The Problem with Pessimists (Orthodoxy Part V)

Bryan and Paul discuss chapter five of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy entitled "The Flag of the World". In this chapter, Chesterton explains why we must love a place before we critique it and the freedom that God gives to mankind. He takes shots at naturalism and so-called "progress" by helping us understand how Christianity revolutionized the world. He also digs into the paradox that true love for the world requires a particular hatred for it and a desire to see its redemption.

"The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more."

"Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her."

"...what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening."

"Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain."