Restoring the Claws to the Lion of Judah: Dorothy L. Sayers's "The Man Born to be King" as an Exercise in Translation

ABSTRACT: Good translation is a window, not drawing attention to itself, but enabling the reader to see through it. In "The Man Born to be King," Sayers focuses her powers of translation on the Gospel story and cleans the dust of familiarity from the window. The result, as in New Testament times, is that some are irresistibly drawn while others (often the most religious) are repelled by the scandal of the Jesus story. This paper draws from Sayers’s own introduction to the plays, plus letters of hers and of C.S.Lewis, to make the case that religious drama can enable people to encounter Christ in a fresh and powerful way.

I worked in student ministry for 20 years in the UK and in Canada, then taught evangelism and related topics at Wycliffe College, an evangelical Anglican seminary in the University of Toronto. My most recent book is "The Unfolding Gospel: How the Good News Makes Sense of Discipleship, Church, Mission, and Everything Else" (Fortress 2021).

https://www.wycliffecollege.ca/users/john-bowen