The Inhumanity of Nature and Society is the Seed of the Church

Tertullian famously said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." That's certainly one way to read the New Testament narratives and the martyrologies of the latter eras, but it's a bit of a shortcut. I would argue that persecution was not the fuel for the growth of the Early Church. Instead, persecution strengthened the power of the evangelical message by revealing clearly and bloodily the corrupt and inhumane nature of society. Yet because those who present the early evangelical message to us were themselves oppressors (Paul's self-understanding as a persecutor of the church, for instance, shapes his soteriology in a way that would be distinct from Onesimus), the Gospel tends to be posed as the good news of salvation from one's individual contribution to collective inhumanity (one's sins) through Jesus Christ rather than salvation from the collective inhumanity of society and nature through Jesus Christ. I am afraid to say that this is the deep and nearly irremediable flaw of Patristic writing, perhaps only tempered by the indistinct lens on less elite characters seen in the accounts of the Egyptian monastics. Once an elite individual experiences conversion in a society so much at the whim of nature and so cruel to the least among them, that individual sees those communal sins reflected clearly in their own viciousness.

Therefore, the effect of the Gospel is strongest where nature is most directly afflictive to human life or where society is structured in the least egalitarian manner. The temptation that comes is to pose the Gospel as good news of magical salvation from nature (a common theme in evangelical/Pentecostal thought) or as an excuse for general social reform (the liberal tendency). Possible counter-examples lie in the death camps of Hitler and Stalin, but you may note that 20th century dictators in those presumably nominally Christian societies killed their enemies in the countryside and the wilderness, where no one could see them. The Caesars (and many later Christian rulers) felt quite comfortable erecting crosses on public highways and getting rid of religious dissenters as a form of public entertainment. Roland Barthes commented on a capital case in France in the 1950s, "When the State decides to kill a man, they deny him the power of speech." The inhumanities of the First World, at least, are most easily maintained, when they are most invisible.

Rowan Williams, if you listen hard enough, is constantly trying to find a kernel of the Gospel that speaks to a relatively prosperous and egalitarian society like England. He warns how technology is allowing us to limit personal human interactions. He moans about the demanding and conformist expectations on children in the educational system. He is trying desperately to find a Gospel that will not fall into the category of socialist or Establishment moral judgment, but he naturally has some trouble making the Gospel intelligible in a social welfare state with a relatively stable electrical grid.

Perhaps the strongest argument for the power of the Gospel with regard to nature actually comes from Stephen Jay Gould's Full House , where he argues that there is no evidence that humans represent the culmination of evolution or that the evolution of humanity (or the type of sentience we possess, since sentience is not unique to us) was the necessary outcome of evolution. The Discovery Institute's musings to the contrary, we are not privileged in the grand course of planetary or cosmic history. The intelligibility of physical law (reason) may argue for the existence of God; I'll let the philosophers continue to dither about that, but without revelation, we are a random, irrelevant species that would be better off ending our increasingly dangerous campaign of ecological and biogeochemical disturbance by jumping into the ocean. The salvation that Jesus Christ brings to me is to assert that the emergent randomness (like humans, whales, and copepods, both as individuals and species) in an otherwise neat and tidy natural order is not random, but beloved, even perfectible in Himself. He then can more easily proceed to saving me from my sins.

Responsory Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church for the Feast of John Donne

The Officiant shall say

Almighty and everliving God, your holy apostle Paul has taught us to make prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings for all people.

To which the People shall reply:

We humbly beseech thee most mercifully to receive these our prayers, which we offer unto thy divine majesty.

That it may please thee to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord.

Grant that all they that do confess thy holy name may agree in the truth of thy holy word and live in unity and godly love.

Give grace (O heavenly Father) to all Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

That they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively word and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments.

And to all thy people give thy heavenly grace, and especially to this congregation here present, that with meek heart and due reverence,

We may hear and receive thy holy word, truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives.


We beseech thee also to defend and save all those in authority among the nations, especially the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, and the Mayor of this City.

And grant us also the grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace.

We most humbly beseech thee of thy goodness (O Lord) to comfort and succor all them which in this transitory life be in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.

I ask your petitions, either silently or aloud.

The People may add their own petitions.

O Lord, thy servant, John Donne, whom we commemorate this evening, reminds us that when the Church buries someone, that action concerns us all:

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice;”

We bless thy Holy Name for all thy servants who have departed this life in thy faith and fear and beseech thee that it may also be for them and us as Donne has said, “

“God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.”

Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our only Mediator and advocate. Amen.