Hope, History, and the American Church After Obergefell

April 22nd, 2016 | 9 min read

It’s a truth universally recognized by anyone who has ever talked about the BenOp that a person who expresses concern about the church’s future is in want of a person to quote Tertullian at them.

Sorry, is that cheeky? Here’s the quote and we’ll get to why it grates on my ear so in a moment: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” (UPDATE: An astute reader informs me that the more accurate translation from Tertullian is “the Christians’ blood is seed.”)

true true

Want to keep reading?

Subscribe for free to access this article and all of our resources.

Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, First Things, Books & Culture, National Review, Comment, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. He is a contributing editor with Plough and a contributing writer at the Dispatch. He lives in his hometown of Lincoln, NE with his wife and four children.

Topics:

Evangelicalism

Current Politics

Hope, History, and the American Church After Obergefell

Want to keep reading?

The Church Will Not Be Consulted

Want people to go to Church? Invite them. Want them to stay? Invite them into your life.

Once More, Church and Culture

In Memoriam: Timothy Keller (1950-2023)

Evangelical Political Life After the Religious Right

The Rise of the Right-Wing Exvangelical

Best of 2024: Reflections on the Evangelical Fracturing, Ten Years In

Evangelical Catholicity and American Church Futures

The Doug Election and America After the Great Dechurching

The Cramped Universality of Calvinistic Baptists

The Society of St Anne's and the Work of Repair

Evangelical Sociology and Clericalism

Evangelical Sociology vs Mainline Sociology

The Need for Protestant Ethicists: A Response to Carl Trueman

Faithful Presence After the Evangelical Fracturing

The Importance of Not Caring About Mark Driscoll

The Permanent Things Endure

Leadership Challenges in the Horseshoe

Friendship in the Good: A Retrospective of Sorts

American Evangelicalism as a Controversy Generator Machine

How Commercial Incentives Break Christian Social Media

Evangelicals Need a Constructive Vision

Reflections on the Evangelical Fracturing, Ten Years In

Shepherds are not Technicians

I Thought Political Capture Was Bad