Chesterton and the Rise of a Counter-Culture


was hosted

Saturday, October 21, 2023 at Campion College, Sydney

8:45am – 5:15pm, 8 – 14 AustinWoodbury Pl, Toongabbie NSW


The 2023 Conference provided a range of positive responses in Australia to the collapse of Christian culture and its replacement by new movements of a powerful secularism. Papers focused on the emergence of a counter-culture in such areas as journalism and the media, education, politics, and religious institutions. Many responses reflect the inspiration of Chesterton’s ideas or are in silent harmony with them.

A century ago, G.K. Chesterton faced the similar challenge of developing a counter- culture – in a way that was creative rather than simply critical. Not content with exposing intellectual error, as in Heretics (1905), he presented the alternative of a Christian vision in Orthodoxy (1908). He did not simply oppose the dominant systems of capitalism and socialism, which he saw as similar in their concentration of wealth and power in minority hands, whether of individuals or of government. Rather he advocated distributism as a counter-cultural alternative of widespread ownership in society as the basis of economic, social, political and religious liberties.


Speakers

Greg Sheridan

Chesterton is Good for You: Journalism and Books in the Counter-Culture

Veronika Winkels

The Cultural Reclaiming of Feminism

Peter Fenwick

Why Subsidiarity Matters: Releasing Human Energy to Enrich Society

Michael Mendieta

Michael Mendieta

Lighting Candles in the Darkness – a new Liberal Arts School

Karl Schmude

Karl Schmude

Would Chesterton have created Campion College?