A Well Informed Zoroastrian Could Explain Mere Christianity

In my last post I made a reference to Dorothy Sayer’s assertion that a ‘well informed Zoroastrian’ could- or at least in principle, should- be able to explain what Christianity is all about.  This was in context of my pursuit for a book that lays out in simple terms just what the historic orthodox Christian faith is.  That pursuit exists because it is not uncommon to run across nonChristians who have rejected Christianity who seemingly have precious little understanding of just what it is they are rejecting.  Frankly, you run across Christians who don’t understand what they’re accepting.  Well anyway, I haven’t yet found such a book to recommend, but I did find Peter Kreeft’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics to be terrific for what it sets out to do.

Now, me telling people that they haven’t a clue about theism and Christianity in particular has often been met, quite predictably, with indignance.  “Hey,” says the skeptic, “I went to Sunday School.  Who are you to say I don’t understand Christianity?”  Sure, like the 8th grader in algebra has exhausted all there is to know about math.  I get into these discussions every now and then, and it is some comfort to know that CS Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, etc, had the same problem.  So, now with all the preliminaries aside, let me provide the quote that I was referencing in regards to the Zoroastrian bit.

Courtesy of this site.  The entire preface is great and so is the book it is attached to.

This book is not an apology for Christianity, nor is it an expression of personal religious belief. It is a commentary, in the light of specialised knowledge, on a particular set of statements made in the Christian creeds and their claim to be statements of fact.

It is necessary to issue this caution, for the popular mind has grown so confused that it is no longer able to receive any statement of fact except as an expression of personal feeling. Some time ago, the present writer, pardonably irritated by a very prevalent ignorance concerning the essentials of Christian doctrine, published a brief article in which those essentials were plainly set down in words that a child could understand. Every clause was preceded by some such phrase as: “the Church maintains”, “the Church teaches”, “if the Church is right”, and so forth. The only personal opinion expressed was that, though the doctrine might be false, it could not very well be called dull.*

Every newspaper that reviewed this article accepted it without question as a profession of faith-some (Heaven knows why) called it “a courageous profession of faith”, as though professing Christians in this country were liable to instant persecution. One review, syndicated throughout the Empire, called it “a personal confession of faith by a woman who feels sure she is right”.

Now, what the writer believes or does not believe is of little importance one way or the other. What is of great and disastrous importance is the proved inability of supposedly educated persons to read. So far from expressing any personal belief or any claim to personal infallibility, the writer had simply offered a flat recapitulation of official doctrine, adding that nobody was obliged to believe it. There was not a single word or sentence from which a personal opinion could legitimately be deduced, and for all the article contained it might perfectly well have been written by a well-informed Zoroastrian.

*That article would be The Dogma is in the Drama.