Dorothy Sayers: 'It's a mystery...'

Dorothy Leigh Sayers

'Mystery Writer'

(Image from Dorothy L Sayers Society)

Thirty years ago near Stanford University, living as a boarder in the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Rosenfield, an octogenarian who had a lovely Atherton house with a large library and an even larger garden, I helped that elderly lady raise tomatoes and helped myself to reading her personal copies of all the 'mystery' novels written by Dorothy Sayers, creater of the unforgettable British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey.

This morning, I was reminded of all that by a quote from one of the apologetics books written by Sayers in 'answer' to the question -- posed as part of a 'cathecism' -- "What is meant by the Atonement?":

God wanted to damn everybody, but his vindictive sadism was sated by the crucifixion of his own Son, who was quite innocent, and, therefore, a particularly attractive victim. He now only damns people who don't follow Christ or who have never heard of him.

According to Philip Yancey, in "Surveying the Wondrous Cross" (Christianity Today, May 27, 2009), this was the caricature of classical theories on the atonement drawn by Dorothy Sayers 60 years ago, apparently as her opening words to the section on atonement in Creed or Chaos? And Other Essays in Popular Theology.

I've never read that book, and doubt that it was in Mrs. Rosenfield's library, but I'm curious how Sayers walks the reader back through the astonishing clauses and provides her own solution to a 'mystery' worthy of the talents vested in Lord Peter Death Wimsey.

Have any visitors to this blog read Creed or Chaos?