Parish!: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Story of One Vibrant Catholic Community Book

Was Jesus the son of God? I think one of the most fascinating attempts to answer that question was mounted in the early 20th century by the two famous friends and literary rivals HG Wells and GK Chesterton, respectively the agnostic extraordinaire and the Catholic par excellence. For Wells, so emphatic was his need to debunk the notion of Christ's divinity that he took a break from his novels and switched to a series of writings on history, the most famous of which ws his "Outline of History." Chesterton responded to his friend's writings regularly, diplomatically, and I think brilliantly. By 1925, both men were famous authors and their theological skirmishes in the pages of their respective books had sharpened into the form of their two respective masterpieces, Wells' Outline, and Chesterton's "The Everlasating Man."

If you've ever had a panic attack combined with headache and chills while listening to a skeptic who says that all religions are equivalent forms of the same old junk competing for the attention of the brainless sheep, or if you've ever been suddenly nauseated by your complete inability to respond when someone suggests that all world religions have a sliver of the truth in them, then you might consider reading this. You should read all of Chesterton for that matter. This book, along with his famous "Orthodoxy," is a crystal clear glass of iced Evian in a world parched to the edge of death by cultural relativism. Long before CS Lewis had even begun his career in Christianity, he read and admired "The Everlasting Man," and he later stated that he found it the singlemost persuasive work of Christian apologetics he ever read.