Christianity as Death, Rather Than Avoidance of Death

One of the strange accusations of modernity has been the claim of the Secularists that religion is for those simply afraid of death. Yet Christianity identifies itself by a symbol of death: the cross. The call that beckons us forth is to come and die.

The shaped movement of identity

To cite the ancient philosopher Heraclitus:

“You cannot step into the same river twice.”

The utter brilliance of this simple phrase comes in the fact that you yourself aren’t the same anytime you enter a body of water. The you of today and the you of tomorrow are two different people. So what connects the community of you throughout time into one essence? Likewise the river you step into is constantly made up of different water, hence why it flows forth. So the river of today and the river of tomorrow are not the same either. What then, causes me to see myself as the same being on a day-to-day basis? What causes me to identify that river as a unified body of water? In order for the river to be continually identified as that river, it must consistently die a series of mini-deaths. Likewise you and I operate throughout our lives by undergoing constant and consistent transformation. To attempt to do otherwise is insanity and psychopathy. The definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.” To refuse transformation through the means of mini-deaths is to become insane.

In like manner, the psychopath is one who uses the body of another for their own pleasure and purpose. And so the psychopath is a self-serving person, but they don’t serve themselves very well at all. They serve who they are at that specific moment in time. By refusing to die to themselves, they end up punishing their future selves in a multitude of ways. There are always trade-offs and glory is only found through humility. It should be expected, then, that if our Secular friends are indeed correct in their assertion that religion and God were created to alleviate anxiety of death, that we would discover religion to reject the notion of reality that a river is no longer the same tomorrow and that neither are we. The basic call of religion would be for the pursuit of one’s immediate glory. And within the broader community of Christendom, there have certainly been many who have pursued such ends. But have they done so because of the axiomatic premises of the Christian religion or because they have diverted into other philosophical quandaries?

Martin Luther and the Intellect

I wrote recently in my “What is Beauty?” thesis on why Martin Luther failed on the level of philosophy. His basic thrust in the Reformation was that the intellect is the defining marker of identity.

“I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: “The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: ‘The just person lives by faith.'” I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: “The just person lives by faith.” All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of aGod, the glory of God.

I exalted this sweetest word of mine, “the justice of God,” with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise.”

-Martin Luther, Tower Experience, 1519

Notice the phrasing of Luther’s introspection: “I meditated,” “I paid attention to their context,” “I began to understand,” “All at once I felt that I had been born again,” and “I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light.” It was by sight that sin entered the world:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Genesis 3:6

for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.

1 John 2:16

An identity as formed by the intellect is thin and static. I will hit my peak mid-life rather than continually transforming into an even more glorious being. How can I ever have comfort when contrasting myself to who I was ten years ago or to whom I shall be ten years from now? This is why I’ve discussed in the past how technology obfuscates and obscures the image of identity (hence Adam and Eve moved from the sin of the eyes/intellect to covering themselves with fig leaves). Consider how Bilbo Baggins described the effects of the proverbial technology exemplified in the one ring

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

-The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

Love as the Means to Renewal

A Christianity that identifies itself wrongly is a Christianity that will result in devastation. That is what our Secular neighbours see as the religious entity: a distorted Christianity that’s primary marker is not love. So this shifts our vision here slightly. What is love? I’m quite fond of Bishop Robert Barron’s definition of love:

“To will the good of the other as other”

Again, insanity and psychopathy demand that others and reality conform themselves to my image for my own pursuit, pleasure, and purpose. And that’s how we naturally operate in the world from childhood. Children are always experimenting with lying to see if they can bend the fabric of reality to their whims. We do not naturally desire the good of others as other. This is why Scripture says:

We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

We must be taught love by God through the instruments of our parents, teachers, pastors, mentors, siblings, friends, co-workers, and even the many variations of ourselves that He grants us the opportunity to see in our lives. To love my past and future selves is indistinguishable from loving my neighbours. If I can love and adore my future wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren now, then that will move me towards building myself into a greater person for tomorrow. It will draw me towards practicing love for them by pouring myself out for the community today. I kill the version of myself today in order to benefit the me that shall exist tomorrow, and by extent every person he will relate to. It’s a grander version of micro-dosing arsenic in order to build immunity against the poison. The Christian goes through a series of deaths in his life in order to build immunity against death itself. Consider the words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann:

“A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’ It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would ‘do anything’ for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into his presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only ‘natural.’ It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But ‘by the cross, joy entered the whole world.’ Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken ‘until death parts,’ but until death unites us completely.”

-Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World

I'm writing all of this two days away from Good Friday, the day in which all Christians, Eastern and Western, shall reflect on and remember the death of our Lord. Christ so loved Himself, the Father, the Spirit, and us that He sought death, knowing that it would transform reality itself into something new entirely. It is this embrace of death as the means to redemption that heals our identity. This is why we began with Heraclitus. If one cannot enter the same river twice because the version of oneself and the version of that river at that exact moment are about to die, then Easter begins to make sense. The moment that I enter the Baptismal waters is such an exact moment as described by Heraclitus transformed into a connection between not just objects and space (you and the water), but also connecting those deaths across time (our death to ourselves at this moment to the death of Christ’s Body on Good Friday, to the burial of His Body on Holy Saturday, and to the resurrection of His Body on Resurrection Sunday. Further, it connects us to every other time in history that members of Christ’s body have died at those specific moments they entered the water.

When I interact with most persons or objects, I only interact with a very thin slice of that person or thing: the version that exists at this precise moment. But entry into Christ is a gift that allows us the opportunity to be transformed across time in the context of relationship and community. To identify ourselves by something far greater than our intellect at this exact moment, but rather towards love itself.

The Paschal Redemption of Canada

We may consider this in reference to another major event happening this month: the Canadian Federal election. We see constant fracturing and fragmentation in the political arena these days. Both Prime Minister Mark Carney and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre have sought to identify themselves over and against President Donald Trump. There is much fear-mongering around who the victor shall be. Because we hone in so much upon loving ourselves so much at this particular moment in time, rather than understanding the transformative nature of death across time, we have actual spread ourselves out into having very little impact. What do I mean here? To cite Jordan B. Peterson:

“Before you try to save the world, clean your room first.”

-Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life

You don’t know Prime Minister Carney. You don’t know Opposition Leader Poilievre. You know pieces of thin fragments of them as displayed in this particular moment. I’ve never sat down with either one for coffee. I did have the opportunity in 2018 to meet former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But that was again, just a thin sliver of the fullness of who that man is. What ought to be of greater concern to us is how we may micro-dose ourselves with death in this political season in order to serve our local candidates. We should display the Pascha/Easter season more than we preach it. Our Baptisms should be markers of our political engagement. The version of Mark Carney or Pierre Poilievre that you don’t like doesn’t have to be who they are tomorrow. But in order for them to transform, we must will the good of the other as other. We ought to ask ourselves how these men are calling us up the mountain towards Heaven and how we might imitate that which they do well, rather than psychopathically and insanely expecting them to conform to our image represented in our intellectual conclusions regarding political reality.

But you can get to know your local candidates. And loving them by sacrificing yourself for them is the instrumental means by which we may communicate to parliament and to the future selves of our leaders. Clean up your riding before trying to save the federal state. The Church is the center of reality. She shall redeem even the edges of creation, the wilderness, and She shall domesticate and civilize it unto the purposes of Christ. Neither the free market nor the state have that redeeming effect and neither can be the final center of this world. Don’t live as though they are and as if our world will fall apart if a promoter of one of those ideas gets into office. The Serpent’s head was crushed by the cross at Golgotha (the place of the skull). Don’t be fooled by the illusion that the modern political world presents through the obfuscating means of intellectual politicians who are so focused on this moment that they don’t see tomorrow yet. Rather, follow the way of Christ, and die now so that you may bless your children’s children.

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect

Hebrews 11:39-40