The Artist and the Trinity: Dorothy L. Sayers' Theology of Work

The Artist and the Trinity aims to create a Christian theology of work based on Dorothy L. Sayers analogy of the Trinity to the process of artistic creation. Sayers analogy gives us an account of the person that does not collapse into the atomism of the individual of modern liberal capitalism but is fully relational. By putting Sayers into dialogue with Alasdair MacIntyre the book develops a fully Trinitarian theology of work that accounts for the interdependence of human beings and for the ethical requirements of caring for the weak the young and the old in a way that is gender neutral. Dorothy Sayers was one of the bright stars of the Anglo-Catholic literary firmament in England. . . . Among Sayerss great gifts was the ability to show the light orthodox Christian doctrine sheds on both artistic making and the everyday doing for which we need ethics in a workaday world. Christine Fletchers typically robust yet engaging study succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating for a new generation what Sayers was about. --Aidan Nichols Blackfriars Cambridge Professor Fletcher has written in an engaging style about a neglected dimension of the contribution of Dorothy L. Sayers to serious thinking about work (demolishing some myths about gender on the way). Moreover she confidently displays Sayerss theological versatility in being at once faithful to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity while illuminating it for the meaning of work so central to the lives of human beings. --Ann Loades University of Durham Karl Barth was right: Dorothy Sayers was one of the best and most lucid lay theologians of the twentieth century especially on that difficult topic of the Trinity. Christine Fletcher has not only given us a book on Sayers that is as clear and as illuminating as the books by her subject; she has also done something more: she has given us a practical theology. This is a book one can actually put to work. --Edward T. Oakes SJ University of St. Mary of the Lake Christine M. Fletcher is Assistant Professor of Theology at Benedictine University Lisle Illinois. She is the author of numerous articles on the ethics of work and on Dorothy L. Sayers.