Dale Ahlquist

Dale Ahlquist (born June 14, 1958 in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an author, public speaker, Evangelical convert to Catholicism, and Catholic apologist. He has written, edited, or contributed to more than fifteen books on G. K. Chesterton, including The Apostle of Common Sense, Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton, The Complete Thinker, and In Defense of Sanity. Ahlquist is the president and co-founder of the American Chesterton Society and the publisher of its magazine, Gilbert. He is the creator and host of the television series, The Apostle of Common Sense, on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). He is also the co-founder of Chesterton Academy, a Minneapolis-based high school rated one of the top 50 Catholic schools in the United States.^[1]

Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society

Ahlquist is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences, presenting engaging talks on Chesterton’s wit and wisdom, his impressive and prophetic insight, and his role in the New Evangelization. He has given over 400 lectures at major colleges and universities and other venues, including Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Oxford, Cal-Berkeley, Caltech, Rice, Penn, Dartmouth, San Pablo (Madrid), the Vatican Forum in Rome, and the House of Lords in London.

In 2012, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Chesterton Library at Oxford University.^[2]

Background and education

One of six children, Ahlquist grew up in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Paul. He graduated from Henry Sibley High School, where his father, Albert, was a biology teacher.

Ahlquist received a B.A. from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota,^[3] and M.A. from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His sister Pamela was formerly married to Jesus Rock singer Larry Norman. His brother David is a leading physician at the Mayo Clinic.

Conversion to Catholicism

Raised in a Baptist household, Dale Ahlquist observed the developing fragmentation of Protestant denominations. Reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man during his honeymoon in Rome profoundly changed his life and inevitably led to research of the Early Church Fathers and the history of the Catholic Church. Systematically, Dale began to see his point-by-point objections to Catholicism wither away on matters of the papacy, the sacraments of the Catholic Church, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.^[4] In 1996 he founded the American Chesterton Society. He was received into the Catholic Church on the Feast of the Holy Family in 1997, along with his two oldest children Julian and Ashley. His wife, Laura, who had not been a practicing Catholic when they met, also returned to the Church.

American Chesterton Society

The American Chesterton Society (ACS) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization co-founded by Dale Ahlquist in 1996 with the mission of promoting interest in the 20th century’s most prolific English author, G. K. Chesterton.^[5] The ACS is the leading resource for scholarly research on Chesterton, boasts annual conferences across the United States and abroad, international pilgrimages, and offers guidance to more than 60 local societies dedicated to Chesterton all over the world including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia.^[6]

In 2000, Ahlquist quit his job as a political lobbyist to run the American Chesterton Society full-time.^[7]

Gilbert: The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society

Gilbert is the flagship magazine of the American Chesterton Society and is published by Dale Ahlquist and edited by Sean P. Dailey.^[8] It is published six times a year (with two double issues). Each issue contains original writings by and about Chesterton, but also covers a wide variety of subjects including family life, the arts, politics, faith, current events, popular culture, literary and film criticism, and original short fiction.

The magazine initially came about as the result of combining three modest newsletters: Midwest Chesterton News, published by John Peterson in Chicago; All Things Considered, published by Ron McCloskey in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Generally Speaking, published by the American Chesterton Society. The original name of the magazine was Gilbert!, and Vol. 1, No. 1, was published in September, 1997. The name changed to Gilbert Magazine, with the subtitle Outlining Sanity, with Vol. 7, No.1, in September, 2003. It became Gilbert: The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society with Vol. 17, No. 1, in September, 2013.

The Apostle of Common Sense television series

The popular television program, G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense,^[9] appears on EWTN. For seven seasons, Dale Ahlquist has hosted The Apostle of Common Sense featuring Chuck Chalberg as G. K. Chesterton and Kevin O’Brien as Stanford Nutting, Father Brown, and Nietzsche, amongst other characters, with guest appearances by Julian and Ashley Ahlquist, Kaiser Johnson, and Frank C. Turner. The series is designed to help viewers discover and rediscover G. K. Chesterton, to be challenged by his ideas, to see the completeness of his thought, and to be treated to the joy and depth of his faith. Leaving no stone unturned, Ahlquist has covered Chesterton’s most popular books and beloved characters on the show, including the famous sleuth Father Brown, Innocent Smith, and Chesterton’s friends and foes George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Clarence Darrow.

Chesterton Academy

Dale Ahlquist is the co-founder of Chesterton Academy, a high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that is centered on G. K. Chesterton’s ideas of integrated learning.^[10] Launched in the fall of 2008 with just 10 students, the school now enrolls more than 100 students in grades nine through twelve and offers summer school programs, options for homeschool students, and adult enrichment classes.

Chesterton Academy elevates virtuous young men and women in the Catholic tradition of faith and reason, centered on the truth of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through the study of art, music, literature, language, history, mathematics, science, philosophy and religion, the school aims to prepare children to think both rationally and creatively, to defend their faith, and to contribute positively to society.

Books

• The Gift of Wonder: The Many Sides of G. K. Chesterton (Editor), American Chesterton Society, 2001. ISBN 978-0970891105
• The Apostle of Common Sense, Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0898708578
• G.K. Chesterton's Sherlock Holmes (Contributor), The Lilly Library, 2003, ISBN 0-964878844
• Lepanto (Editor), Ignatius Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1586170301
• A Miscellany of Men (Introduction), IHS Press, 2004, ISBN 0-97182861X
• Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton, Ignatius Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1586171391
• The Well and the Shallows (Introduction), Ignatius Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1586171261
• The Catholic Church and Conversion (Introduction), Ignatius Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1586170738
• G.K. Chesterton on G.F. Watts (Contributor), Watts Gallery, 2008, ISBN 978-0954823092
• In Defense of Sanity (Editor), Ignatius Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1586174897
• Manalive (Editor), Ignatius Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1586174798
• The Universe According to G. K. Chesterton: A Dictionary of the Mad, Mundane and Metaphysical (Editor), Dover Publications, 2011. ISBN 978-0486481159
• The Complete Thinker, Ignatius Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1586176754
• The Defendant (Editor), Dover Publications, 2012. 978-0486-486024
• The Soul of Wit: G. K. Chesterton on William Shakespeare (Editor), Dover Publications, 2012. ISBN 978-0-486-48919-3
• The Hound of Distributism (Contributor), ACS Books, 2012. ISBN B0079VHQL4

References