At the height of her fame, Sayers was asked to write a play to be performed in Canterbury Cathedral for an annual festival. Having spent 15 years writing about a sexually adept aristocrat who entered churches more for aesthetic contemplation than spiritual renewal, Sayers hesitated. She finally accepted the commission, due, most likely, to the prestige of her predecessors in the job, T. S. Eliot and Charles Williams.<\/p>\n
However, in writing a play about the 12th-century architect who rebuilt part of Canterbury Cathedral after its fiery destruction, Sayers experienced her own baptism by fire. As though a hot coal had touched her lips, she began speaking, through her characters, about the relevance of Christian doctrine to the integrity of work. Intriguing even professional theologians, her play ends with an angel announcing that humans manifest the \u201cimage of God,\u201d the imago Dei, through creativity. After all, the Bible chapter proclaiming the imago Dei presents God not as judge or lawgiver but as Creator: \u201cSo God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them\u201d (Gen. 1:27).<\/p>\n
Even more radically, Sayers\u2019s angel suggests that creativity is Trinitarian. Any creative work has three distinct components: the Creative Idea, the Creative Energy \u201cbegotten of that Idea,\u201d and the Creative Power that is \u201cthe meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul.\u201d Indeed, Sayers\u2019s angel says of Idea, Energy, and Power, \u201cthese three are one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Called The Zeal of Thy House, Sayers\u2019s 1937 play ran for 100 performances, having moved from Canterbury to London\u2019s West End. Audiences valued its unusual communication of Christian belief. Rather than endorsing pietistic practices, it celebrated the sanctity of work; rather than obsessing over sexual sins, it denounced arrogant pride as the \u201celdest sin of all.\u201d The play\u2019s self-aggrandizing protagonist, a womanizer who believes he alone can make the cathedral great again, is humbled by a crippling fall. Only then does he abandon his narcissistic need for mastery and acclaim, telling God, \u201cto other men the glory \/ And to Thy Name alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n How can I be more like Dorothy Sayers in my world? https:\/\/t.co\/UFn5Lpet9w<\/a><\/p>\n — christinabdodd (@christinabdodd) June 14, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n