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.

Buy on Amazon

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.

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

Buy on Amazon

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

Offense and Oversensitivity

Perhaps one of the most dangerous threats to truth, meaningful communication, and human liberty is the increase of calls to regulate people's thoughts and speech. There is a terrible idea floating around that people have a right to avoid encountering ideas they don't like. As this approach to public speech expands from the most militantly postmodern enclaves to the broader culture, it is destroying lives and will eventually contribute to the intellectual crippling of the population.

The Insecurity of Safe Spaces.

One need not look any farther than the so-called Safe Space movement on college campuses. These are areas set aside where students can recover from being exposed to ideas--no matter how genteelly expressed--which conflict with their existing worldview.

One troubling concern with this approach to truth is that trains young people who should be exploring the deep truths of the world that they can live in a bubble of ideas that match their presuppositions. While this sort of thing might help prevent students from being converted to conservative viewpoints or having to go through the admittedly challenging process of figuring out in rational terms why they believe what they do, it seems to be very unhelpful for society in the long term.

Attempts to shield people from competing ideas is exactly what creates bigots (used in the traditional meaning of the word). This is the approach to truth that leads to people who are, in fact, narrow minded and incapable of seeing anyone else's perspective. In present times, the sheltered minds are saved from realizing their status as actual bigots by the convenient redefinition of the term to include people that hold positions that are out of vogue with the folks that edit the online dictionaries.

Of course, the reaction to the bubble forming culture can be (and presently is) just as bad. This is the point a lot of modern discourse has gotten to where prominent political candidates become popular simply because they are willing to say things intentionally to offend people or Twitter mobs swarm anyone who dares raise a point criticizing their dear leader. That sort of reaction is based on the same foundation used by the creators of safe spaces--emotional response instead of dialogical engagement.

Sometimes comedians are the best cultural exegetes. This is not always to say they are right, but that they often see things and are able to point out issues in ways that many of us can see. John Cleese, who is no theological conservative, commented on the dangers of silencing debate and extreme forms of political correctness earlier this year. He frames his concern as a loss of comedy, which is his livelihood, but the same concerns could be applied to the ability to think any thoughts beyond the thought patterns presently approved by society.

Whether it is in the recent attempts to prosecute anyone who funds, talks about, or openly questions the extent of climate destabilization or the rabid pillorying of anyone who disagrees with a novel and popular expression of sexual ethics, attempts to shut down speech by force are not helpful and, in fact, endanger the sort of dialogue that makes democracy possible. It also intellectually cripples those that are never exposed to any challenges to their worldview.

Intellectual Crippling

The complaint that contemporary society is forming people who lack the ability to think critically and engage in meaningful dialogue is not new. It can be found plainly in the pages of C. S. Lewis' essay, "Men Without Chests," and just as clearly in Dorothy L. Sayers' plea for classical education, "The Lost Tools of Learning." Both call for an approach to learning the recognizes emotions, but calls reason to work despite emotions. In other words, it is necessary to move toward something that approximates absolute truth rather than simply something that merely feels good.

Setting aside for a moment the important, but very large question about the nature of truth and whether there actually is any objective truth, let us presume that there is an objective reality that is not merely socially constructed but actually extant. Even accepting the realistic and valid corollary that we biased, finite, and flawed humans can never fully comprehend the totality of objective truth, we can approximate it more or less well. However, in order to consider approaching anything like the objective truth we must be willing to engage with thoughts that we do not already have.

Environmentalists rightly complain about monoculture in the contemporary factory farm. This is the proclivity to plant the same crop year after year on the same fields. The trouble with this approach is that each type of plant draws only certain nutrients in a particular ratio from the soil. To replace those nutrients, scientists have developed various fertilizers in laboratories that help replenish the needed elements in the soil. However, there is evidence that the chemical cocktails are not quite adequate for proper replacement. Eventually, despite the best attempts or replenishment, monoculture has the tendency to deplete the soil. This is analogous to what happens when only a single ideological perspective is made available to people.

Used by CC license. Mere by Natural England. http://ow.ly/iT1K3005ycH

Over time, if children and adults are only exposed to one worldview and all others are either excluded or dismissed without engagement, the soil of the culture will be depleted. Even if the ideas that are popular are right or better than others, the basis on which the ideas are held will be neglected if opposing viewpoints are not considered. The increasingly anemic culture that remains unchallenged can be artificially supported through propaganda, emotivism, or violence. However, sooner or later the crop will fail or a heavy rain will come and wash away the depleted soil, which has been made vulnerable due to its abuse.

The present milieu is one that promotes ideological monoculture through safe spaces and ironic but belligerent accusations of bigotry for deviations from whatever the popular orthodoxy of the day is. There is still resistance to this intellectual abuse, but that resistance is increasingly being legislated against, sued, and assaulted in the public square. It remains to see whether the so-called politically correct monoculture will triumph, but signs point to its growth rather than its diminution. 

What then?

The natural reaction to intellectual violence of the advocates of ideological monoculture is to try to fight fire with fire. If they take words out of context, then it seems fitting to do the same. If they overreact to your words, then you overreact.

If the monoculturists were sufficiently self-aware, then this might help them recognize the irony of their actual attacks on people who dare to express contrary positions in their presence.

In reality, fighting fire with fire threatens to burn the whole place down. 

The answer must be something else. It is likely that in casual interactions, the ideological monoculturalists are unlikely to ever except a contrary view, especially if they are challenged in public.

I don't think there are any quick answers. Things seem to have only gotten worse since Lewis and Sayers wrote, and we're farther from the foundations of classical education. I do think that part of the solution is working toward a society that values critical thinking and reasoned arguments more than cheap shots and cheesy entertainment. In the present climate, I'm just not sure how to get started on the project except by cultivating my own little garden of children at home.