Description
This lecture will investigate Chesterton's 1914 novel The Flying Inn, and will argue that Chesterton as a Roman Catholic offers a thoroughly sacramental vision of the world that we evangelicals need to make our own. He teaches us how to view the entire cosmos through the lenses of the Incarnation, so that we can find fresh analogs of the gospel for our daily existence as Christians. The largest non-human analogies have to do with food and drink, since they are necessary for the sustenance of our lives. And since wine also becomes the blood of our Lord in the Eucharist, it proves to be the liquid of friendly bibulosity but also of Life Eternal.
Ralph C. Wood is University Professsor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University. There he has taught award-winning courses that are devoted to the relation of Christian faith to imaginitive literature. He is the author of The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists., Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture, The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth and Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South.
