“Too often today, discussions of what it means to respect human life and dignity revolve around just the physical body. Yes, protecting image bearers from abortion, disease, starvation, and war, to name just a few of the threats we have considered over the previous chapters, is an essential starting point.

“It should not, however, be the endpoint. The embedded attacks on children and motherhood I have documented in the first two parts of this book, both in our own society and in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman antiquity, are ultimately attacks not only on human life but on human flourishing. This elusive goal, a desire to return to the conditions of life in Eden, cannot be perfectly achieved on this side of eternity. But we should at least try. This means recognizing that our flourishing does not entail merely the protection of our bodies but also our minds and souls and, last but not least, the environment in which we dwell. We are still connected to the land, even if most of us are not farming.

“Thinking about these dimensions as bound together — the people and the land they inhabit as a connected whole — came naturally to the ancient world, centered as it was on agricultural life. We might note, for instance, the Athenian myth of the birth of the first Athenian spontaneously from the local land. The Athenians were not the only ones to have such a myth of origin. The Thebans had their own version: the earliest Thebans, a race of warriors, sprouted — or, more accurately, sprang up in full armor-from dragon teeth sown in the land.

“Instinctive to such myths was the belief that it was somehow better to be a people who had always dwelt in a particular region than a people who were outsiders moving in. The Spartans were aware of this. Although conquerors of the region they settled, they promoted their own myth of nativity: they were the children of Heracles who returned home to the land of their origin to claim their rightful inheritance.

“Emphasizing these mythologies was also a great way to justify xenophobia in antiquity, but this does not have to be part of the package. People have an instinctive desire to belong, and this means searching for roots. It is no coincidence that now, in this age of urbanization and increased mobility, companies such as Ancestry or 23andMe are doing brisk business in DNA analysis and family history. We want to know: Where are we from? Where do we belong? The where is inextricably connected to the who — who are our people, and whose cousins, however distant, are we?

“Modern America has become a land of uprooted people. For so many, especially of the college-educated class, the expected life trajectory now involves moving away for college and possibly never coming back to live in one’s parents’ home. In many corporate jobs, promotion means yet another uprooting — you move where the job sends you. What are we losing in the process? One answer only grows clearer with each passing year: the potential to flourish more deeply.”

— from Nadya Williams, Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity (IVP Academic, 2024)

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