Tag Archives: The Whimsical Christian

The Subversive Dorothy Sayers

Years ago I became a fan of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories by Dorothy Sayers. That eventually led me into other writings by Sayers, including The Whimsical Christian, a book of her essays.

I read with interest a recent biography of Sayers by Crystal Downing: Subversive (Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers.)

Sayers, like many of us, groped her way from the Christianity taught her as a child, through rebellion (she bore a child out of wedlock) toward a thoughtful Christian faith.

She is indeed subversive. She speaks for a reasoned Christianity but not a relative Christianity. That is, she accepts Christianity as God’s unique revelation through his entry into the world in Jesus. Wise people may develop wise religions, but the Christian revelation is unique.

She pointed to the dangers of too much relativism in Britain’s experience with Nazi Germany during the 1930’s, Britain didn’t recognize Hitler’s evil for what it was because of a kind of relativism, she said. Hitler was touted by some as simply a national leader with different ideas.

Writing further in this passage about Sayers, Downing says, “German Christians caught up in religious fervor for the Fuehrer had supplanted ancient dogma about Christ’s sacrifice for the entire world with political dogmatism : a problem that has marred and scarred Christianity through the ages.”

Hard not to see a similarity in the views of some Christians that Donald Trump is God’s man for the hour. A belief in the use of political power for a Christ who disdained political power.

What Dorothy Sayers Taught Me

One book I return to again and again is The Whimsical Christian by Dorothy Sayers. The title is a play on words, whimsical meaning quaint or fanciful, but also is a reminder of Sayers’ detective series featuring the English Lord Peter Wimsey, set between World Wars I and II.

Sayers was a writer of both fiction and Christian essays. Her private life included a fling with a man who refused to marry her after she became pregnant. Her spiritual life seemed to deepen after the birth of her child, though she never publically acknowledged him.

Like some of the characters in her books, Sayers was flawed. She found meaning in her writing.

She first introduced me to the sin of acedia. It’s a sin which tempts me, but I didn’t know its name. She called it despair as well as acedia and explained it in terms I could understand.

“It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for.”

It seems to tempt those of us afflicted with melancholia. I have found that the only antidote is prayer, followed by going on to the next task at hand. Never just sit down and give in to it.

Daring to pray, daring to go on doing “whatever our hand finds to do” is, it seems to me, an act of faith that says life is indeed a gift, worth living.