The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers - Part 3

Dorothy Sayers has long been one of my favorite intellectual heroes.  I have loved her mysteries (particularly the Lord Peter Wimsey series) since my youth, and upon my introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy in freshman year of college, have admired her as a brilliant translator/poet.  Further in my academic career I encountered her essays and monographs on theology and ethics (my favorites being The Mind of the Maker and The Man Born to Be King).  All told, Sayers is a tremendous wit, an acute scholar, and a sharp student of humanity and culture.

Carole Vanderhoof has brought together poignant thoughts and penetrating insights from Sayers' diverse literary corpus in Plough Press's The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers.

In today's blog post, as I continue working through this brilliant compilation, listen to Sayers's indictment of the religious ignorance of her (and our) post-Christian society.

IV. Christian Doctrine, Misunderstanding, and Religious Ignorance

"'Any stigma,' said a witty tongue, 'will do to beat a dogma'; and the flails of ridicule have been brandished with such energy of late on the threshing-floor of controversy that the true seed of the Word has become well-nigh lost amid the whirling of chaff. ...

The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers - Part 2

My admiration for Sayers prompted me to purchase a clever volume from Plough Publishing House: The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays (Edited by Carole Vanderhoof. Walden, NY: Plough, 2018).  Vanderhoof collates passages (ranging from individual sentences to multiple pages in length) from diverse Sayers works under 20 editorial categories (e.g., Conscience, Belief, Despair and Hope, and Incarnation).

Today I continue my reflections on The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers, and I hope to inspire you to purchase the book yourself!

II. Nature, Sin, Judgment, and God

"The word 'punishment' for sin has become so corrupted that it ought never to be used.  But once we have established the true doctrine of man's [fallen sinful] nature, the true nature of judgment becomes startlingly clear and rational.  It is the inevitable consequence of man's attempt to regulate life and society on a system that runs counter to the facts of his own nature. 

The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers - Pt 1

 Dorothy Sayers has long been one of my favorite intellectual heroes.  I have loved her mysteries (particularly the Lord Peter Wimsey series) since my youth, and upon my introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy in freshman year of college, have admired her as a brilliant translator/poet.  Further in my academic career I encountered her essays and monographs on theology and ethics (my favorites being The Mind of the Maker and The Man Born to Be King).  All told, Sayers is a tremendous wit, an acute scholar, and a sharp student of humanity and culture.

My admiration for Sayers prompted me to purchase a clever volume from Plough Publishing House: The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays (Edited by Carole Vanderhoof. Walden, NY: Plough, 2018).  Vanderhoof collates passages (ranging from individual sentences to multiple pages in length) from diverse Sayers works under 20 editorial categories (e.g., Conscience, Belief, Despair and Hope, and Incarnation).

In this short series of blog posts, I will share excerpts from The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers, sometimes accompanied by my own reflections.  I hope to inspire you to purchase the book yourself - and I myself am eagerly anticipating purchasing and reading the other volumes in Plough's The Gospel in Great Writers series: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, George MacDonald, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Great stuff!

I. Ethical Foundations

"We have seen, too, what happens to reason divorced from theology.  Encouraged by its success in subduing the material universe, it refuses to admit the validity of anything that is not capable of scientific proof.  Its next step is to try to justify the natural virtues by their material results - whence we get the ugly and egotistical doctrine of enlightened self-interest and the hideous tyranny of economics.  The last achievement of reason is always to cast doubt on its own validity, so that the final result of rationalism is the appearance of a wholly irrational universe.

"Thus, human ethics, left to themselves, became helpless and self-contradictory - exactly as they did in pagan times.

"The men who now rule Germany [the Nazis], having thrown over the Christian theology, see clearly enough that the Christian ethic will not work without it.  Therefore, they have jettisoned the ethics as well.  We are greatly shocked by this.  But have we the right to be surprised?  If Christ is the only guarantee that reason is rational and goodness is good, then, the logical result of repudiating Christianity is the repudiation of reason and virtue." (Sayers, "The Religions Behind the Nation," March 5, 1941. Cited in The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers, p. 19)

Jacob Shatzer - The Pandemic and Virtual Church

 I've got lots of thoughts on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected Christian worship and witness ... mostly how the impact has been harmful.  But instead of writing a lengthy diatribe, I thought I would just quote some words from Jacob Shatzer's Transhumanism and the Image of God.

In the midst of talking about the importance of place in a Christian understanding of the church (and how virtual reality will never be real reality), Shatzer writes:

"Bearing witness requires presence; it requires being somewhere.  Christians can certainly bear a form of witness in virtual places, and as those virtual experiences provide more and more of a sense of presence, that will become more common.  Yet the virtual will never be the same as physical presence.  We cannot shed the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ - the analogy being to the physical body of Christ, not Jesus's Second Life avatar.

"I think that deep down, part of us still knows that presence matters, and this vestige points to something true.  For instance, being present at a wedding or a funeral is obviously different from joining via teleconferencing. ...

"There will certainly be ways of doing church using virtual technology, but to the degree that we neglect physical presence with other believers, we neglect the form of being the body of Christ that has shaped Christianity for the past two thousand years.  We haven't always been able to gather together, but that has always been a centering ideal.  Humans were created as physical beings in physical proximity, in face-to-face relationships." (Shatzer, Transhumanism and the Image of God, p. 139)

So, to those who wonder whether online church is just as valuable as in-person church ... it's not.  Even drive-in church is preferable to online.  To those who wonder why persecuted Christians in closed countries would risk imprisonment etc. by meeting in person ... wonder no longer.  To those who wonder why churches in the Western world were chafing at lock-down rules during Covid ... wonder no longer.  The physical gathering of the body of Christ in person is a central defining feature of what it means to be the Church.  Human beings are embodied creatures, and physical presence and contact is a non-negotiable need of human life.

Thank you, Dr. Shatzer, for putting into words the centrality of the local gathering of believers for worship!

For more, and an excellent discussion of transhumanism and post-humanism as philosophical and cultural trends in society, see:

Jacob Shatzer, Transhumanism and the Image of God: Today's Technology and the Future of Christian Discipleship. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019.

Reflections on Jared Wilson's "Gospel-Driven Ministry"

 I've been enjoying a good bit of diverse reading this summer.  One of the books I recently finished is Jared Wilson's Gospel-Driven Ministry: An Introduction to the Calling and Work of a Pastor.  I have no intention (nor desire) to write a full-fledged review of the book ... but I would like to share a handful of wise nuggets that Wilson shares. 

Northern Reflections Part 3 - Body & Spirit

 Earlier this summer I read a delightful book of reflections by Desmond Carroll, an Anglican priest (Irish by birth) in Canada's Arctic.  The book also contains original painting-illustrations by Ted Harrison, a renowned Canadian artist.  I'd like to share just a few of Carroll's words of wisdom:

"Let Us Run with Patience"

The race that is set before us ... (Hebrews 12:1)

One can only marvel at the physical capabilities of the athletes performing in the Olympics ... The discipline and sheer hard work that has gone into producing these efforts must be admired and is a reminder to all of us of the potential of the human body.  St. Paul many years ago drew on the comparison of faith and athletic discipline, reflecting upon his own time and the affairs of that day that could encourage and give insight.

But there are dangers as we pay exclusive attention to the body and forget the spirit.  The Christian faith is incarnational - that is, it seeks to integrate the physical and the spiritual.  Too great an emphasis on either of these things can distort the true character of the message of the Good News.  There is the cult of physical perfection that would seek to claim some sort of eternal quality, some kind of ideal, that can only be reached through athletic prowess.  On the other side are those who would tend to despise the body (the physical) and forget that God made each one of us in his own image and of flesh and blood.

The incarnate nature of our faith begins to come into its own as we try to balance the physical and the spiritual.  Each carries its own discipline, each can be supportive of the growth of the other, and each can lose its strength as it seeks to journey on its own.

Carroll, Northern Reflections (p. 91)

Northern Reflections Part 2 - Enthusiasm and Delight

 Earlier this summer I read a delightful book of reflections by Desmond Carroll, an Anglican priest (Irish by birth) in Canada's Arctic.  The book also contains original painting-illustrations by Ted Harrison, a renowned Canadian artist.  I'd like to share just a few of Carroll's words of wisdom:

"Ah-ha!"

"All the world's a stage" - according to one of Shakespeare's characters, and the players thereon represent all sorts and conditions of men and women.  Let's imagine that there are three types of players who walk upon the stage and interpret life in a general sense.

The first type could be called the 'yeah-buts', those who generally respond to ideas and proposals with a cautious 'putting-on-the-brakes' routine.  "That's not a bad idea, but ..." is a frequent response.

The second type could be called the 'ho-hums', those who ponder at great length the issues of the day, weigh all things in the balance, and find it difficult to come to a decision.  They can be persuaded to adopt a position, but often need applied pressure to reach a conclusion.

The last type could be called the 'ah-has', those who embrace life with enthusiasm and express delighted surprise as life unfolds before them.  They always seem poised to jump and engage the issues of life with a hopeful expression on their faces, reaching out towards the vision.

Can we try to be 'ah-ha's'?

Carroll, Northern Reflections (p. 77)

For what it's worth, I love the sentiment that Carroll expresses, but also think he fundamentally mischaracterizes both the yeah-buts and the ah-has.  The 'ah-ha' approach, if undirected by wisdom and prudence, can lead to jumping off bridges into shallow waters and being shattered upon submerged rocks.  The 'yeah-but' approach, if combined with a true excitement about the possibilities of life, can lead to rigorously analyzing ideas and proposals in order to arrive at a workable and exhilarating outcome.  Where I can fully agree with Carroll is being suspicious of the 'ho-hums'.