A surprising number of Catholic conversions in the last hundred years begin with one man: G. K. Chesterton. A modern Catholic favorite, Chesterton looms large in subjects as diverse as theology, satire, marginalia, philosophy, politics, and mystery fiction.

Our guest today is Dale Ahlquist, founder and president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. His own journey of conversion started with Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. In our conversation, we visit many of Chesterton’s ideas, concluding with the much misunderstood “distributism”—a Chestertonian practical philosophy and the subject of Ahlquist’s co-edited book of essays titled Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching.

Chapters:

1:53 Conversion by way of Chesterton

6:17 Chesterton: a “complete thinker”

8:16 Reading recommendations

12:05 The opening of Everlasting Man

13:56 The ending of Man Who Was Thursday

17:16 Fairy tales and fundamental truths

19:18 “The twitch upon the thread”

22:27 Defining distributism, or localism

30:13 Localism for D.C. (sub)urbanites

33:44 Founding schools: localism in action

39:11 Family enterprises

42:19 The contributors to Localism

45:31 Creating a life of localism where you are

Links:

Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching edited by Dale Ahlquist and Michael Warren Davis

The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense by Dale Ahlquist

Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

St. Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton

St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G. K. Chesterton

“The Roots of the World” by G. K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton

 

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