The Man Born to be King - A Review

In the midst of World War II in the U.K. and all the drama that it entailed, there was some additional drama about a drama. At the center of the hubbub was novelist, playwright, and translator Dorothy L. Sayers.

Perhaps best known for her detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers was also an accomplished dramatist. The BBC commissioned her to write a series of plays for children, to be performed on the radio. They were to be plays about the life and ministry of Jesus.

The cycle of twelve plays was called The Man Born to be King. Though they are not exhaustive, they cover the span of Jesus earthly life, and were meant to be something of a comfort to a nation at war.

Unfortunately, like many well-intentioned attempts to convey Christianity to the masses, Sayers’ efforts met with controversy. The Man Born to be King drew great praise, but it also left people deeply concerned because Sayers used slang rather than King James English to help convey the reality of the Gospel accounts. Additionally, some were concerned about the representation of Jesus, though Sayers was especially careful to draw his dialogue more directly from Scripture. And, of course, any dramatist must fill in some gaps that even four Gospel writers left with minor characters, extrabiblical narrative, and details that illustrate the truths embedded in the life of Christ. The tragedy is really that these plays tend to be more remembered for the drama they caused rather than the greater Drama they portrayed.

The cycle of plays known as The Man Born to be King are so rich that C. S. Lewis read them yearly as Easter approached. This recent republication of these plays by IVP Academic is in time for people to pick up their own copies to follow Lewis’ example.

The plays themselves are not innovative. In fact, were readers not aware of the controversy surrounding their original production, a contemporary audience would find little that is shocking in them. They are an attempt to faithfully convey the greatest story ever told in a manner that may seem more real to contemporary readers because of the effort Sayers invested to bring the stories into the 20th century. Sayers’ effort is part of what makes these plays so spiritually invigorating.

Though an edition of these plays can be found in print through Wipf and Stock, the recent edition of The Man Born to Be King from IVP Academic, published in partnership with the Marion E Wade Center out of Wheaton University, has accompanying notations that enrich the text by providing context for somewhat obscure (to our minds, nearly a century later) references and also show some of the ways that Sayers modified her manuscript along the way. This annotated edition, edited by Kathryn Wehr, augments the text in a way that does not interfere with casual reading and provides a treasure trove for fans of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Whether you read these plays in preparation for Easter or at another point during the year, it will be spiritually beneficial. If this is your first time through The Man Born to be King, feel free to skip the front matter and notes to dive into the text. However, for those who are interested in the story behind the text, what Wehr provides through her annotations is well worth the time to pause and investigate. This new volume is solid scholarship accompanying a remarkable text. It should be read well and widely.

The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition

By Sayers, Dorothy L.

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Are Ethics More Important than Theology?

Why do some Christians love theology more than people? After all, from an eternal perspective, people matter more than ideas. It does not matter what you believe as long as you are doing good things in the world. Some people who do not even believe in Jesus are better Jesus-followers than Christians—these people are the real Kingdom of God.

If you read progressive Christian blogs or follow left-leaning Christian pundits on social media, you will have likely heard some of the assertions in the previous paragraph. Some form of them is repeated often enough to be recognizable at a glance.

The basic claim of those who make these claims is that practical Christian ethics is the heart of Christianity, while Christian theology is mere speculation about things that are largely unknown and mostly unknowable. Ethics is reality; theology is speculation. Therefore, ethics is more important than theology.

As a Christian ethicist, I heartily affirm the importance of Christian ethics. However, faithful Christian ethics presupposes a foundation of orthodox Christian doctrine. An authentically Christian ethics is the superstructure on a foundation of an orthodox, biblical theology. We cannot do ethics apart from theology.

In her excellent essay “Creed or Chaos?” Dorothy L. Sayers argues,

It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology.

She goes on to explain that Christian morality without a doctrinal foundation quickly becomes humanism, which eventually fails to motivate right action.

Doctrine is the very heart of ethics. Unless you believe the right things, there is little hope that you will do the right things. If someone does not believe that humans have inherent value, they are unlikely seek to relieve their suffering or may justify doing harm while calling it good. Proper concern for the wellbeing of other humans is not self-generated; it arises from an anthropology that values people as made in the image of God. When anthropology fails, so does true compassion for other humans.

For example, movements that advocate for voluntary euthanasia are often couched in terms of individual autonomy and alleviation of suffering. Assisting in the suicide deaths of the old and the infirm is ethical if your anthropology presumes that humans have a right to self-determination and that human suffering is purposeless. A deep theological sentiment lies behind a pro-euthanasia ethic. Ethics springs from a foundation of those doctrines that are believed.

Jesus is clear about belief being the basis for human action. Luke records him explaining the relationship between the act of speech and the beliefs of the heart: “A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart” (Luke 6:45, HCSB). Bad beliefs will lead to bad character, which will lead to bad actions.

Those who seek to affirm ethics over theology are wrong to diminish the importance of doctrine. However, a fairer critique could, at times, be that theologically sound Christians sometimes fail to live out the ethics that are demanded by their theology. Such was Carl F. H. Henry’s criticism of early evangelicalism.

The core theme of Henry’s brief volume The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism is that doctrinally orthodox evangelicals (i.e., those who held to the fundamentals of the faith) often fell into the trap of repudiating social ethics simply because social activism was associated with modernist, theologically liberal Christians. This led faithful and theologically sound Christians to reject just action to mitigate harms, though those actions would have occurred in ways that were consistent with and even demanded by a doctrine faithful to Scripture. Such failures, Henry argued, caused early evangelicals to have an uneasy conscience.

Henry’s indictment of his own theological tribe should come as no surprise, since Jesus’ words about the overflow of the heart are followed immediately by a sharp rebuke of those who have a proper faith, but fail to act on it (Luke 6:46-49). Or, in perhaps the most misunderstood verse in Scripture, James 2:14-17 reminds Christians that faith that does not lead to ethical application is dead.

The problem in these situations is not that people were concerned about right doctrine, but that they failed to act upon it. Perhaps they understood the theological propositions, but did not have a living faith to drive them to live the ethical implications of those doctrines. These critiques are reasonable. However, the assertion that doctrine is unimportant is untenable.

The assertion “ethics matters but doctrine does not” requires a presumption that theology is abstract while action is concrete. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethics is abstract to the extent that even our good actions are tainted by sinful motivations and have unknown consequences. Theology—the study of God and his works—is concrete inasmuch as its object is known and knowable. Orthodox doctrines are not arbitrary constructions that satisfy the desire for completeness and intellectual attainment of theologians and exegetes. Most theology is done in the crucible of real-life concerns in an attempt to discern what is right and godly, which is the only possible foundation for a Christian ethics. Again, Sayers is helpful as she describes the formulation of doctrine:

Dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy.

This is no less true about the doctrines that undergird human sexual ethics than it is about teachings that deal with Christology. The church has often had to specifically codify previously assumed or unconsidered doctrines in the face of innovative challenges that threaten to undermine the doctrinal core of Christianity. This does not represent a failure to love the people who hold faulty doctrine: it is a sign of faithfulness to the one who calls Christians to love people. Paul’s admonishment is to speak truth in love, not to reject truth in the name of love (cf. Eph. 4:15).

Christians would do well to live out their faith. They would also do well to ponder Jude’s words to the church, which include a call to contend for the faith—the sound doctrine—that was given to the saints because those who rejected those teachings led others to practice bad ethics (Jude 3-4). Christianity is not merely about right doctrine, but orthodoxy cannot be rejected without a grave cost to ethics.

NOTE: This article was previously posted at the B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in media strategy.

Subversive - A Review

Faithful Christianity must always wage a war on two fronts. On one front are those who see the trends in culture and wish to conform Christianity to whatever the current fad in ethics or philosophy offers. On the other front are those who remember a particular cultural expression of Christianity and see that as normative, not the central aspects of Christian doctrine. Dorothy L. Sayers is helpful in subverting those who disagree on both fronts.

Crystal Downing’s book, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers, is an engaging book about one of the most interesting Christian humanists of the early twentieth century. In some circles Sayers is remembered for her friendship with C. S. Lewis, which was a wonderful example of two minds meeting and cultivating a meaningful friendship despite—or perhaps because of—their disagreements. Others remember Sayers primarily for her detective fiction, particularly because of her famous sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, but perhaps more significantly for the love story Wimsey had with the semi-autobiographical character, Harriet Vane. These are good reasons to remember Sayers. But a better reason to read Sayers is her engaging thought about Christianity and culture, which is the main focus of Downing’s book.

The thesis of this book is that Sayers held and put on display a Christianity that undermined the cultural Christianities of her day. Downing is also arguing that Sayers is valuable for our time precisely because of her ability to point beyond enculturated Christianity to a full-throated Christian orthodoxy. This comes through as Downing sees Sayers arguing for a Christianity that would better resist the market-based attitude of church shopping, the inroads of the prosperity gospel in congregations, and the conflation of politics. These are all errors that Downing sees in evangelicalism, which she finds Sayers helpful in eradicating.

When Downing stays on point, focusing on Sayers and her legacy, she is very helpful. The research is well done, touching on a wide range of Sayers’ work. If there is a strong emphasis on interpreting the themes of Sayers’ plays, that is little surprising since Downing’s background is in theatre as well as literature. This is a useful corrective to the theologians and literary critics who invest their research nearly exclusively in Sayers’ non-fiction and prose works.

In Sayers’ day, she was critiqued by those both to her right and left. Progressives critiqued (or dismissed) her for her stolid adherence to traditional Christian orthodoxy. Fundamentalists railed against Sayers for using slang language in her plays and embellishing the details around Christ’s life and death in her passion play, The Man Born to be King. In that sense, Sayers was certainly subversive of the various cultural Christianities of her day, pointing back toward the ancient, orthodox faith.

Inasmuch as Subversive explores how Sayers did her work in her day, it is revealing and explanatory. When Downing tries to bring Sayers forward into our own day to combat the theological and cultural dangers surrounding us, she betrays a good deal more bias that Sayers would have allowed and sometimes does not appropriately differentiate between her own opinions and those of Sayers.

One of Downing’s repeated concerns is that Christians avoid “certitude.”  To Downing, this seems to refer to those with an attitude like Judas who, “like many Christians today [was] certain that his interpretation of the truth was absolute.” (97) It is this sort of self-assurance that Sayers sought to subvert, but Sayers was also quick to subvert the ideas of those who were certain that the interpretations of the community of faith not correct.

According to Downing, the “exact opposite” of “certitude” is faith. (98) It isn’t clear from the text in what sense these two concepts are opposed, but Downing is confident that being confident in one’s reading of Scripture is a great evil. She argues, “Anyone who claims to know the correct interpretation of Scripture––as did Arius––ultimately proclaims to know the mind of God, which is both arrogant and blasphemous.” (37) In truth, Arius’ great error was not that he relied upon the Bible (which association Downing makes frequently) or that he was overconfident, but that the position he (or his followers) held was blasphemously wrong and sought to promote his misconception. Downing’s opposition of faith and “certitude” seems to paint faith as something other than what Scripture supports (e.g., Heb 10:19–39). Rather than a humble but confident faith, Downing seems to point to ambiguity as an essential attribute of the Christian life, though the lack of definitions sometimes make it unclear what Downing is striving for. More significantly for this book, Downing’s opposition of “certitude” and faith does not seem to arise from Sayers.

The authority of Scripture is another a particular sticking point for Downing. At one point she argues that the authority of the four ecumenical creeds exceeds that of the canon of Scripture because these “’footings’ of the foundation [of the church] as they are known, were poured by earnest followers of Christ in the early centuries of the faith before the biblical canon was even finalized.” (35) This is basically a paraphrase of a letter Sayers wrote to a critic. However, Downing introduces some terminological confusion. In some places Downing sets reliance on the prime authority of the creeds against “bibliolatry,” which in context sounds like the classical Protestant understanding of the supremacy of Scripture. In other places, Downing uses “bibliolatry” to refer to an unhealthy reverence for the King James Version (a problem Sayers faced), which is another problem altogether. There is imprecision here that Sayers would not have tolerated.

Downing’s actual beef appears to be with modernist hermeneutics, which often result in excessive confidence in readings of Scripture due to their presumed objectivity. One need not hold to supremacy of the creeds to argue against such hubris; orthodox Christians are justified in believing the creeds are authoritative inasmuch as they are faithful distillations of Scripture. Here Downing seems to have a related, but substantially different opinion than Sayers, who uses the ecumenical creeds as the starting line for “official” Christianity. But, as Sayers affirmatively declares, the men arguing at Nicaea “were fifty time greater sticklers for Biblical authority than any one living today.” (Letters, III:367) For Sayers, the issue is not the source of authority, but the way the argument is put together and the manner in which the conclusion is held. It is not that Sayers holds my position on the authority of Scripture (I am quite certain she did not), but rather than she does not hold Downing’s either, and that is difficult to tell from the text of Subversive.

At times, Downing does not differentiate her own opinions (which may be true of false on their own merits) from those of the subject of the book. Readers may well find themselves disagreeing with Downing and believe they are disagreeing with Sayers. This will not always be correct, based on my reading of Sayers. This ambiguity may push away some of the very readers who most need Sayers’ corrective to have a properly confident faith, that is held with humility.

Sayers’ work is incredibly valuable for our day largely because she built a positive case for a robust Christianity in her public work. She spent more time making much of Christ than subverting incorrect views. Sayers’ subversion was of cultural Christianity by presenting a true Christianity faithfully. Rather than to seek to undermine the legitimate faith of others, by way of critique she presented a more compelling vision that she hoped would outshine the lesser gods of the day. Her harshest published criticisms were delivered with a such a wit that it would draw a chuckle rather than a groan. Her subversively constructive approach is what makes Sayers such a valuable conversation partner in our age. In the end, there is enough of Sayers and enough good research in this volume to make it a worthwhile volume, especially for those engaged in the study of the life and work of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers

By Downing, Crystal

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis - A Review

C. S. Lewis is a figure that fascinates contemporary, English speaking Christians. His writing is connected to the deep well of Medieval thought, especially the pervasively Christian tide of that thought. For the modern Christian, C. S. Lewis is a gateway to orthodox Christian thought from a different era that has been adapted to wrestle with the problems of modernity.

As a result, of the writing of C. S. Lewis biographies there is no end, and much reading of them can weary the body. Most of the biographies of Lewis in recent decades have simply rehashed old themes, picked over the same published data, and repackaged the same accounts in a slightly different structure.

And yet, periodically there are new approaches that expose different facets of Lewis scholarship. Harry Poe’s Becoming C. S. Lewis, for example, has an innovative approach and includes new data. Or Alan Jacob’s book, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, that looks at Lewis alongside other Christian thinkers like Dorothy L. Sayers, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden. These varied approaches are vital to the field of study and are useful in inviting new scholars and writers into a rich community of thought.

Gina Dalfonzo has produced a delightful volume that looks at the relationship between Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis. This account is, of course, biographical. However, by focusing on the relationship between these two great Christian thinkers and by including Sayers alongside Lewis, this moves from garden-variety biography to a valuable contribution to the literature of the field.

Sayers is the lesser celebrated of the two. Lamentably, she has not received the attention her work warrants. There are, I believe several reasons for this. First, Sayers was much more private than Lewis. While she had deep friendships and sometimes includes her own experience in her writing, it is hard to truly know Sayers by simply reading her published works. Her letters and the biographies written by friends help, but compared to Lewis, she is a stranger even to fans of her work. (The fact that she hid the existence of her son from close friends shows how private a person she was.) Second, Sayers was much more reluctant to become a spokesperson for Christianity than Lewis, so there is less of her work that deals with the topics that many Christians find so important. Third, though Barbara Reynolds has done the world a great service in editing Sayers’ letters and writing about her, Walter Hooper had more opportunity and was more effective in editing and promoting Lewis posthumously.

Though Sayers was less known, she is no less significant. Her detective fiction is par excellence. Her translations of Dante are still in print. And her essays and plays still move readers. For many young scholars who have found the field of study surrounding the Inklings to be overcrowded, Sayers is an “Inkling-adjacent” thinker with room still available for original topics.

Dalfonzo’s book, Dorothy and Jack, is an example of solid, new synthesis. Her bibliography shows little original research (i.e., there is little evidence of her diving into archives in various locations), but she has put the available information together in a helpful way. Dalfonzo has read through and correlated some of the correspondence of both figures, compared the timelines of their lives to create a roughly synchronous chronological retelling, and put together ideas from secondary sources for both Lewis and Sayers. The result is thoroughly enjoyable to read for the average reader, but original and enriching for those interested in academic studies.

Summary

This short volume is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the early life of the two friends, in some respects very similar and in others very different, and extends roughly until their first introduction to one another. Chapter Two moves into the early stages of their friendship, beginning with a fan letter written by Sayers to Lewis and through the first few years of their growing mutual admiration, which consisted mostly of letter writing. The third chapter shows how the friendship blossomed between Lewis and Sayers as they were able to give each other critical feedback alongside pointed praise. Their friendship was one of equals who valued thoughtful criticism as much as loud, undeserved congratulations. Chapter Four explores Lewis’ attitude toward women in general and the relationship both Lewis and Sayers had with Charles Williams. For those interested in the attitude of the Inklings toward women and Sayers’ own opinions on society and women, this is an engaging chapter.

The fifth chapter focuses on the worldview of both Sayers and Lewis. Both were deeply influenced by the thought of the middle ages. Lewis famously described himself as a dinosaur, which title he also ascribed to Sayers affectionately. The title was well received. To understand their unusual friendship, the reader must understand how different the two were from the rest of the world and how similar they were in their engagement in medieval thinking. Chapter Six covers Sayers’ relationship with Joy Gresham, Lewis’ late-in-life spouse. We see similarities in the personalities of Gresham and of Sayers, as well as possible sympathy between Sayers and Lewis in that both were married to divorcees. The final chapter wraps the book up, drawing together several streams and highlights the friendship as one of mutual admiration and equal respect.

Analysis and Conclusion

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The book is well-researched and clearly written. Dalfonzo takes contested positions on a few topics like the Lewis-Anscomb debate, the Lewis-Moore relationship, and a few others. Readers may disagree with Dalfonzo, but there is a reason those topics are contested—the evidence is muddled at best. Perhaps more controversially, the underlying theme in Dorothy and Jack is the possibility of meaningful friendship between men and women, outside of marriage. Dalfonzo shares a vision with Aimee Byrd, as she developed it in Why Can’t We Be Friends? But Lewis and Sayers are such unique individuals that it isn’t clear they are a good test case for Byrd’s ideas. Whether one finally agrees with Dalfonzo on that issue does not diminish the value of this book.

Many readers may not notice, but for academics the use of the Sayers’ and Lewis’ first names may be a bit jarring. After all, as Dalfonzo notes, it was twelve years into their fifteen-year friendship before the two referred to each other by their Christian names. However, the quality of the research makes up for the feeling of informality (for those who care about such things) and the informality serves to illustrate the friendship between the two. This reads like a popular book, but the research will warrant consideration by a more academic audience. Sometimes one size does not perfectly fit all.

This is an excellent volume. Those interested in Lewis or Sayers should immediately buy it or, at least, put it on their wish list not to be long forgotten. It deserves a place alongside books like Humphrey Carpenters’ The Inklings, the Zaleski’s The Fellowship, and Colin Duriez’ Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. This is a solid work of secondary literature that makes a meaningful contribution to the study of both Sayers and Lewis, while being accessible and interesting to the casual reader.

Dorothy and Jack

By Dalfonzo

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NOTE: I was granted access to uncorrected proofs of this volume.

Boredom and Heresy

One the central questions at the heart of debates over modern theological liberal Christianity and orthodox Christianity is the definition of the term Christian. The wide variance between the definitions tends to confound dialog because liberals (I will consistently use this term theologically, in a descriptive sense) have a radically different understanding of the word’s meaning than do orthodox believers.

There were, of course, points in the historic Christian faith at which boundary lines were drawn based on ongoing debates. Those early moments resulted in our statements of orthodoxy, such as the Nicene Creed, which contains the kernel (though not the totality) of orthodoxy.

These creedal statements that define Christian orthodoxy were often surrounded by heated debates as leaders and theologians parsed through Scripture with a critical mind. This has led some to conclude that they were arbitrary statements and that some sort of arbitrary (likely political) power was the determining factor in setting the boundaries of orthodoxy. That, of course, fuels much of contemporary theological revisionism, because Christian doctrine shifts from the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) to oppressive imposition of the ideas of a bunch of patriarchal dead guys.

In this case, I tend to agree with Dorothy L. Sayers, the modern mystery writer and a significant mind of the first half of the 20th century. In her essay, “Creed or Chaos?,” she writes,

“Teachers and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy.”

Compare Sayers’s perspective with that of the so-called father of the social gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch, who argues in his book, A Theology for the Social Gospel,

“The dogmas and theological ideas of the early Church were those ideas which at that time were needed to hold the Church together, to rally its forces, and to give it victorious energy against antagonist powers. To-day many of those ideas are without present significance. Our reverence for them is a kind of ancestor worship.”

There is certainly some similarity between the two. Both Sayers and Rauschenbusch recognize that there was often drama when the doctrines of orthodoxy were outlined and that resolution was needed for cohesion. The difference comes in that Rauschenbusch has very little respect for the formulations arrived at by the councils, whereas Sayers understands them to have been largely successful at arriving at an expression of the truth. Thus, Sayers regularly called believers back to orthodox Christian belief, while Rauschenbusch associated doctrinal orthodoxy with a form of “ancestor worship.” Rauschenbusch is  spiritual father of John Shelby Spong, who argued that Christianity must change or die.

Beneath this discussion is a radically different perspective on the ability of lay-people to grasp Christian doctrine. Both Rauschenbusch and Sayers recognize that many Christians are relatively uninformed about Christian doctrines, which results in doctrinal deviations.

According to Rauschenbusch, “When people have to be indoctrinated laboriously in order to understand theology at all, it becomes a dead burden.” This is a dubious statement, but it shapes the trajectory of Rauschenbusch’s attack on Christian orthodoxy.

This comes several pages after his assertion that,

“[The business of theology] is to make the essential facts and principles of Christianity so simple and clear, so adequate and mighty, that all who preach or teach the gospel, both ministers and laymen, can draw on its stores and deliver a complete and unclouded Christian message.”

The second statement is actually quite helpful. Theology certainly should be clear and simple as much as possible, but to eliminate teaching doctrine as a function of the church because some doctrines are complicated seems counter intuitive.

There is an implicit assault on the intelligence of laypeople in Rauschenbusch’s theology. He assumes that people are simply too intellectually dull to understand Christian doctrine. As a result, he argues, “If we seek to keep Christian doctrine unchanged, we shall ensure its abandonment.”

Rauschenbusch decided he would like to avoid the abandonment of Christian doctrine by changing it. I suppose that is one way of cutting out the middleman. No need to make the laypeople leave doctrine, when you can simply eliminate all the inconvenient parts that matter. This is a way of dumbing down the faith because you don’t think people are smart enough to understand doctrine.

Sayers, however, has a much more positive view of laypeople. She, too, recognizes that many laypeople are ignorant of Christian doctrines, but that is not entirely their fault.

She writes,

“It is not true at all that dogma is hopelessly irrelevant to the life and thought of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration is though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so.”

This is exactly what Rauschenbusch does and he encourages others to do the same.

Again, Sayers rejects the need to modify Christianity to make it relevant,

“If the average man is going to be interested in Christ at all, it is the dogma that will provide the interest. The trouble is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has never been offered the dogma. What he has been offered is a set of technical theological terms that nobody has taken the trouble to translate into language relevant to ordinary life.”

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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The Christian mind is shaped by the wonder of God’s goodness and the nature of the world he has made. One of the central elements of the Christian mind is an interest in those things outside of ourselves. Sayers understands the Christian mind, while Rauschenbusch did not.

Rauschenbusch’s assumption was that his disinterest in orthodox Christian doctrine and inability explain it to others did not subvert the value of it. The wonder and mystery of a wholly other God whose existence and work are unlike our daily experience makes Christianity so much more relevant and exciting.

Sayers gets at the heart of the problem: ignorance and lazy teaching. Laypeople are not stupid; they have often simply never had teachers who took the time to explain Christian doctrine in terms that they understood. Teaching is a bridging strategy to make truth plain.

Instead of creating heresy as we give way to boredom, faithful Christian teachers need to explain the most exciting story that ever was: Christianity. That story is carried by the doctrines that modernists think people too bored, lazy, or stupid to understand.

The role of theologians and pastors is not to reshape Christianity into something that we find interesting, but to uncover the exciting truths within orthodox Christian theology. Once that happens, based on my experience, the doctrine sells itself.

The Year of Our Lord 1943 - A Review

The title of Alan Jacobs’ most recent project, The Year of Our Lord 1943, sets the stage for the book but it does not limit the contents. To many readers, the subtitle offers some clue to the contents, but raises additional questions as well. After all, the word “humanism,” even as it is set in context of the full subtitle—Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis––has competing definitions and in some cases is perceived to be inconsistent with “Christian.”

The crisis of 1943, at least, is obvious to anyone even vaguely aware of World History. This was the year that the Allies became confident that the Axis forces would be defeated. The tenor of the war effort changed, from a hope of survival at great cost, to the expectation of the enemies’ unconditional surrender. It was a time when people began to think beyond the war to what life after the war would look like.

Jacobs focuses on one particular school of thought, which he calls “Christian humanism.” The definition of this movement is complex, but can be summed up as effort to use literature to morally form people into good citizens. This approach to moral formation is built on Christian sentiments, in particular, since Christian humanists saw the Christian faith as the only foundation suitable for a just society.

The Year of Our Lord 1943 is an ambitious work. It surveys a wide range of sources, but mainly deals with the work of Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Simone Weil, and W. H. Auden. Dorothy L. Sayers, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Ellul, and others make appearances, but the first five are the main cast. Not only is this an impressive lineup of writers whose work Jacobs digests and presents, but at many points their vision of the good society is different. They had a common core of ideas, to be sure, but their ideas for what good should look like and how it should be obtained were variegated. The work is also impressive because Jacobs weaves the various streams together rather than using a purely chronological or topical approach.

This book is important because it recounts the debate of that day and documents the thinking of the side whose ideas were generally not implemented. Thus, this book helps tie together what are now prophetic themes about how society could have been better ordered.

In 1941, the great choice would have been whether or not to do what it took to survive. Nearly any means is deemed acceptable when a nation is staring down destruction or enslavement. However, as the tide of World War II was turning, the question of whether the technocratic policies and processes that were used to help organize the war effort would become permanent fixtures of society was a more pertinent one.

The question the thinkers discussed in this book were wrestling is still a pivotal one today: What does it look like to be human in a modern world?

This is what many of Jacobs’ projects have been about, especially in recent years. It also marks a perennial question that humanity has traditionally debated, but has lately seemed to get buried beneath a wave of social media, constant entertainment, and unthinking busyness. If nothing else, this book is a call for people to wake up and begin to question whether they are asking the right questions.

The Year of Our Lord 1943 is an excellent book. For those that are intrigued by the ferment of thought that comes from Christians exploring the good society in the early- to mid-twentieth century, this book will prove to be a helpful reference. It combines history, literary analysis, and thoughtful critique in a readable text that both enlightens and invites further study. For those who are simply interested in a well-told intellectual history, this volume will provide an enjoyable experience. Those who are trying to figure out how to relate their Christianity to the idea of a good society will find this book useful, as well, as Jacobs helps expose readers to old books by writing a new book about the authors of some of the most important, but often unconsidered, texts of the modern age.

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis

By Alan Jacobs

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The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers - A Review

Dorothy L. Sayers is one the most brilliant writers of the twentieth century. Her work spans a number of genres, from detective novels, to religious stage productions, radio dramas, apologetic essays, and translations of Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio that are still in print.

Sayers is less popular than C. S. Lewis, in part, I think, because he wrote children’s literature that draws new generations of readers more readily into his camp. Sayers was, however, no less witty and intriguing a figure as Lewis.

In fact, it is encouraging that more of Sayers’ work seems to be returning to print. There are a number of her essays that are hard to find, but which politely dismember opposing arguments in terms that make the power of her logic perfectly clear. Her detective novels, which are now somewhat dated period literature, are good stories in addition to their subtle arguments for truth. Christians, especially evangelical Christians, need a good dose of Dorothy L. Sayers.

The latest release in the Plough Publishing series celebrating the gospel in a range of writers is The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers. This anthology curates selections from all genres in chapters focused on particular topics like judgment, equality, creativity, and the cross. In some cases, entire essays are reprinted, like her powerful and satirical essay, “The Dogma is the Drama.” In other cases, the editor has selected a few paragraphs from a novel, or a scene from a play.

This book may not be the best place to start for those who are seeking to learn about Dorothy L. Sayers.  Though the anthology shows the range of her work, much of the power of her writing takes chapters to unfold. Her characters grow, mature, and endear themselves to readers over several novels. For example, her portrait of Bunter, one of my favorite characters in all of literature, can only be fully appreciated by reading all of the Lord Peter stories.

My concern with the approach of this volume is that people will miss the genius of Sayers while getting the idea that she was moralistic in her writing, because of the topical selections. There is no question that the gospel is woven through Sayers’ writing, but her work is worth exploring because it is good even before its moral power becomes apparent. Sayers herself, I believe, would shudder to think that people would read her work because she is a Christian rather than for the artistic quality of it.

At the same time, with the growing interest in Sayers studies, this is a timely and helpful volume. For those who have already come to appreciate her work, The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers offers a buffet to sample some of her other offerings. Also, the book can make a handy reference volume (much like books of quotes by Chesterton and Lewis) since it can be hard to remember just where and exactly how Sayers said something in one of the books one has read. The editor has done well to select many of the most significant passages, such that this book may serve as a shortcut for those writing on Dorothy L. Sayers.

The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays (The Gospel in Great Writers)

By Dorothy L. Sayers

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

The Lion in the Waste Land - A Review

In the period after the first World War, the Britain was in an existential crisis. The nation remains, at least in name, a Christian nation. At that point, though, the requirement to attend services had been dropped, which subsequently revealed that much of the population had little interest in Christianity. When the pressure of German hostility and the subsequent Battle of Britain became a pervasive threat to daily life, that nations, with its vaguely Christian memories, began to wonder if the resources for survival might be found in the Old Paths of Christian faith.

That period of British history saw several key voices arise to present a credible vision of Christianity to a population that had forgotten the core tenets of the gospel. The first was G. K. Chesterton, who was a journalist and a novelist, and whose work both influenced and made possible the trio of writers that are the main subject of Janice Brown’s recent book, The Lion in the Waste Land.

From amidst the literal rubble of British cities and the figurative rubble of a culture devastated by the carpet bombing of modernity, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and T. S. Eliot stand out as prophetic voices pointing people back to the spiritual and cultural resources of Christianity. The Lion in the Waste Land puts the three contemporaries, who were also friends, into conversation and shows how the powerful truth of the gospel of Christ pervades both the non-fiction and fiction works of all three authors.

Summary

Chapter One reveals the continuity in the message of the three uniquely gifted individuals. It also traces how their friendships formed. In the case of the Lewis-Eliot friendship, Brown’s historical explanation is especially helpful since Lewis was vocally critical of Eliot’s poetry early on; yet, the two became friends and co-laborers in revealing authentic Christianity to the world. In the second Chapter, Brown articulates the methodologies used by the three authors: there were overt apologetic attempts by all three, but their more powerful presentation of the fierce redemption found in the gospel is found in their imaginative works. This chapter helps show why these three laypeople were so particularly effective in showing the credibility of Christianity and why they remain popular to this day.

After the first two chapters, The Lion in the Waste Land shifts from historical overview to literary analysis. What follows are several chapters where Brown explores literary themes that are common in the work of Lewis, Eliot, and Sayers and which relate to the truth of Christianity and the redemptive power of the gospel. In Chapter Three, the reader is treated to a thematic exposition of the figure of Christ in the work of all three authors. Brown traces through images—both overt and subtle—to indicate the pervasiveness of Christ in their literature. The fourth chapter surveys the idea of choice and God’s pursuit of humanity for their salvation. This is a theme that is present in much of the work of Eliot, Sayers, and Lewis, and one that forms a unity with the idea of a fierce redemption by God. Chapter Five interrogates the work of the three subjects for uses of angelic figures. These supernatural beings populate the imaginative worlds of the apologetic trio, offering a start contrast to the anti-supernatural vision of modernity.

Having unpacked some of the central Christian themes in Sayers, Eliot, and Lewis, Brown again shifts her focus to the methods and impact of the three writers in their particular cultural-historical context. Chapter Six outlines how the work of the three authors was shaped by and responded to the particular sufferings of Britain during World War II: their message was received and promoted because it offered a plausible source of meaning for a nation teetering on the brink of despair without adequate resources to stand firm. In the seventh chapter Brown explores the deeper message that was offered by all three authors: redemption begins the journey toward the joy in union with Christ. In this chapter Brown delves into the concept of the Christian life as it is portrayed by Lewis, Eliot, and Sayers. In the final chapter, the book emphasizes how each of the subjects was pushing readers back toward historical Christianity, where the resources for salvation and sanctification could be found, rather than toward a revised, modernistic version of Christianity. This is particularly powerful, since all three were particularly Modern authors, but all three pointed people back to resources from the traditional faith of the Church—a distinctly un-modern thing to do.

Analysis and Conclusion

The Lion in the Waste Land is an excellent scholarly work on three of the most interesting people to live in the last century. Brown combines excellent literary criticism with careful biographical research to present a cogent vision of the impact that Lewis, Sayers, and Eliot had in their particular context and continue to have, particularly in the English-speaking world.

This book should remain a mainstay in Inklings studies for decades in the future. Brown’s work is careful, subtle, and reasonably comprehensive. It is both an example of a critical work done well and work of scholarship that will be intensely interesting to those engaged in the study of modern English literature, particularly in the works of Eliot, Lewis, and Sayers.

The Lion in the Waste Land: Fearsome Redemption in the Work of C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and T. S. Eliot

By Janice Brown

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