The DEFENDANT Newsletter of the Australian Chesterton Society Vol. 26 No. 4 Spring 2019 Issue No. 103 ‘I have found that humanity is not A Chesterton incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, Meditation in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into at Christmas the sea. ; therefore I have imagined that the main business of man, by Karl Schmude however humble, is defence. I have conceived In The Resurrection of Rome (1930), By its nature a credit-card economy Chesterton argued that Christian truth can postpones indefinitely the penitential that a defendant is chiefly never be fully expressed but only faintly experience, including that part of the required when worldlings indicated by something startlingly plain or experience which involves paying off debts. despise the world - that startlingly beautiful. a counsel for the defence Yet the practice of penance and the “It can be weakly suggested by the thirst presentation of gifts are not finally would not have been out and desolation of the desert, which seems incompatible. They are, indeed, integral to of place in the terrible day to extort the cry of prophecy like a cry of any Christian – indeed, human -celebration. when the sun was pain. It can also be feebly hinted at by darkened over Calvary ten thousand trumpets blaring before a They are a special part of the paradox of golden throne. Christmas – a blending of the extremes and Man was rejected of which found expression at the first Christmas: men.’ “[The Church] must be very high, like the the elements of simplicity (an unadorned G.K Chesterton, ‘Introduction’, spire of Cologne Cathedral or the tower of crib in a stable) and of splendour (the The Defendant (1901) Salisbury; or else it must be very low, like precious gifts brought to the Child Jesus by the Catacombs or the Cave of Bethlehem.” the Three Kings). A Chesterton Meditation These images capture the rhythms of the In an age filled with the complications at Christmas (Karl Schmude) Pages 1-2 Christian life, which are determined not of affluence, it is understandable that the only by feasts but by fasts. Every great yearning for simplicity should be powerful- Reclaiming the Economy – celebration is preceded by a time of ly felt. When the veteran British journalist Report on the 2019 preparation; the joy that is tasted depends Malcolm Muggeridge visited the Holy Land Conference Page 3 on a deprived and purified heart. in 1967, he felt inspired by the primitive circumstances of Christ’s birth. Henry George and Private This order of reality is culturally ingrained Property (John Young) in the case of Easter, as the feast of the Seated in a cave beneath the Church of the Page 4 Resurrection follows Lent, a period Nativity in Bethlehem, he became uneasy Book Review of My Name commemorating Christ’s 40 days of prayer at the religious embellishments of later Is Lazarus (Gary Furnell) and fasting in the desert. ages, which he thought were out of place Page 5 in the stark plainness of Christ’s birthplace. Storytelling in an Age Christmas, however, is not so readily In Muggeridge’s words: of Disillusionment experienced as the culmination of a fast. (Symeon Thompson) “The essential point of Christ’s birth, as I Pages 6-7 The spiritual season of Advent - meant to see it, is that it happened in the humblest Chesterton – An Aspiring induce a penitential preparation for and poorest circumstances conceivable. Cricketer? (Karl Schmude) Christmas – tends to be nullified by our He, who was to be worshipped through 20 Page 8 social pattern of parties and gift-buying. centuries by the most ardent spirits and The DEFENDANT 1 SPRING 2019 perceptive minds of a great civilisation, was born more The influence of modern communications technology is obscurely than probably anyone else that day in the whole pervasive, most notably in recent times through the world. smartphone. These devices banish silence and solitude. The internet now ensures that we never have to be alone in a “What a stupendous moment in history, though! – when room. for the first time men were to see their god, not in terms of wealth or power or pulchritude, but of penury, No doubt this condition brings much needed companionship, weakness and obscurity.” (London Observer, December 24, even if it is disembodied and vicarious, but it also makes 1967) difficult the experience of simplicity, even severity, that allows us to appreciate splendour more vividly. God speaks to man in the desert Furious opposites In Christian tradition, those who seek to imitate the “penury, weakness and obscurity” of Christ have often been drawn As Chesterton perceived, the paradoxical richness of to a life of exceptional harshness – the way of life of the Christmas, as of Christianity itself, involves keeping alive desert. both these extremes – of combining, as he put it, “furious opposites”; keeping them both, and keeping them both The desert has served as the setting for a direct encounter furious. with God. The austere heat, the silence and the solitude seem to lay bare the soul. As the French author Ernest In the central chapter of Orthodoxy (1908), Chesterton Psichari once observed, “it is in the desert that God speaks to elaborated on these paradoxes. man”. In affirming dignity, Christianity had proclaimed man as the Historically the desert has been the home of the hermit – a chief of creatures. But in extolling humility, it had recognised distinct spiritual type that bears witness to the value which him as the chief of sinners. a society attaches to the solitary life. The paradox of charity is that it pushes love beyond the Such a life has been strongly recognised in those historical bounds of reason: it requires us to love unlovable people, cultures permeated by religious impulses – for example, and pardon unpardonable acts. Christian culture (both Eastern and Western) and Indian. But it is little evident in classical Western culture (Greek and Chesterton realised that the balance between truths is Roman), in Protestant culture, and in the modern secular immensely fruitful. The tension is creative. Any attempt to West. resolve the tension or rationalise it away, as has occurred historically with every heresy when one truth is singled out The characteristic revolt of our age has taken place not for undue and all-absorbing emphasis, leads at first to an as a solitary act but in a communal form, beginning with excitement and a heightening of energy, but finally to a the hippies movement in the 1960s. We have shunned the dilution and narrowing of life. rigorous individualism of many other societies – perhaps believing, with Blaise Pascal, that “all the unhappiness of man In the mystery of Christmas, we confront the startling arises from the fact that he is incapable of abiding quietly in a truth that God affirmed the value of human life in a setting room”. (Pensees, 116) Or in a desert. which negated it. He became a human being in a place unfit for human beings. The historian Christopher Dawson noted that a key spiritual difference between previous cultures and our own way Yet, along with the severity was the insertion of splendour. of life is that there is now far less opportunity for the solitary The gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh were brought life than in the past. to a stable. Society Membership Executive of the Australian Chesterton Society The annual membership fee of the Australian Chesterton Society is $30.00, which entitles subscribers to receive the PRESIDENT and EDITOR of ‘The Defendant’ Society’s quarterly newsletter, The Defendant. Mr Karl Schmude, 177 Erskine Street, Armidale NSW 2350 Phone: 0407 721 458 Email: [email protected] Subscriptions may be sent to the Secretary/Treasurer, Mr Gary Furnell, at the address in the adjacent box SECRETARY / TREASURER: Mr Gary Furnell, or by electronic transfer - 6/68 Short Street, Forster NSW 2428 Phone: 0419 421 346 Email: [email protected] BSB: 932-000 (Regional Australia Bank, Armidale NSW) Account No.: 722360 ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Mr Symeon Thompson Account Name: Australian Chesterton Society c/- Editor of ‘The Defendant’ Please include your name as depositor in the details box. The DEFENDANT 2 SPRING 2019 Reclaiming the Economy Conference on a Chesterton Alternative Part of the audience in Campion’s main lecture hall Garrick Small The 2019 conference of the Australian Chesterton Society took place on Saturday, October 19, at Campion College in Sydney. It was attended by more than 60 participants from various parts of Australia, and this year included for the first time a guest from New Zealand. The conference theme was “Reclaiming the Economy: A Chesterton Alternative”. Various speakers addressed the need for an imaginative rethinking of today’s economic order, marked as it is by bigness, both within nations and globally – big business corporations, big government and, most recently, big social media networks. They focused on Chesterton’s ideas as a creative alternative, which would be a necessary prelude Panel discussion - from left: Karl Schmude, John Young, and Garrick Small to any practical and political solutions. A special report at the conference was on a Distributist Chesterton’s social vision of Distributism was a popular estate called Flandria Village, founded in Argentina in the articulation of Catholic social teaching. It favoured a wide 1930s by a Belgian migrant, Jules Steverlynk. This venture distribution of ownership, which would help to promote was inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and productive enterprise in society, and extend economic developed in harmony with Catholic social principles. While freedom as a necessary foundation of social and other the estate no longer exists in its original form, it remains a freedoms.