The Church Father who drifted, Tertullian, once said, “The soul is naturally Christian.”
This is a statement I wish we weren’t so afraid of. It is the reason for apologetics and the reason they can sometimes work.
Unbelief, death, violence, fear, sin: these are unnatural to us. How do we know they are unnatural?
Because they don’t lead us to the fulfillment of our nature. They enfeeble and destroy us.
- 15th century manuscript of The Imitation of Christ, Royal library, Brussels. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But our perfection is found only in what Thomas a Kempis famously called The Imitation of Christ. Since we hate being less than we were made to be (since we feel naked and ashamed), our satisfaction is found in the same place as our perfection.
He is our peace, within our souls and in our communities and with God.
PS i called this an outtake because it is something I initially wrote for my conference speech but removed. I’ll probably “dispose” of a few more of these little notes over the next few years.
