Roosevelt one evening, heard them speak highly of Sayers’s detective fiction, and he recommended that they read her religious writings as well.

A priest from Washington, D.C., dining with President and Mrs. Theologian Karl Barth used Sayers’s work to learn and practice English, and translated several of her essays into German. People praised her ability to communicate powerful theological concepts succinctly and accessibly. It is clear that many people (clergy and otherwise) considered Sayers a theologian-and a good one at that. At other times, clergy wrote to her about things she had written, to invite her to speak, or to ask for her collaboration in some venture. Some of this correspondence came at her initiative she would write to ask for clarification on a theological concept or to refer a correspondent of hers to someone who was qualified to answer that person’s question on a particular point of doctrine. Of all the critics, readers, acquaintances, and others who responded to her writings, a large portion of the letters she received, answered, and saved were from clergy. Sayers delighted in hearing from clergy and in dialoguing with them about her work (although it made her nervous to address them because she was not a trained theologian or preacher). This was not her first invitation to address a gathering largely made up of clergy, nor would it be her last. By 1941, Sayers was an established lay theologian who had a thriving correspondence with a number of religious professionals, including theological tutors, bishops, local clergy, and even archbishops. Sayers, best known as the writer of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories, on the program of the Malvern conference was neither an accident nor an example of tokenism. And then there was the tenth speaker: “Miss Dorothy Sayers.” Nine men spoke-more clergy, plus some academics and writer T.S. Women who were identified with organizations were “head deaconesses” or in charge of women’s schools or committees in churches and government agencies. About three-fourths were men-mostly bishops and other clergy.

In January 1941, the Archbishop of York hosted a conference on “The Life of the Church and the Order of Society,” and over 220 people attended.

Are women human sayers