The Importance of Sound Doctrine in Preaching for the Faith of the Church

The novelist and essayist, Dorothy Sayers once heard a dean of Mansfield College, Oxford say that “The tragedy of all this doctrine, however interesting to theologians, is hopelessly irrelevant to the life and thought of the average man.”

She responded with these words:

If Christian ministers really believe it is only an intellectual game for theologians and has no bearing upon human life, it is no wonder that their congregations are ignorant, bored, and bewildered. It is not true at all that dogma is “hopelessly irrelevant” to the life of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration as though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it, make it so.

Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos