New Jersey some years ago to produce The Chesterton Review and run the Chesterton Institute C: If someone were approaching Chesterton for the first time, what would be the best door to go through? Would it be Orthodoxy? Would it be the 'Father Brown' stories because they are such a seamless read? For people who love imaginative writings – as people come to love Lewis by being introduced to him through his 'Narnia' stories or his science fiction – I think the 'Father Brown' stories would be good In terms of an apostolate of Chesterton, if I can put it that way, did you find it difficult to get over the resistance a lot of people have to his kind of paradoxical approach to writing? Paradoxically, of course, he hated being called a paradoxical writer, but many people, when they do try to read him, are put off by what they perceive as his paradoxes There were a lot of Chesterton's silent people, people who had kept on reading Chesterton, so really it was just tapping into an interest that was already there, organizing it through conferences and so on [British writer] Charles Williams said that Chesterton in the end had two great allies, God and the people Chesterton, of course, believed in individual conversion, but he also understood that structures are important, that most people borrow their ways of thinking and behaving from the cultures they're immersed in

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