The Chesterton Review continues on, after celebrating its 30th anniversary last year.  Back in 1974, on the centenary of the birth of the great English writer G.K. Chesterton, a small and seemingly insignificant literary journal was launched in England in honor of his memory.  At the time, it seemed that the memory was fading.  England, like the rest of the Catholic world, was in the grips of postconciliar confusion.  Modernism, which Chesterton had fought so fiercely and fearlessly in his own day, had reemerged with a vengeance, claiming, falsely, that it represented the “spirit of Vatican II.”  Heresy masquerading as “progressive” theology and liturgical abuse masquerading as “reform” were rampant.  The times called for a new Chesterton to proclaim the wonders of orthodoxy and the blunders of the heretics.  None was forthcoming.  Instead, the Chesterton Review sought single-handedly to resurrect the old one.  Few, at the time, would have forecast its success.  Chesterton’s reputation, so huge in his own lifetime, was waning.  He was seen as representative of an old-style Catholicism that had been swept away by the Council.  His influence would die away with the remnants of the aging generation who could still remember the heady days of the Catholic cultural revival of which he was a crucial part.  It was only a matter of time before Chesterton and the Review founded in his honor would fade into the mists of largely forgotten history.

It is, therefore, with a great deal of pleasure that we can say, echoing Mark Twain, that reports of Chesterton’s death were greatly exaggerated.  Thirty years on, Chesterton is alive and well and living in the hearts and minds of new generations of young Christians, Catholic and Protestant, who see him, alongside C.S. Lewis, as one half of a dynamic duo who hammer the heretics with the timeless truths of orthodoxy and mere Christianity.

The Chesterton revival is, in no small part, thanks to the Chesterton Review.  For 30 years it has succeeded in its principal aim “of promoting a critical interest in all aspects of the life and work of G.K. Chesterton.”  Today, it is enjoying the well-earned fruits of the burgeoning interest in Chesterton.  No longer a lone voice crying in the wilderness, it has been joined by populist Chestertonian journals such as Gilbert Magazine, by flourishing organizations such as the American Chesterton Society, and by an abundance of new editions of Chesterton’s works.

Chesterton once quipped that, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly; for 30 years, the Chesterton Review has been doing something worth doing and doing it very well.  As such, all lovers of Chesterton, and all believers in the perennial truths he defended, can rejoice that the Chesterton Review is still around after 30 inspirational years.

The quarterly Chesterton Review is available for a one-year subscription price of $30.  Please call (800)526-7022 for more details.