Protestantism As Seen by G. K. Chesterton: Decay, Transmutation and Fossilization

Amid the enthusiasm agitating Christians during the celebrations of the five hundred years of the Reformation, it seems judicious to invite a "heavy" witness to weigh in on the festivities. Who could be more entitled to take part in such anniversary than a former liberal anti-dogmatic Protestant, who successively became an Anglican, a Unitarian, a modernist, an agnostic and an Anglo-Catholic, but who at last would finally become, once and for all, a Roman Catholic? Though G. K. Chesterton offers not only a "heavy" but indeed a very "jolly" testimony, his thoughts on this matter may spoil the laughter of some of the celebrants of the current anniversary. Nonetheless, the unsettling genius of Chesterton needs no lawyer's defense. He defends it better in his own rather amusing way, thundering a sharp wake-up call to our intellectual lethargy. May the reader please excuse all introductions, remarks and commentaries of the scribe that a more alert reader perhaps may find superfluous. (from the introduction) "We have come out of the shallows" of Protestantism to enter into "the one deep well" or fountain of Catholicism: such is the sincere testimony of a Protestant convert to Catholicism. Particularly worth mulling over in this year of the Lord 2017, five hundred years after the beginning of the so-called Reformation. (from the conclusion)