Chesterton and Comparative Religion

I have ramped up my reading of late and have been delighted with a book bought years ago but never actually read:  The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton.  I encourage you to open and read your own books.  Many treasures sit unknown or forgotten on our own shelves as we place another online order of books.  Spread your branches far, but recognise depth of root is needed to support the growing weight of knowledge.  In the priceless gem that is Spurgeon's Lectures To My Students, he gave this exhortation:  “Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.”

G.K. Chesterton was a journalist, prolific author, and brilliant thinker.  Those who tackle his books must be prepared for long paragraphs and deep thinking, but it is worth the effort.  In The Everlasting Man, Chesterton exposes many fallacies in thinking which impact the world today.  He exposes the "...habit of a rapid hardening of a hypothesis into a theory, and of a theory into an assumption."  (Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. 1925 ed. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2008. Print. page 75)  He explores the place of myth, legend, and comparative religion to the rational mind.  I was particularly intrigued by his claim that paganism is the only legitimate rival of the Church of Christ.  To introduce his point, Chesterton explained how Christianity is often and incorrectly lumped in with other religions:

Comparative religion is very comparative indeed.  That is, it is so much a matter of degree and distance and difference that it is only comparatively successful when it tries to compare.  When we come to look at it closely we find it comparing things that are really quite incomparable.  We are accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the world's great religions in parallel columns, until we fancy they are really parallel.  We are accustomed to see the names of the great religious founders all in a row:  Christ; Mahomet; Buddha; Confucious.  But in truth this is only a trick; another of these optical illusions by which any objects may be put into a particular relation by shifting to a particular point of sight.  Those religions and religious founders, or rather those whom we choose to lump together as religions and religious founders, do not really show any common character...In truth the church is too unique to prove herself unique.  For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel.  It is not easy, therefore, to expose the fallacy by which a false classification is created to swamp a unique thing, which it really is a unique thing.  As there is nowhere else exactly the same fact, so there is nowhere else exactly the same fallacy. (Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. 1925 ed. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2008. Print. pages 84-85)

I am glad God gifted men like Spurgeon and Chesterton to think deeply, logically, and communicate persuasively.  The truth of God lies in plain sight for all to receive and believe, and holding fast to Biblical truth is not faith against knowledge but according to it.  When you find an author who has a firm grasp of truth with genuine faith, those are the books to read.  There is no shortage of skeptics today who are most glad to inoculate others to truth with their skepticism.  Sowing doubt is their ultimate aim without ability to guide to truth.  They have no sure answers about anything - except they are right - and smugly adjust their agnostic badge.  I exhort all seekers of truth to go to the source of all truth:  Jesus Christ and the Word of God.  In this world you will find no parallel.