Why I love the Father Brown stories, but not the church

Sometimes we still love things we hate. I am not a great fan of Christianity, but somehow I still love the Father Brown stories.  It is the same with Jeeves and  Wooster. When I hear the word Eton, I think of a school where they teach you to steal houses and pensions, but I still love the Jeeves books.


I have been watching the current adaptation of the Father Brown stories on the BBC. I like the TV versions, but the stories are very different. I am not complaining, because the TV series is great, but it is well different. I also enjoyed the radio versions on the BBC with Andrew Sachs as Father Brown. In some sense the stories are propaganda for the Church, with the priest standing for rationality.

Today I watched The Eye of Apollo on the BBC. The original versions was more of a whodunit
puzzle, but it was totally different on the TV. Why do I like it. Perhaps I am hedging my bets for my immortal soul. Or perhaps this is the way I can win the Templeton prize At the moment I do research into physics, but I also like the Father Brown stories. Not really bringing science and religion together, but who knows.

If you want you can listen to the librivox readings of the stories.