Creed or Chaos?

I am not familiar with most of the work of Dorothy Sayers. I know she was the author of the "Lord Peter Wimsey" detective series, but have not read them. When I saw her name on a little book titled Creed or Chaos? (Sophia Institute Press, ISBN 0-918477-31-X) in the religion section of a used book store, I was intrigued enough to thumb through it. I’m glad I did. It is a collection of wonderful essays that, although written over 60 years ago, are still fresh. The thread running throughout the collection is the importance and relevance of Christian dogma as expressed in the three great creeds of the Church.

I hope the following excerpts will convey the flavor and the power of her writing.

The Greatest Drama Ever Staged

“We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine – ‘dull dogma,’ as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – and the dogma is the drama.”

“We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended him as fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old
ladies.”

The Dogma is the Drama

“Christ, in his Divine innocence, said to the Woman of Samaria, ‘Ye worship ye know not what’ – being apparently under the impression that it might be desirable, on the whole, to know what one was worshipping. He thus showed Himself sadly out of touch with the twentieth-century mind, for the cry today is ‘Away with the tedious complexities of dogma – let us have the simple spirit of worship; just worship, no matter what!’ The only drawback to this demand for a generalized and undirected worship is the practical difficulty of arousing any sort of enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular.”

Creed or Chaos?

“It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.” This was written in the England of 1940. Sadly, the situation does not seem to have improved in England or in the United States.

“The thing that is in danger is the whole structure of society, and it is necessary to persuade thinking men and women of the vital and intimate connection between the structure of society and the theological doctrines of Christianity.
"The task is not made easier by the obstinate refusal of a great body of nominal Christians, both lay and clerical, to face the theological question. ‘Take away theology and give us some nice religion’ has been a popular slogan for so long that we are apt to accept it, without inquiring whether religion without theology has any meaning.”

I think it’s a worthwhile read for anyone interested in religion and society, especially our current society where tolerance of anything and everything has become the eighth great virtue.