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| Dorothy Sayers, detective novelist |
Ok, there is a long quotation coming up, but bear with me. This quotation is a letter by the British novelist and theologian (and playwright and translator) Dorothy Sayers. She is writing to a scientist who is asking about Christianity. Rather than answer kindly, Sayers rips into the scientist for not doing his own research into a full answer:
“Why do you want a letter from me? Why don't you take the trouble to find out for yourselves what Christianity is? You take time to learn technical terms about electricity. Why don't you do as much for theology? Why do you never read the great writings on the subject, but take your information from the secular 'experts' who have picked it up as inaccurately as you? Why don't you learn the facts in this field as honestly as your own field? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as the language of the church, when any handbook on church history will tell you where they came from?
Why do you balk at the doctrine of the Trinity - God the three in One - yet meekly acquiesce when Einstein tells you E=mc2? What makes you suppose that the expression "God ordains" is narrow and bigoted, while your own expression, "Science demands" is taken as an objective statement of fact?You would be ashamed to know as little about internal combustion as you know about Christian beliefs.
I admit, you can practice Christianity without knowing much theology, just as you can drive a car without knowing much about internal combustion. But when something breaks down in the car, you go humbly to the man who understands the works; whereas if something goes wrong with religion, you merely throw the works away and tell the theologian he is a liar.
Why do you want a letter from me telling you about God? You will never bother to check on it or find out whether I'm giving you personal opinions or Christian doctrines. Don't bother. Go away and do some work and let me get on with mine.”
Sayers was nominally associated with the Inklings, not as an actual regular participant but as a highly respected associate of the members. Although now Lewis and Tolkien are the best known members of this crew, Sayers was once a very widely known British writer of the day, mostly because of her novels about the upper crust detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers became famous primarily through her fiction, but her real love was theology and translations. She wrote a number of stimulating essays on the relevance of the doctrine of the Trinity to modern life, and most of her stuff still works in a punchy, critical way. That is, her style is punchy, and she is critical of the Church for abdicating its responsibility to teach the“strong meat” of hard core biblical dogma, both as systematic theology and as a powerful interpretation of life.
Sayers made no truce with either a simpering Church that wanted everyone to like it or with an ignorant secularism that didn’t really know what the Church officially teaches (and she blamed the Church for this widespread ignorance in and out of the Church).
The reason I bring all this up is to ask a question about the kind of rhetoric Christians should use when dealing with unbelievers. Sayers’ rhetoric is entirely different from the more irenic rhetoric that Lewis consistently used, regardless of the level of his writing. That is, whether it was for an introductory audience, such as the original readers of Mere Christianity or more informed readers for more difficult texts such as the sermons in The World’s Last Night, Lewis always portrayed himself as a concerned amature who didn’t know very much but who was trying to help out others. Sayers, in contrast, was aggressive, even combative, against both other Christians and against ignorant unbelievers.
Some of the difference can be explained as an effect of temperament, probably. Lewis was just a different psychological type, the natural teacher as it were. Sayers was the ex-ad agency writer, and her abrasive personality comes through naturally in her writing. But is this all? Is there a time and place for Lewis--and a time and place for Sayers? Is it right for a Christian, when rhetorically appropriate, to punch back twice as hard?
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| Dorothy Sayers, Christian apologist |