Augustinian Civil Responsibility A Review of Scholarship: 1990-present

Jonathan S. Owens Box # 186

In requirement for (598) Independent Study Dr. David Rylaarsdam

Spring 2014

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St. Augustine of Hippo wrote on an amazing array of topics in the late 4th and early 5th

centuries and has remained a central figure in western philosophy and theology since then,

influencing generations of thought. Of particular interest here are his political writings,

specifically those that concern the role of Christians within government. Although Augustine does

deal with this topic in depth, he does not do so systematically, which adds a certain complexity to

scholarship of the issue. To accurately research Augustine’s perspective on the relationship

between Christians and their earthly government requires looking at his whole corpus, and most

prominently as he discusses such issues in his letters, the Confessions, and most obviously, The

City of God against the Pagans.

The pivotal issue in teasing out what Augustine thinks of citizenship seems to hinge on

how one views the two cities mentioned in The City of God. The opinion formed on the

relationship between those two cities seems to be the strongest correlation to how a particular

scholar understands the place of a Christian within civil government. Views of these cities, the

City of God (Heaven) and City of Earth,1 range from their being completely distinct and separate

from each other to a model where they are enmeshed with one another; further complications are

found in whether the two cities are viewed in more of a temporal relationship than physical. As

one might imagine, a Christian who is involved in the former example might not have much if

anything to do with civil society, but a Christian in the latter is inescapably involved with it.

What follows is a review of the scholarship that has wrestled with this issue since 1990.

The main purpose in selecting this time period is that previous scholarship is already accessible in

anthologies and general discussions, and is generally referenced by the authors mentioned below.

1 I choose to call it such, as I feel this is the best descriptor and is preferred of D.W. Dyson. It is variously referred to in the literature as “City of Pagans,” the “City of Man,” the “Earthly City,” etc. I may vary my terms throughout for variety’s sake.

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Furthermore, there has been a certain resurgence of Augustinian studies since the 1990s,

provoking a sizeable field of renewed research on his thought; particularly among his

contributions to Political Theology.2

The question of what role Christians have to play in civil society has always held interest,

but recently it is becoming more important to find an applicable answer. Particularly within

America, and as has already occurred in Europe, culture appears to be increasing in secularity. As

persons of faith try to figure out their place in the changes of public religious space and civil

society, Augustine should be searched out, as he has personally dealt with these issues. But as

already stated, there remains significant interpretive disagreement as to his actual message. This

literature review is a necessary first step in trying to solve this riddle.

Authors were selected from a wide range of backgrounds: European and American, secular

and religious (all Christian), politically variant, and diverse within Christianity. In the discussion

below, they are grouped according to their viewpoints on the relationship between Augustine’s

two cities.

Totally Separate Cities

Augustine’s City of God describes two different cities, one earthly and the other heavenly.

In Peter Iver Kaufman’s writings of Augustine (“Patience and/or Politics”, 2003 and Incorrectly

Political, 2007) he takes these two cities to be two existing and separate realities. The City of

Heaven exists apart from earth, and Christians have actual, present citizenship in it, but they live

their present lives in bondage to the City of Earth.

2 The term “political theology” is somewhat anachronistic to apply to Augustine, but by current conventions, this is the neatest heading.

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Although the Christian’s true citizenship is in Heaven, they have a role to play on earth –

primarily to promote general welfare and to encourage immigration into the City of Heaven.

Kaufman accepts that Christians can participate in civic government, society, and even the

military, while carrying out the mission of God. Surprisingly, given the separation between the

two cities, Kaufman even sees Augustine as encouraging Christians to pursue roles and offices

known for their inherent injustice, seeking the opportunity to change that culture to the good.

However, in doing such, they are only allowed to work towards the good (which is peace and

justice for all) and must not become involved with the dysfunction that is part of the political

machinery of the City of Earth. Christians who join in civil society and are subverted into injustice

and working against truth risk their citizenship in the City of Heaven.

This model seems to represent an approach where one has a foot in either city, but

Kaufman’s interpretation of Augustine makes it clear that citizenship is only in one or the other,

that one’s reality of being can only be in one of these two cities; thus the mandate for citizens of

Heaven to work for the good of the Earthly City, but the caution that one could become stuck

there.

A starker separation between the two cities is found in the work of Paul Weithman

(“Augustine’s Political Philosophy”, 2001). For him, Augustine’s City of God transcends space

and time where it includes saints, angels, and the Christians present on earth. True, Christians

currently living on earth participate in the Earthly City, but they don’t, in any way, belong to it. As

Christians, they hold their citizenship solely in Heaven, owing no allegiance to any power or

society on earth. Neither do they (unlike Kaufman) have any obligation to earthly societal

structures. As a separate people, Christians are to pass through earthly society, enjoying its goods

(food, temporal security, etc.), but being unattached from it. For Weithman’s interpretation,

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community and social structure for Christians is found within the Church, where the City of God

is experienced as a completely separate political reality.

In this view of the two cities being totally separate entities, it seems that Kaufman’s

understanding of Augustine is more plausible and fits better with a biblical understanding of social

responsibility. This is probably caused by Kaufman’s considering the broader corpus of

Augustine’s work, while Weithman issues his judgment of Augustine primarily from The City of

God. Either way, both understandings appear to be in the minority of the scholarship, with most

preferring a model where the two cities are more closely related.

Mostly Separate Cities

In this view, Augustine’s two cities are distinct realities, but have definite contact with

each other; citizens of the City of God effectively live with one foot in either reality. The most

well known advocate of this view is Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. He has

written extensively on Augustine’s political thought both before and after his position in service to

the Church of England. For Williams (“Politics and the Soul”, 1987; “Review of Theological

Epistemology”, 2010) the earthly state has no chance for ultimate survival, as it is based on pride

and personal (or national) glory. That said, since Christians do live in the world, they have an

obligation to seek its well-being. Christians who choose to be involved in governance should be

aware of the dangers of participation, and make sure that they continually work towards keeping

society just. The earthly state will always slip into injustice, and Christians involved with it must

remember that their hope is in their heavenly citizenship, that the earthly city will never become

the City of God. As such, their role is to make things as good as possible here on earth, but never

in a triumphalistic sense, as their main job is to bring people into citizenship in the City of God.

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This view is echoed in Jesse Covington’s work (“The Grammar of Virtue”, 2013). For

Covington, Christians have their ultimate belonging in the reality of the City of God, but because

of sin, they are bound on earth. This situation brings about a certain responsibility for Christians.

Because they have their citizenship in Heaven, they have access to truth and an understanding of

ultimate reality; because they have this revelation, there is an obligation to pursue earthly good

while remaining with a foot in the City of Earth.

Although Christians will always experience a tension while involved in politics and

society, they are encouraged to be involved in the struggle. The body politic is a good just like

food, and can be used for good or for ill; it is the Christian’s job to help the secular State work

with the City of God to pursue real peace, justice and civil order.

Covington sees Augustine as encouraging these two cities in cooperation with one another,

but that he also cautions that one of them is not ultimate reality and should not be

epistemologically collapsed into the other.

This word of caution for a Christian’s involvement in the Earthy City is further explored

by Richard B. Miller (“Just War, Civic Virtue”, 2009). Christians are encouraged to participate in

the civitas on earth, but they should always remain uncomfortable with it – realizing that no action

on earth can actually accomplish real justice or peace, only a gradation of it. Because of this,

involvement in the Earthly City will require Christians to experience culpability for some

injustice, as such, they must ensure their actions pursue the greatest possible good.

The further temptation of replacing love of God with love of power is the most serious

threat to Christian spiritual well-being. Because of this danger, Covington understands Augustine

to suggest that the best place for a Christian is actually on the side-lines of politics and civil

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society, where they can offer critique and suggestion, even working with civitas, but without direct

involvement.

These three related understandings all commonly share the hermeneutic of interpreting the

City of God through Augustine’s action within the Donatist Controversy. They see a true

ontological separation between the two cities, but also recognize that the Christian is inescapably

involved, at least somewhat, within society. They interpret Augustine through his personal

example and his letters to see that Christians can offer much good to society through government,

but that there are also very real dangers and temptations to be faced in so doing. This seems to be a

plausible and responsible understanding of Augustine’s view of Christian civil responsibility

because it takes into serious consideration such a broad view of Augustinian literature. That said,

there is another way to view these two cities as related but truly separate realities that has a

slightly different role for Christians on earth.

Eschatological Separation of Cities

This other view is that the two cities of Augustine represent true realities, but that one of

them is not yet in existence. Christians hold a citizenship in a future kingdom, but they have their

current citizenship on earth. The earthly polis, according to Graham Walker’s view of Augustine

(Moral Foundations, 1990) is home for Christians and exists to sustain humanity until the

Philosopher-King (Christ) comes to unite all under one purpose and identity, and thus initiate the

actual City of God. Until then, Christians live in the world and participate in civic life, striving

towards its flourishing, as they are uniquely capable for interpreting political directives into the

best course for peace and the common good.

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Joyce J. Schuld (Foucault and Augustine, 2003) understands Augustine as saying that

politics are a necessary evil within the world, a system inherited from the sin of Cain, but one that

can still sustain Christians until the anticipated City of God arrives on earth, replacing the current

broken structure. She does not go so far as Covington in thinking that the body politic is a good, to

be used rightly or wrongly, but rather understands that the body politic is always a corrupt system

that will continually let down its participants. Thus, Christians should participate in politics in so

far as good is achievable, but their ultimate care and trust is in the forthcoming kingdom.

Schuld is clear that Augustine demonstrates that the two Cities are temporally separate;

this understanding is further echoed in Aaron Wills’ work (“Augustine’s Hippo”, 1999). He shows

through the behavior of the Church in Augustine’s time that even it belongs wholly to the City of

Earth, and not to the City of God, as it was so enmeshed with the political structure. In the

eschaton, members of the Church will be separated out and brought into the Heavenly City, but

until then their citizenship is fully on earth. Wills perhaps takes the strongest line on this

separation, believing that the best understanding of the Christian’s role in the body politic comes

not from Augustine’s City of God but from Augustine and other Christian’s actions in the Donatist

Controversy; since their citizenship is already guaranteed in the anticipated city, they are free to

act by whatever means necessary in the Earthly City to promote peace and future citizenship in the

City of God.

These three views of eschatological separation are given in order of plausibility. Walker

presents the simplest and least objectionable version. Schuld seems to ignore Augustine’s

penchant for common grace and thus categorizes all of earthly existence as irredeemably bad;

where Christians’ only hope and real responsibility lies in the coming kingdom. Least plausible is

Wills’ perspective that seems to take a narrow view of the Donatist Controversy and apply it as the

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general hermeneutic for interpreting Augustine’s thought. The conclusion of Wills’ understanding

also seems to act as a concerning justification for the horrors wrought by Christianity throughout

history.

Of the three systems of interpretation – totally separate, mostly separate, or

eschatologically separate – the mostly separate view is more common, where the to realities are

both presently real and exist kind of along-side each other. This idea is further developed by

scholars who overlap or comingle the two cities with one another, and thus find even more variant

roles for Christians within civic order.

Only One City

The extreme version of this comingling smashes the two cities together into a singular

reality that is on a path of evolution from the City of Earth toward the City of God. There is a

sense that the two exist in reality, but such existence is on a continuum. Peter Burnell (“The

Problem of Service”, 1993) finds in Augustine no distinction between the two cities. Christians are

fully and inescapably involved in civic life, government, and society. As such, their Christian

responsibility is to promote orthodoxy and drive society towards real peace, where life can best be

lived. For Burnell, it would be a grave sin to Augustine for a Christian to seek to leave society,

because to do so would be to take the life-giving answers of Christianity from the dying citizens of

the Earthly City.

Augustine cautions that one should be careful in politics and should be wary of the status

quo, that the Christian’s best role, according to Burnell’s interpretation, is in identifying where

reform or revolution should take place to bring things closer in line with the ideal of the City of

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God (in Burnell, the City of God is kind of like a Platonic form that the Earthly City is striving

towards).

Whereas Burnell pulls his understanding of civic responsibility primarily from the City of

God, Gerald W. Schlabach looks at Augustine’s life as bishop (“Augustine’s Hermeneutic of

Humility”, 1994) for inspiration. Augustine, Schlabach suggests, lived his life according to a

vision of how things should be, seeing the City of God as the goal. For Christians, their role is to

teach society how to pursue the truth, but they can only do so through non-violent means.

Augustine allowed for the use of violence, but only as a method for maintaining a semblance of

order; the City of God can only be brought about by a high ethic of non-coercion and non-

violence. To act otherwise is to slide the continuum back towards the City of Earth.

This idea, of collapsing the two cities together, is most fully developed in the Radical

Orthodoxy movement of John Milbank, William Cavenaugh, James K. A. Smith, et al. (Theology

& Social Hope, 1993; “Beyond Secular Parodies”,1999; and Introducing Radical Orthodoxy,

2004; respectively). Radical Orthodoxy interprets Augustine as viewing the City of God as the

original created order for humanity, which was corrupted by the fall, thus leaving human beings

within the Earthly City. Anything that is true or good in the world is a vestige of the collapsed

city. The challenge is for Christians to recognize that the civic society they live in is actually the

wrecked City of God. Essentially, human beings are wayfarers journeying to the future renewal of

the City that God has promised in the Eschaton. Until then, it is particularly Christians’

responsibility to pursue and encourage the world’s goodness through various social constructions

such as government and culture.

They come to this conclusion by collectively exploring Augustine’s broad swath of

writings and letters and view Augustine’s action in Hippo as his striving towards the renewal of

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the Earthly City. Even if not the most accurate reading of Augustine, it is certainly Kuyperian and

aligns with Niebuhr’s “Christ the Transformer of Culture” motif.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (Augustine and the Limits of Politics, 1995) takes this idea a step

further and sees in Augustine that the Church is the fullest expression of society’s metamorphosis

into the City of God. She also hears more clearly Augustine’s cautions regarding civic

involvement, especially its tendency to corrupt. Given these two concepts, Elshtain understands

that Christians certainly should be involved in civic governance because they are so well equipped

to administer love and justice, but that the main task of Christians in society is in pursuing the

Church, which will eventually (through the work of Christ) draw all of the Earthly City into it and

become the City of God.

A secular scholar who also finds this line of thought in Augustine is Charles Freeman

(A.D. 381, 2009). He sees this belief that the world is a corruption of the City of God as something

dangerous. Freeman explains that most religious atrocities in the name of Christianity are

primarily Augustine’s fault because of this understanding. If the world is nothing but sin, and

Christians are striving for it’s transformation, then the ultimate good is always ahead of them and

they can (and have) be encouraged to use whatever means are necessary to pursue that end.

Freeman further finds in Augustine a punitive God, so he believes that God’s leaders in the world

are given equal freedom in quelling dissent and silencing questions in the pursuit of their

perceived good.

These viewpoints, of a collapsed city, are coherent and certainly plausible, but it may not

be the best reading of Augustine. The majority of scholarship sees at least some real

differentiation in Augustine’s cities, so it may be that these scholars are anachronistically and too

strongly applying their post-reformation hermeneutics onto Augustine’s political writings, causing

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them to see something that he might not agree with himself. A way around this challenge is to

view these two cities as both existing simultaneously, but in an overlapping, coexisting manner.

Coexisting, Overlapping Cities

There is a hint of the cities overlapping in the works of Elshtain and Milbank, as the City

of God can best be seen in the Church, so in a sense they do overlap. However, the idea is more

fully developed in the scholarship of Michael Gaddis (There is No Crime for Those who Have

Christ, 2005). Gaddis is primarily looking at the Donatist Controversy, but in so doing, he

attempts to explain Augustine’s underlying theology. In it, Gaddis sees two cities that overlap one

another. Christians have citizenship in both, and when they participate in earthly society by doing

good, they are acting as citizens of the City of God, bringing its benefits into the Earthly City.

When they participate in earthly society and fail to uphold heavenly values, they act as citizens of

earth and do not reflect their other citizenship. Here is where the metaphor of living with one foot

in either city is the most true. Human beings are necessarily citizens of the Earthly City, but

because God doesn’t will for chaos to reign on earth, Augustine believes that Christians are given

citizenship in both to bring the benefits of heaven to earth.

The challenge with this idea is that Gaddis uses it to demonstrate a sense of triumphalism

in Augustine’s actions (and the proceeding actions of the Church) where anything done by

Christians can be justified as in service to God, and therefore, the “good” thing to do – regardless

of its earthly ethical value. Gaddis suggests that Augustine did his best to make a coherent system

of civic responsibility, but that even Augustine was incapable of holding to his own demands.

A less cynical view of this overlapping relationship can be found in C. C. Pecknold’s work

(Christianity and Politics, 2010) where he sees the overlap as part of redemptive history.

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Christians have citizenship in both cities, but their ultimate allegiance is the in City of God.

Effectively, Christians live in the City of God in the midst of the City of Earth. Pecknold explains

how Augustine criticizes Constantine for trying to collapse the two cities together, and in so doing

points out that the cities are distinct coexisting realities that influence one another. The Earthly

City can negatively influence its dual-citizenship participants, yet through the same relationship,

the City of God can positively influence the Earthly City. It is the role of Christians to increase

justice in the Earthly City while they are in a pilgrimage to God’s ultimate reality.

Phillip W. Gray (“Just War, Schism and Peace”, 2007) also takes the side of Pecknold and

further explains Augustine’s role for Christians in society. According to Gray, the City of God is

present within the City of Earth in the form of the Church, which is the global collection of

Christians. The two cities will sojourn with each other into the Eschaton where they will be

brought into one – and it is the job of the Church to make sure that as much of the Earthly City

makes it to that point as is possible. As such, the City of God works with the Earthly City to

promote the common good and encourage a strong peace where Christianity can grow. This

comingling of duty promotes a civil order that reflects the full City of God. The more this

happens, the more Christians will have the opportunity to use government to enable life to

properly flourish, and thus bring more souls into the City of God. Gray views this as the accurate

version of how Augustine understood Christian citizenship, but laments how such a theology has

been used by the church in the campaigns of Christendom.

It is this Christian responsibility towards justice and peace that demonstrates to Eric

Gregory (Politics and the Order of Love, 2009) that both the City of God and the City of Earth

coexist. For Gregory, Augustine clearly identifies Christians as active citizens of the heavenly

kingdom, but recognizes that they are also involved in earthly civic life. The Earthly City is not

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ideal, but as people are brought into a dual citizenship with the City of God, they are given an

expectation to make politics and civic society into the best that they can become – to bring the

heavenly paradigms of love and justice into the Earthly City where they are most needed.

Because the scholars who consider an overlapping model of cities/citizenship all broadly

engage Augustine’s thought, there seems to be stronger plausibility to their theses. They also are

willing to express the idea of coexisting cities even in the face of triumphalism, which seems to

demonstrate a desire to avoid anachronism in their applications of Augustine’s political thought.

That said, there are also hints throughout the coexistence views of an already/not yet City of God,

where while it is in the midst of the City of Earth, it’s not fully realized yet. Such a view is

actually quite popular among Christian scholars.

Coexisting with an Eschatological Hope

Although the earthly state can never be Christian, as Jeffrey Abramson (Minerva’s Owl,

2009) understands Augustine to believe, Christians have a responsibility to it as they await the

eschatological City of God. Christians are resident aliens in the City of Earth; their real

citizenship, however, is in the City of God in coexistence, even if that city is not yet fully realized.

Until the Eschaton, Christians have the task of utilizing state structures for the benefit of the

Kingdom. Since the state is utterly corrupt according to Augustine, Christians should not uphold

or promote the state, but they are permitted to make use of it. Abramson suggests that such an

eschatological viewpoint allowed Christians to harness the secular machinery of empire, war, and

conquest in the name of Heaven.

Abramson recognizes that, in view of this possibility, Augustine tried to put limits on

Christians’ use of and involvement in government. Augustine cautioned his audience to avoid

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impious action in civil society, and that they should not encourage or participate in the murderous

violence of the state, even in times of war, because such is clearly antithetical to the anticipated

realization of City of God. However, Abramson notes that because Augustine thinks of Christians

as sojourners awaiting the Kingdom of God, that even though he says they should abstain from

violence, others after Augustine felt that they were excused from complicity in such acts so long

as they are working for the City of God. As such, Abramson sees Augustine as the unwitting

father of the crusades and other religious atrocities.

A slightly different take on this view is from Robert Dodaro, a renowned expert in

Augustine studies (“Between Two Cities”, 2005). In Dodaro’s reading of Augustine, there are still

two coexisting cities, one of which is not fully realized; but the role of the Christian in the Earthly

City is much different from Abramson’s interpretation. Dodaro sees the Christian as a citizen

simultaneously of both the City of Earth and the City of God. Since the City of God is not yet fully

manifest, it is Christians’ task to bless the inhabitants of Earthly City. They are to do so primarily

by offering theological critique and advice to the Earthly City, thus encouraging it in the way that

it should go. Augustine, to Dodaro, was very cautious about Christian involvement in government,

warning of the dangers brought by the temptation to power. Instead of becoming involved in

politics, the best thing that citizens of the City of God can do is be good citizens of the City of

Earth and model for it what real civil life can look like.

In this view, Christians are caretakers of the Earthly City until Christ comes and brings real

peace to the Earth. Augustine would be saddened by the miss-application of his theology of love

and justice in later generations.

J. Warren Smith takes up this idea (“Augustine and the Limits of Preemptive War”, 2007)

and defends Augustine against claims such as held by Abramson and Freeman. Augustine,

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according to Smith, was so clear in his directives concerning political involvement that he cannot

be blamed for the actions of future generations. Smith agrees that the City of God is both an

eschatological ideal and a present reality, and as such, the roles of Christians who hold a dual

citizenship are then called to advance justice in the Earthly City. In the pursuit of justice,

Christians are permitted to work with and in government, but only so far as to pursue actions that

lead to peace without material profit. This is enforced with the affirmation that Christians are only

pilgrims in the Earthly City; for Augustine there could be no allegiance to the earthly state or to

money or to power; to pursue such would be tantamount to relinquishing one’s citizenship in the

City of God. This is a much tighter restriction in Augustine for Christian civic responsibility than

such as understood by the secular community.

Smith’s claims of the Christian’s limit in civil involvement is echoed by Miles

Hollingsworth (Pilgrim City, 2010). Hollingsworth points out that Augustine believed for politics

to be the archetypal sinful activity and the ultimate expression of humanity’s estrangement from

God. Left to itself, the City of Earth will always attempt to pursue a utopian state, but will

continually fail to achieve it. Because of this, God has brought a form of the City of God into the

Earthly City so that Christians would watch out for their neighbors while they await the return of

Christ. This City of God within a City does not have any real locus, but is present in the body of

believers – its full reality will be in an eschatological manifestation. As the Christian pilgrims

watch after the other, they are permitted to utilize the machinery of civil society, but only insofar

as they pursue peace and justice through loving action. As a warning against temptation, Smith

sees Augustine cautioning that any citizen who uses government in the pursuit of war or power or

wealth is demonstrating that they have no citizenship in the City of God.

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Of the Already/Not Yet views of the City of God, the most responsible ones seem to be

those of Dodaro and Smith, as they are considering Augustine within his own context and not

looking at how others interpreted his writings in later generations. Abramson, it appears, is

anachronistically reading backwards into Augustine the actions of future church leaders. As such,

it is probably most accurate within this view to assert that while Augustine believed Christians

could be involved in civil government, he was very concerned with the idea and generally

dissuaded Christian involvement. There is one other view, however, that does see the

eschatological hope in a very different light, and thus understands an alternative role for Christians

in government.

Earthly Government as belonging to the City of God

John von Heyking (Augustine and Politics, 2001) sees the City of Earth and the City of

God as coexisting, yet understands the City of God as not yet to be fully realized. While similar to

the preceding views regarding the overlapping of the cities, von Heyking has a divergent reading

of the nature of government in Augustine. Von Heyking sees in Augustine that political structure

is something given to the People of God, and only properly used by them. Christians should know

that they cannot bring about the full City of God, but they are still called to maintain order and

promote human flourishing through the governance of the Earthly City until the Eschaton.

Christian rulers are given knowledge of the City of God, and as such, are specially equipped to

take care of the Earthly City.

This idea is carried further in the work of Mark Ellingsen (Blessed are the Cynical, 2003),

who also maintains an already/not yet understanding of the City of God. However, he takes the

Augustinian idea of original sin and applies it to Christian civil responsibility. Because the Earthly

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City is irredeemably corrupt, Christians are given dual citizenship so as to take the reigns of

government and serve to restrain the evil in the world. Ellingsen sees Augustine as asserting that

only Christians are fit for government because only they can understand the evil that must be held

back from the Earthly City in order to promote its salvation. Since this restraint of evil is the

primary task of Christians awaiting the Eschaton, they are not limited in scope of responsibility,

because the end of holiness far outweighs whatever means are used.

The unique thing about Ellingsen’s read of Augustine is that he applies it directly to

current American politics, essentially asserting that the political arm of the Religious Right not

only has the duty to enforce Christianity in civil society, but that it has the theological authority to

do so. Fortunately, both Ellingsen and von Heyking’s views do not fit with the overwhelming

voice of scholarship regarding Augustine’s limits of Christian involvement in government and

civil authority; any such claims made for religious rule of society based on Augustinian political

thought can and should be discarded.

Wrap-Up and Conclusion

The above survey demonstrates that how one views Christian civil responsibility in

Augustine hinges on how one understands the relationship between the City of God and the City

of Earth. Many of the views overlap each other and are only different in terms of nuance, such as

the difference between the Mostly Separate and Coexisting perspectives.

Looking at the broader body of Augustine’s thought, it seems likely that neither the Totally

Separate, Temporally Separate, or Earthly Government as Belonging to the City of God models

are plausible readings. This conclusion is convenient because the consequences from any of those

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readings are not favorable to the greater Christian project. The other understandings of

Augustine’s thought, however, are all significantly more appealing.

Models that view Christians as having one foot in the Earthly Kingdom and one foot in the

City of God both pay serious attention to Augustine’s call for civil engagement as well as his

cautions about being too involved. The emphasis on the location of the City of God varies, but the

role of the Christian within the City of Earth is about the same in all of these – there is a definite

mandate to promote peace and justice by way of love and the responsible use of civic machinery.

To do otherwise, such as abandoning society, is not permissible because of the call to love one’s

neighbor. This seems to be the best, non-anachronistic, read of Augustine that takes seriously the

City of God in the context of his various letters and the Confessions.

The plausible outlier here belongs to Radical Orthodoxy’s view of Augustine. Their

understanding is attractive as it highlights Christian civil responsibility, recognizes the good that is

in the world, and has a real place for sin. However, their collapse of the City of God into the

Earthly City seems like too much of a stretch of Augustine’s thought of the existence of the two

cities as independent political realities. It also has a slight triumphalistic ring to it and at times

seems hyper-Kuyperian in its aims.

The conclusion of this review is that some popular, but more extreme, views can likely be

dismissed, leaving this common core of perspectives as the standard for developing a further

Augustinian political philosophy of Christian engagement with the body politic. Most interesting

would be to see a shared undercurrent come to the forefront – that of justice – and have it become

the central aspect in discussions of Christian civil responsibility. An example of this approach can

be seen in Eric Gregory, in his work mentioned previously, and it will be interesting to see where

the civil-responsibility-as-justice concept is taken next.

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Select Bibliography Abramson, Jeffery. 2009. Minerva’s Owl – The Tradition of Western Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Augustine. 1998. The City of God against the Pagans. Edited and translated by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Augustine. 1961. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Classics. Augustine. 2001. Political Writings. Edited by E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Augustine. 1930. Select Letters. Edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Translated by James Houston Baxter. Loeb Classical Library #239. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brown, Peter. 2000. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (New Edition with Epilogue). Berkeley: University of California Press. Burnell, Peter. 1993. “The Problem of Service to Unjust Regimes in Augustine’s City of God.” The Journal of the History of Ideas Vol 54.2 (April): 177-188. Cavanaugh, William T. 1999. “The City: Beyond Secular Parodies.” Radical Orthodoxy. Edited by John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward. 182-200. London: Routledge. Covington, Jesse. 2013. “The Grammar of Virtue: Augustine and the Natural Law.” Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought. Edited by Jesse Covington, Bryan McGraw, and Micah Watson. 167-193. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Dodaro, Robert (Ordo sancti Augustini). 2005 “Between the Two Cities: Political Action in Augustine of Hippo.” Augustine and Politics. Edited by John Doody, Kevin L. Hughes, and Kim Paffenroth. 99-115. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Dyson, R. W. 2001 The Pilgrim City: Social and Political Ideas in the Writings of St. Augustine of Hippo. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. Ellingsen, Mark. 2003. Blessed are the Cynical: How Original Sin can Make America a Better Place. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1995. Augustine and the Limits of Politics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Freeman, Charles. 2009. A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press.

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Gaddis, Michael. 2005. There is No Crime for Those who Have Christ – Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gray, Phillip, W. 2007. “Just War, Schism, and Peace in Augustine.” Ethics, Nationalism, and Just War. Edited by Henrik Syse and Gregory M. Reichberg. 51-71. Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press. Gregory, Eric. 2009. Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hollingsworth, Miles. 2010. The Pilgrim City, St. Augustine of Hippo and His Innovation in Political Thought. London: T & T Clark. Hoover, Dennis R. and Douglas M. Johnston, eds. 2012. Religion and Foreign Affairs: Essential Readings. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Kaufman, Peter Iver. 2007. Incorrectly Political: Augustine and Thomas More. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Kaufman, Peter Iver. 2003. “Patience and/or Politics: Augustine and the Crisis at Calama, 408-9.” Vigiliae Christianae Vol 57.1 (February): 22-35. Milbank, John. 1987. “An Essay Against Secular Order.” Journal of Religious Ethics Vol 15.2 (Fall): 199-224. ___. 1993. Theology & Social Theology: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Miller, Richard B. 2009. “Just War, Civic Virtue, and Democratic Social Criticism: Augustinian Reflections.” The Journal of Religion Vol. 89.1 (January): 1-30. Pecknold, C. C. 2010. Christianity and Politics – A Brief Guide to the History. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Schalback, Gerald W. 1994. “Augustine’s Hermeneutic of Humility: An Alternative to Moral Imperialism and Moral Relativism.” The Journal of Religious Ethics Vol 22.2 (Fall): 299-330. Schuld, J. Joyce. 2003. Foucault and Augustine: Reconsidering Power and Love. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Smith, James K. A. 2004. Introducing Radical Orthodoxy. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Smith, J. Warren. 2007. “Augustine and the Limits of Preemptive War.” The Journal of Religious Ethics Vol 35.1 (March): 141-162. Sullivan, Lawrence E. 2006. Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press.

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