The Christ of the Creeds & Other Broadcast Messages to the British People during World War II,

The Christ of the Creeds & Other Broadcast Messages to the British People during World War II, by Dorothy L. Sayers, The Dorothy L. Sayers Society, 2008.

 

Dorothy L. Sayers is best known for her detective fiction.  During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Sayers established herself as one of the preeminent mystery writers of the era, rising to prominence by setting rules and standards for fair-play writing, and striving to make the genre “respectable.”  Her primary detective, the aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, struck many readers as an unlikely sleuth, but many of the best fictional detectives are improbable investigators.  A monocle-sporting, part-time diplomat who was fond of rare books and fine wines, Lord Peter solved mysteries in eleven novels (a twelfth was started but abandoned), twenty-one short stories, and a series of fictional letters supposedly written by Sayers’s recurring characters, but with nearly twenty years left in her career, Sayers abandoned Lord Peter and turned to a new genre: Christian apologia.

 

From the start of the Second World War onwards, Sayers felt it increasingly difficult to continue writing about the scientific details behind rigor mortis and the physical effects of poisons, and considered it far more important to focus her talents on a subject that is absolutely vital to the wellbeing of society: Christianity.  Sayers wrote extensively in an attempt to explain the essentials of Christianity to a broad audience.  Sayers was a High Church Anglican (also known as an Anglo-Catholic), although her writings tended to be strictly ecumenical in nature, carefully crafted to appeal to Christians of all denominations. 

 

Sayers used various forms of prose in order to relay her messages.  One of the late Lord Peter novels, The Nine Tailors, contains many of the most overtly Christian themes ever to appear in Sayers’ mystery fiction.  Monographs like The Mind of the Maker expounded upon how the Holy Trinity guides the thought and creativity of Christians.  Sayers took particular umbrage to squishy moral relativism and popular shoddy disregard for theological logic, as evidence by her use of titles such as Creed or Chaos?: Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma of Disaster (Or, Why It Really Does Matter What You Believe). 

 

Playwriting proved to be a particularly enjoyable medium for her.  Her best-known work in that format is a twelve-part series of radio plays on the life of Jesus, titled The Man Born to be King.  Other plays included The Zeal of Thy House, based on the life of architect William of Sens, who had been commissioned to repair a burned portion of Canterbury Cathedral; The Devil to Pay, a retelling of Faust; and The Emperor Constantine, about the crafting of the Nicene Creed. Sayers’s self-proclaimed masterpiece was her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.  She completed editions of Helland Purgatory, but her sudden death in 1957 left Paradise to be finished by her goddaughter and colleague Barbara Reynolds.  Sayers also published multiple volumes of critical essays on Dante, and long after her death several collections of her personal letters were released.

 

A substantial portion of Sayers’ work has been left ignored and unpublished (or at least out-of-print) for decades.  Several essays on mystery criticism written during the postwar years have only been collected and reprinted by small specialty presses in recent years. Much of her non-Wimsey mystery fiction and true crime work is currently out-of-print, and old copies of these books have been hard to find for over twenty years.  Her unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Thrones, Dominations, was completed by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 1998.  Walsh would later publish a largely original novel A Presumption of Death, based on Sayers’ wartime-era Wimsey Papers, in 2002, and a third, “prequel” novel revolving around Lord Peter’s oft-mentioned but never recounted first case, The Attenbury Emeralds, is scheduled to be published in September of 2010.  The Dorothy L. Sayers Society and the American Chesterton Society have also been involved in bringing several of Sayers’ lost works either back into print or helping them to be published for the first time. 

 

One of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society’s most notable efforts to rescue some of her works from obscurity is their publication of The Christ of the Creeds & Other Broadcast Messages to the British People during World War II.  This book is composed of a series of lectures that Sayers gave over the radio during the early years of WWII.  The lectures were meant to boost the spirits and souls of a populace living in the constant threat of war.  In 1940, Sayers declared that “I think it quite likely that these talks will eventually be published in pamphlet form,” and the Dorothy L. Sayers Society wryly observes that in this case, “eventually” wound up meaning sixty-eight years.  

 

These lectures have a number of purposes.  They were meant to educate the people of England about the fundamentals of Christianity.  One might think it odd at first glance that the English of the WWII-era would need to be educated regarding Christianity, but Sayers continually states her incredulity about how poorly catechized the average English Christian was, or how easily it was for educated Christians to fall into heretical beliefs, or to unquestionably accept historically inaccurate assumptions about the history of Christianity, or to concede the arguments of anti-Christians without taking the time to realize the holes in the anti-Christians’ logic, or confront basic errors of fact.  

 

One point that provokes particular umbrage in Sayers’ mind is how self-styled “defenders” of Christianity praise their religion by talking about its charitable work, or its contributions to art and architecture, and speak of airy “spirituality,” but they never talk about the truly important point: God himself.  Sayers is continually frustrated by such behavior, arguing that when Christians act as if they are ashamed of the supernatural aspects of their religion, they undercut any and all arguments that they might make in favor of their religion. Sayers sets herself apart from the would-be evangelists who argue that religious ritual, tradition, and dogma are not relevant, and that Christians only have to BELIEVE– nothing more.  Such an attitude is infuriating to Sayers, who argues that there Christianity is far more than a mere amorphous feeling of faith, it is a worldview, a mentality, a way of life, and a code of behavior.

 

It is important to understand the original format of these lectures and Sayers’ purposes in creating them.  Sayers writes these lectures in a colloquial style, economical with her words but firm in her tone.  She frequently refers to everyday events in order to explain Christian attitudes through metaphors.  For example, in her essay “The Nature of Redemption,” Sayers writes:

 

"One muddle about forgiveness is of the same kind - forgiveness is the restoration of a good relationship, but it doesn't abolish the consequences of the offence, nor is it going back to where we were before the offence was committed. It's got to be a new relationship (in that sense, certainly, "a fresh start') which contains and transmutes the disturbance caused by the offence. If I borrow money from you and squander it, your forgiving the debt doesn't put back the money - that's lost and you bear the loss and so "carry the guilt.” If I get in a rage with you and throw your best teapot out of a window, no amount of forgiveness will unbreak the teapot - all we can aim for is a relationship in which both you and I can bear to sit down and breakfast together out of a shaving mug without feeling uncomfortable and without an ostentatious avoidance of the subject of teapots. The universe can't "break the iron law of cause and effect" - that would mean an irrational universe; but the effects can be so "made good" that the whole process is redeemed - "O felix culpa-." 

 

Fans of Sayers’ mysteries who are unfamiliar with her Christian writings will have no cause to be disconcerted.  Despite the very different subject matter, there are several clear and unambiguous parallels between her work in the two genres.  Both her mysteries and her Christian writings feature clear and forthright logic, both are heavily peppered with literary and historical allusions, and both try to enrich and entertain the reader simultaneously.  Sayers once commented through her literary parallel, Harriet Vane, that she no longer felt comfortable writing mysteries in a world where twisted dictators massacred millions of innocent people.  Mystery fans have good cause to mourn Sayers’ retirement from the mystery genre, but Christians seeking forthright and intelligent arguments in defense of their faith ought to be grateful that Sayers took an interest in explaining Christianity.

 

–Chris Chan