For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

• John 3:16

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

• James 2:19

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

• Romans 10:9-10

SPOILER ALERT WARNING

This was an essay. No spoiler this week.

“It would not perhaps be altogether surprising if, in this nominally Christian country, where the Creeds are daily recited, there were a number of people who knew all about Christian doctrine and disliked it. It is more startling to discover how many people there are who heartily dislike and despise Christianity without having the faintest notion what it is. If you tell them, they cannot believe you. I do not mean that they cannot believe the doctrine: that would be understandable enough, since it takes some believing. I mean that they simply cannot believe that anything so interesting, so exciting and so dramatic can be the orthodox Creed of the Church.
“That this is really the case was made plain to me by the questions asked me, mostly by young men, about my Canterbury play, The Zeal of Thy House. The action of the play involves a dramatic presentation of a few fundamental Christian dogmas – in particular, the application to human affairs of the doctrine of the Incarnation. That the Church believed Christ to be in any real sense God, or that the Eternal Word was supposed to be associated in any way with the work of Creation; that Christ was held to be at the same time Man in any real sense of the word; that the doctrine of the Trinity could be considered to have any relation to fact or any bearing on psychological truth; that the Church considered Pride to be sinful, or indeed took notice of any sin beyond the more disreputable sins of the flesh: all these things were looked upon as astonishing and revolutionary novelties, imported into the Faith by the feverish imagination of a playwright. I protested in vain against this flattering tribute to my powers of invention, referring my inquirers to the Creeds, to the Gospels and to the offices of the Church; I insisted that if my play was dramatic it was so, not in spite of the dogma but because of it – that, in short, the dogma was the drama. The explanation was, however, not well received; it was felt that if there was anything attractive in Christian philosophy I must have put it there myself.’”

• Dorothy L. Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church (Essay: The Dogma is the Drama)

Boilerplate

In this mini-series, I will fulfill a promise.  Some time ago, published 14 January 2025, I wrote a brief synopsis of the book, Subversive by Crystal Downing.  The post is called A Subversive Christian.  In that book, I talked about the three books in the photo above.  And I especially wanted to do a mini-series on the book on the right, The Gospel in Dorothey L. Sayers.

Note that the title uses the preposition “in.”  Dorothy L. Sayers did not write a fifth gospel.  She did not write as if inspired directly by God.  The canon of Scripture is complete.

But in stating what this is not, then what is it?  All Christians have the Holy Spirit within them, guiding them.  When being a Christian is something you have inside you and through you, then your life will reflect that.  This book is how you can see various aspects of the Christian life in the works of Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery novels, plays, letters, and essays.

After the Introduction, it starts with Whose Body?  The editor’s attribute of a Christian that she focuses on is “Conscience.” Whose Body? is her first detective fiction novel featuring her main character, Lord Peter Wimsey.  Then in Death Must Advertise, we find Lord Peter has a couple of middle names.  His full name is Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey.

But we will stay in the Introduction for more than a week.  There are at least a half dozen quotes just in the introduction that look interesting.  I am not in a hurry to speed through this book.  I was not in a hurry to start it with me being over a year since I promised to make it into a mini-series.

But I would hope people could read my short stories and see the gospel being acted out in the characters in my fictional stories.  Deviled Yeggs grew up in a family of safe crackers, robbing from others.  He set out as a policeman, and then homicide detective, to redeem the family name but learning each person must have Christ redeem them individually.  Deviled’s wife, Trinity Naomi Tesla (TNT) Yeggs, was nicknamed “Nitroglycerin” (Glyce for short) by her parents because she was explosive when shaken.  But she found calm and peace in her husband’s arms, and eventually she found the same comfort and peace in the arms of Jesus as she faced “shaky” experiences.

Even when not writing about Jesus directly, the Good News (Gospel) appears in many ways in what a Christian writes.  Let’s enjoy this journey with possibly my favorite author (outside the Bible with C.S. Lewis in a tie with her), Dorothy L. Sayers.

Discussion

Dorothy L Sayers follows the paragraphs above with what she saw in the churches in England.  The Dogma being the drama was how she felt about how the basic dogma of the church was being interpreted – in thoughts and in actions.  She portrayed God the Father as this angry man who dispenses punishment.  And before you scream that is not the case, I have had a lot of people say that they do not belief in the God of the Old Testament because He was mean and ogreish.  She expressed equally incorrect dogma about Jesus and the Holy Ghost.  But remember that C.S. Lewis called her gleefully ogreish.  She said it the way she saw it and she was calling for a change to the real God and the dogma that is founded in the Bible.

On Wednesday nights, my weekly vespers service is going through the Apostle’s Creed. One line at a time.  I am researching each statement to provide the biblical proof.

Many denominations do not use creeds, but these creeds were written to combat heresies among the churches.  Not having a clear concise statement of our core beliefs lends us to make our own mistakes and follow new heresies, or old heresies that have been freshly painted a different color.

Satan will not try new tricks as long as the old tricks work as well as they are working now.  Denominations are collapsing, even loosely gathered non-denominational churches.  One of the biggest problems is the idea that with no real dogma, they can make up things as they go.  What usually happens is that the church is tested with a test of faith.  They cave in to public opinion.  They even use Satan’s primary heresy maker against themselves.

What did Satan say to Eve, loosely paraphrased?  “Did God really say that?  Or did He mean it the way you are interpreting it?”

And what do we do as a church?  We stand behind the latest fad so that no one is offended.  We celebrate their sin.  These new members did not bring the heresy with them, we sacrificed our beliefs to attract the world into our doors.

Do not be too careful looking around at church next Sunday.  They are already there.

Closing Prayer

Father, guide me.  Help us to learn what the Bible says about each new secular topic that enters our churches.  Give us the armor we need to fight off heresies.  May we never accept heresies into our churches.  But to accomplish this, we need to know what the Bible says.  Thank you for giving us Your Holy Word.  Help us in understanding what the Bible says.
In Thy Name I pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.