Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Recently, the writing of G.K. Chesterton has undergone a resurgence in popularity.

His Father Brown's stories have always been popular, but his theological works, like Orthodoxy, heretics,

the everlasting man, and collections of his essays are now being rediscovered.

And it's not hard to see why. Chesterton's prose sparkles with wit and humor is leavened with incisive thinking and observations about human nature.

A committed Roman Catholic who had nothing good to say about Calvinists, largely due to his

overly strict Calvinistic upbringing. Chesterton is even popular in some reformed Christian

circles. There are some who even refer to themselves as Chestertonian Calvinist, a term that he

most certainly would not have embraced. Of course, Chesterton also had and still has many critics.

The most serious charge against him is that he was anti-Semitic. In his voluminous writings,

there are passages that can be read as anti-Semitic, particularly as we look back on them in the wake

of the Holocaust. The most serious of these are his condemnations of financial

Jews, his reference to the Jewish problem or Jewish question, and his relatively soft stance against

Hitler. What are we to make of these accusations? Well, first, negative comments about Jews are rare

in Chesterton's writings, far more rare than his criticism of bankers and politicians, educators,

the Irish, and any number of other groups. In fact, his harshest words were aimed squarely at the English.

His comments about financial Jews are better understood in the context of his tireless championing

of the poor and his harsh criticism of usury when money is lent at ridiculously high rates.

Here, Chesterton succumbs to stereotypes that were common in his day and age.

Since the Middle Ages, the Jews were associated with money lending finance and banking.

Because the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages prohibited lending money at interest,

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