A Nice Man and a Creed
A Butterfly’s View of "The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays" by Dorothy L. Sayers
Author’s Note
Plans to weave each of my responses to Dorothy L. Sayers’s “The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays” into a comprehensive essay for a beloved journal were thwarted by whimsy – the technologically malicious kind. However, whimsy - of the serendipitous sort – called me to share both a butterfly’s view - dancing between flower cups in this, a Substack series - and the eagle’s view, available on An Unexpected Journal.
May both entice you to explore the meandering gardens of Dorothy’s writings.
The Scalpel is Necessary
In the next essay by Dorothy L. Sayers, “Creed or Chaos?”, I feel the scalpel. The anesthesia of humor is wearing off and the sting of the cold blade is slicing layer by layer to the heart of the matter.1 The scalpel is necessary “if Christianity is to be anything more than a little, mild, wishful thinking about ethical behavior.”2
It seems there is a turning toward the demand for ethical behavior without heart change. Combining humanistic behavior change with the standards of Christianity – isolated from the mercies, grace, and presence of God Himself - morphs into manipulation and fear-based polity. It has happened before.
Following a Man
Turning Christ into a “very nice man” is a dangerous tactic. And as she makes clear, “if an average man in Germany chooses to think that Hitler is a nicer sort of man” to follow than Christ (or a more effective one), then to Hitler he would go.3 Do we not see this reasoning in our era, on various sides of aisles and issues, with varying ideologies, political systems, and cultural streams?
Cruel Absence or Forced Entry
Sayers goes on to make the case that dogma - specifically regarding seven subjects - very much has a place in the life of the average man.4 To withhold it from the commoner is unkind, if not cruel, for in the teachings is the reality of life, the universe, and everything.
And yet, I will add from painful experience, that this dogma is best learned and applied over a lifetime, not merely assented to for the privilege of membership and then never bothered with again.
Why Bother?
If Jesus is just a nice man and dogma is a drain, why are we even bothering?
But oh! There is so much more to Jesus, so much more to the Bible than lists of questions and answers, dos and don’ts. There is life, and life indeed.
Butterfly-view Recommendations
Read “Creed or Chaos.” (For free access on Internet Archive, see endnotes below.)
Subscribe to Beyond Xistence. Next post in series: “It’s Good Enough for Cyrus.”
Read “Dorothy L. Sayers Messed Me Up” on An Unexpected Journal.5
Notes
Dorothy L. Sayers, “Creed or Chaos,” in The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays (New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987), https://archive.org/details/whimsicalchristi0000saye.
Ibid., 37.
Ibid., 38.
Ibid.