The Theopolitical Vision of G. K. Chesterton and J. R. R. Tolkien and its Contemporary Relevance

Abstract

What might Chesterton and Tolkien have to offer to contemporary political thought and practice? This essay argues that they share a common project in their fiction and discursive writing, which is to find a way to acknowledge the value of the local and personal, while directing private good to the universal through the concept of the common good. This has implications for our response to environmental crisis as well as the manner in which we relate the one and the many.The sources of Chesterton's thought in Anglo-Catholic and Guild socialism as much as in Hilaire Belloc's Distributism are discussed.