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St. Francis of Assisi
by G.K. Chesterton

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455865.St_Francis_of_Assisi?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="St. Francis of Assisi" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1174926512m/455865.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455865.St_Francis_of_Assisi?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">St. Francis of Assisi</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27973.G_K_Chesterton">G.K. Chesterton</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7339642?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>I picked this up when I was thinking about preaching about St. Francis last week - turns out I decided to talk about IKEA and tell a dating story.  But I'm glad I read the book, if only because Chesterton is so hilariously crotchety and interesting: this old donnish grandfather who sits in his study nibbling on his pen and comes out with brilliant work but ink spilled all over his tweeds and cold stewed tea.  And will someone please read the second chapter and tell me if he's making veiled references to the gays?  I think he must be, and it's hilarious.  The thesis is that Francis sort of "revived" this pagan ideal of seeing God in the natural world, but it could only happen in the thirteenth century, because by then the whole pagan thing had been cleansed of the "perversion" the Greeks and Romans brought into it: "No sooner did the Greeks themselves begin to follow their own notion of being natural, than the queerest thing in history seems to have happened to them.  It was much too queer to be an easy matter to discuss.  It may be remarked that our more repulsive realists never give us the benefit of their realism.  Their studies of unsavoury subjects never take note of the testimony which they bear to the truths of traditional morality.  But if we had a taste for such things, we could cite thousands of such things as part of the case for Christian morals."  He's talking about sodomy, right?  That's hilarious.  How can you not love that?  He's so confused by it.  Dear, dear G.K. Chesterton.  You just want to pat him on the head and say "go back to bed, grandpa.  Tomorrow we'll go for a walk on the downs."  "oh yes, lovely."  And he totters off to bed, having forgotten all about the queers.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/90618?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Nathan's review
rating:
bookshelves: books-love-jesus, books-that-is-troo
recommended for: saints

I picked this up when I was thinking about preaching about St. Francis last week - turns out I decided to talk about IKEA and tell a dating story. But I'm glad I read the book, if only because Chesterton is so hilariously crotchety and interesting: this old donnish grandfather who sits in his study nibbling on his pen and comes out with brilliant work but ink spilled all over his tweeds and cold stewed tea. And will someone please read the second chapter and tell me if he's making veiled references to the gays? I think he must be, and it's hilarious. The thesis is that Francis sort of "revived" this pagan ideal of seeing God in the natural world, but it could only happen in the thirteenth century, because by then the whole pagan thing had been cleansed of the "perversion" the Greeks and Romans brought into it: "No sooner did the Greeks themselves begin to follow their own notion of being natural, than the queerest thing in history seems to have happened to ...more

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