The Everlasting Man
by G. K. Chesterton
In the 1920s, H. G. Wells published a popular history of the world that treated humanity as a clever animal and religion as a passing phase. Chesterton, by then a Catholic convert, picked up the gauntlet. His reply: look at history honestly and two things stand out as utterly strange. One is man himself. The other is the man Jesus Christ.
The first half explores human uniqueness. There's the artist in the cave, unlike any other creature, and the long human search for God through myth and philosophy. The second half turns to Christ and the Church. Chesterton argues that the Gospel cannot be filed away as one more myth, and that the Church has seemed to die many times over the centuries and risen each time. C. S. Lewis later wrote that this book helped him see the Christian outline of history as something that made sense.
It suits history-minded inquirers, readers who enjoyed Orthodoxy, and anyone troubled by the claim that Christianity is just another myth. It's denser than Orthodoxy, but the prose pays you back.
Key Takeaways
- Why human beings are unlike any other creature.
- How myth and philosophy searched for God.
- Why the Gospel story is unlike any myth.
- How the Church has seemed to die and risen again.
It reads human history in the light of Christ, and C. S. Lewis credited it with shaping his path to faith.
