In a recent post by Dr. Fred Sanders at Middlebrow, he examines Dorothy Sayers' project to get the Christian message out. She sure didn't spare words for those who displayed intellectual laziness and apathy:
(Sanders): "...The average person has a boundless ignorance of Christianity, rooted in their laziness and thoughtlessness. 'Nine people out of ten in this country are ignorant heathens,' [Sayers] said in 1939. “I do not so much mind the heathendom, but the ignorance is really alarming.” And a few years later, when a broadcaster asked her to write a short letter explaining Christianity for the average person, Sayers spat back:
“The only letter I ever want to address to ‘average people’ is one that says — I do not care whether you believe in Christianity or not, but I do resent your being so ignorant, lazy, and unintelligent. Why don’t you take the trouble to find out what is Christianity and what isn’t? Why, when you can bestir yourself to mug up technical terms about electricity, won’t you do as much for theology before you begin to argue about it? … You would be ashamed to know as little about internal combustion as you do about the Nicene Creed.”
Ouch. I think I'll go brush up on the Nicene Creed now. Seriously. I think this challenge hits where it hurts for American evangelicals. Theology is important and we don't know it. Off to my Creed book...
Matthew Lee Anderson
Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.
