Augustine on Political Philosophy in City of God

         I want to raise the question of the church in relationship to its culture. In fact, Wolfhart Pannenberg (“Kingdom of God and the Church,” 1967, in Theology and the Kingdom of God, 1969) notes that one can understand the church only in relationship to the world. For him, too many people take the church seriously by denigrating the world. The relationship is essential for the authentic vocation of the church. In fact, the very concept of a Christian community presupposes an other larger community. 

A classic statement of the relationship is in Augustine (City of God, Books 11-22) saying that the city of humanity was one that began with Cain, who served himself, while the city of God is symbolized by Abel. The city of God is traceable through Noah, Abraham, Moses, the children of Israel, David, the prophets, and the church. The church is a witness to this city, for humanity will find its fulfillment in the city of God. The church is far from perfect, for it has within it people who rebel against God. The city of humanity is indifferent toward the purposes of God for the world. Yet, it has within it a people, the city of God, who seek to fulfill the purposes of God. Human civilizations will rise and fall, but the city of God will endure. The enduring problem, of course, is how the two cities relate in history.

            In Book V.24, he says that rulers are happy if they rule with justice. They show humility, place their power at the serve the majesty of God, love God more than an earthly kingdom, slow to punish and quick to pardon. They take vengeance on wrong to protect the State and not their personal animosity. They grant pardon in the hope of amendment of the wrong-doer. They compensate severe decisions with gentleness, of their mercy and the generosity of their benefits. Such rulers are happy in hope during this life and happy in reality hereafter, when what we wait for will have come to pass. 

In Book XI, Augustine discusses creation. In XI.1, he points out that we long for the City of God with a love inspired by its founder. He wants to discuss the development and end of the earthly city and the heavenly city. They intermingle with each other “in this present transitory world.” In XI.2, he discusses the knowledge of God. As made in the image of God, humanity is near to God, especially in rationality, for humanity shares with the rest of the animals. The mind had to be trained and purified by faith, in order to give humanity greater confidence in its journey towards the truth along the way. He stresses that the Son of God, who is the Truth, took human nature without abandoning divinity, and thus established this faith. In XI.4, he puzzles as to why God decided to make heaven and earth at that particular time, and not before. He refers to some people who admit that God created the world, but say it had no beginning in time, so that creation becomes an eternal process. He admits that this view has force, in that it avoids the notion of creation being an arbitrary act, as if the idea had never occurred before. In XI.6, he stresses that God did not create in time. Rather, God created with time. In XI.9, in a discussion of angels, he says that angels who turn away from God are impure spirits. Since they no longer participate in the divine light, they become darkness. As a result, evil is not a “positive substance,” but rather the loss of good. In Enchiridion 4, he says that what is called evil is really the privation of good. All of this is similar to Plotinus (Enneads, 3, 2. 5), when he said that evil is the lack of good. In XI.10, he says that the reason one calls a nature simple is that it cannot lose any attribute it possesses, there is no difference between what it is and what it has. In XI.17, he says that evil choices make wrong use of good natures, while God turns evil choices to good use. In XI.18, he says that the beauty of the universe becomes richer through the opposition of contraries. God would never have created humanity in the foreknowledge of its future evil state, if God had not known at the same time how God would put such creatures to good sue, and thus enrich the course of the world history by the kind of antithesis that gives beauty to a poem. An antithesis is the same as opposition or contra-position. Such contraries add to the beauty of speech. In the same way, there is beauty in the composition of the history of the world arising from the antithesis of contraries, a kind of eloquence in events, instead of in words. In XI.21, he says that God does not experience time in the way do, as if God were to look ahead to the future, look directly at the present, and look back to the past. God does not have to turn to give attention to something. God sees all without any kind of change. God comprehends it all in a stable and eternal present. God does not give attention to one thought and then another. Rather, all things that God knows are present at the same time. God knows events in time without any temporal acts of knowledge, just as God moves events in time, without any temporal motions within the divine self. In XI.22, he warns us not to indulge in silly complaints about the state of affairs in the world. Rather, we are to take pains to inquire what useful purposes are served by things. Our insight or staying power of thought may give us answer, but if not, we need to trust that the purpose is hidden to us. He again states that nothing by its nature is evil. For evil is a privation of good. The reason for the creation of the universe was the good purpose of God to create good. In XI.23, he says that God, out of divine goodness, created good things. In XI.24, he offers his statement of faith that the Father has begotten the Word, that is, the Wisdom by which all things have been made, his only-begotten Son, one begotten of one, eternal, supremely good. He believes that the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Son being consubstantial and co-eternal with both. This totality is a Trinity in respect of the distinctive character of the persons, and is also one God in respect of the inseparable divinity, just as it is one Omnipotent in respect of the inseparable omnipotence; but with this provision, that when the question is asked about each individual the reply is that each is God and Omnipotent, whereas when the question is about all at the same time they are not three Gods or three Omnipotents, but one God omnipotent. Such is the inseparable unity in persons; and this is how that unity of wills to be proclaimed. In XI.26, he points out that as beings in the image of God, human beings are distant parallels to the divine Trinity. We resemble the divine Trinity in that we exist, we know that we exist, and we are glad of this existence and knowledge. In a way that Descartes would later pick up upon, he says that the certainty that I exist, that I know it, and that I am glad of it, is independent of any imaginary and deceptive fantasies. He refers to skeptics, who would say, “Suppose you are mistaken.” His reply would be, “If I am mistaken, I exist.” After all, a non-existent being cannot make a mistake. Therefore, I must exist, if I am mistaken. Then since my being mistaken proves that I exist, how can I be mistaken in thinking that I exist, seeing that my mistake establishes my existence? Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist. It follows that I am not mistaken in knowing that I know. For just as I know that I exist, I also know that I know. Further, when I am glad of those two facts, I can add the fact that gladness to the things I know, as a fact of equal worth. For I am not mistaken about the fact of my gladness, since I am not mistaken about the things that I love. Even if there were illusory, it would still be a fact that I love the illusions. For how could I be rightly blamed and forbidden to love illusions, if it were an illusion that I loved them? However, since in fact their truth is established, who can doubt that, when they are loved, that love is an established truth? Moreover, it is as certain that no one would wish himself not to exist as it is that no one would wish himself not to be happy. For existence is a necessary condition for happiness. 

In XVIII.1, Augustine summarizes the first seventeen books. In the first ten books he refuted the enemies of the City of God, who honor their own gods about Christ, the founder of that City, and display a bitter hatred of the Christians, with a rancor most ruinous to themselves. Next, he wrote about the origin, development, and the destined ends of the two cities. One is the City of God and the city of this world. The City of God lives in the city of the world, but lives there as an alien sojourner. This City did not proceed on its course in this world in isolation. In fact, as we well know, just as both the cities started together, as they exist together among humanity, so in human history they have together experienced in their progress the vicissitudes of time. The City of God developed not in the light, but in the shadow. 

In Book XIX, Augustine discusses the opposing ends of the two cities. They endeavor to create happiness for themselves amidst the unhappiness of this life. He wants to clarify the difference between the hollow realities of the city of earth and the hope of those in the City of God. In XIX.4, he says that the first task of an individual is that one be reconciled to oneself and for that reason naturally shun death. One should be a friend to oneself, and thus desire to live. In XIX.5, he agrees that human life is social, but there are so many disorders of love in society. Even peace is a doubtful good, since we do not know the hearts of those with whom we wish to maintain peace, and even if we could know them today, we should not know what they might be like tomorrow. In XIX.12, he notes that just as there is no one who does not wish for joy, so no one does not wish for peace. Even when people choose war, their only wish is for victory, which shows that their desire in fighting is for peace with glory. For what is victory but the conquest of the opposing  side? When it is achieved, there will be peace. Even wars, then, are waged with peace as their object, even when they are waged by those who are concerned to exercise their warlike prowess, either in command or in the actual fighting. Hence, it is an established fact that peace is the desired end of war. For everyone is in quest of peace, even in waging war. Whereas no one is in quest of war when making peace. In fact, even when people wish a present state of peace to be disturbed they do so not because they hate peace, but because they desire the present peace to be exchanged for one that suits their wishes. All people desire to be at peace with their own people, while wising to impose their will upon those people’s lives. For even when they wage war on others, their wish is to make those opponents their own people, if they can, to subject them, and to impose on them their own conditions of peace. In XIX.14, he says that the humanity makes of temporal things is related to the enjoyment of earthly peace in the earthly city, whereas in the Heavenly City it is related to the enjoyment of eternal peace. So long as a member of the Heavenly City is in this mortal body, he or she is a pilgrim in a foreign land, away from God. Therefore, one walks by faith, not by sight. That is why one views all peace, of body or of soul, in relation to that peace that exists between human beings as mortals and immortal God, so that one may exhibit an ordered obedience in faith in subjection to the everlasting Law. Now God teaches two chief precepts, love of God and love of neighbor. In them, humanity finds three objects for love God, self, and neighbor. One who loves God is not wrong in love self. It follows that one will be concerned the the neighbor should love God, since one is told to love the neighbor as oneself, and the same is true of one’s concern for one’s wife, children, and other members of the household, and for all other people, so far as is possible. For the same end, one will wish the neighbor have concern for his or her own self. For this reason, one will be at peace, so far as lies in one, with all people, in that peace among people, that ordered harmony, and the basis of this order is the observance of two rules. First, to do no harm to anyone, and secondly, to help everyone whenever possible. To begins with, then, a person has a responsibility for one’s own household. This is where domestic peace starts, the ordered harmony about giving and obeying orders among those who live in the same house. For the orders are given by those who are concerned for the interests of others. Thus, the husband gives orders to the wife, parents to children, masters to servants. In XIX.15, he discusses natural freedom and the slavery caused by sin. He begins by pointing out that in creation, the intent of God was that human beings would exercise lordship over irrational beasts only, but not over another human being. Therefore, the first cause of slavery is sin, whereby human beings were subjected to another human being in the condition of bondage. This can only happen by the judgment of God, with whom there is no injustice and who knows how to allot different punishments according to the deserts of the offenders. Yet, masters are not free people. However, in that order of peace in which people are subordinate to others people, humility is as salutary for the servants as pride is harmful to the masters. Yet, by nature, in the condition in which God created people, no one is the slave either of humanity or of sin. Slavery is ordained by that law that enjoins the preservation of the order of nature. That explains the admonition of Paul to slaves, that they should be subject to their masters, and serve them loyally and willingly. What he means is that if they cannot be set free by their masters, they themselves may thus make their slavery, in a sense, free, by serving not with the slyness of fear, but with the fidelity of affection, until all injustice disappear and all human lordship and peace is annihilated, and God is all in all. In XIX.16, he says that this being so, even though ur righteous fathers had slaves, they so managed the peace of their households as to make a distinction between the situation of children and the condition of slaves in respect of the temporal goods of this life. Yet, in the matter of the worship of God, in whom we must place our hope of everlasting goods, they were concerned for all the members of their household. However, if anyone in the household is, through disobedience, an enemy to the domestic peace, one is reproved by a word, or by a blow, or any other kind of punishment that is just as legitimate, to the extent allowed by human society. However, this for the benefit of the offender, intended to readjust him or her to the domestic peace from which one had broken away. For just as it is not an act of kindness to help people, when the effect of the help is to make one lose a greater good, so it is not a blameless act to spare one, when by so doing you let one fall into a greater sin. Hence, the duty of anyone who would be blameless includes not only doing no harm to anyone but also restraining one from sin or punishing one’s sin, so that either one who is chastised may be corrected by one’s experience, or others may be deterred by one’s example. One’s house ought to be the beginning part of the city, and every beginning is directed to some end of its own kind, and every component part contributes to the completeness of the whole of which it forms a part. The implication is quite apparent, that domestic peace contributes to the peace of the city. The ordered harmony of those who live together in a house in the matter of giving and obeying orders, contributes to the ordered harmony concerning authority and obedience obtaining among the citizens. Consequently, it is fitting that the father of a household should take one’s rules from the law of the city, and govern the household in such a way that it fits in with the peace of the city. In XIX.17, a household of human beings whose lie is not based on faith is in pursuit of an earthly peace based on the things belonging to this temporal life, and on its advantages, whereas a household of human beings whose life is based on faith looks forward to the blessings that are promised as eternal in the future, making use of earthly and temporal things like a pilgrim in a foreign land, who does not let oneself be taken in by them or distracted from one’s course towards God, but rather treats them as supports that help hone more easily to bear the burdens of “the corruptible body that weights heavy on the soul” in Wisdom 9:15, they must on no account be allowed to increase the load. Thus, both kinds of people and households alike make use of the things essential for this mortal life, but each has its own very different end in making use of them. So also the earthly city, whose life is not based on faith, aims at an earthly peace, and it limits the harmonious agreement of citizens concerning the giving and obeying of orders to the establishment of a kind of compromise between human wills about the things relevant to mortal life. In contrast, the Heavenly City must make use of this peace also, until this mortal state, for which this kind of peace is essential, passes away. It leads to what we may call a life of captivity in this earthly city as in a foreign land, although it has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as a kind of pledge of it. Yet, it does not hesitate to obey the laws of earthly city by which those things that are designed for the support of this mortal life are regulated. The purpose of this obedience is that, since this mortal condition is shared by both cities, a harmony may be preserved between them in things that are relevant to this condition. While this Heavenly City is on pilgrimage in this world. It takes no account of any difference in customs, laws, and institutions. Thus, even the Heavenly City in her pilgrimage here on earth makes use of the earthly peace and defends and seeks the compromise between human wills in respect of the provisions relevant to the mortal nature of humanity, so far as may be permitted without detriment to true religion and piety. In fact, that City relates the earthly peace to the heavenly peace. In XIX.19, he refers to a life action, in which achievement is right and helpful if it serves to promote the well-being of the common people, for such well being is the intention of God. We see then that it is love of truth that looks for sanctified leisure, while it is the compulsion of love that undertakes righteous engagement in affairs. We should employ our freedom from business in the quest for truth and in its contemplation, while if it is laid upon us, it is to be undertaken because of the compulsion of love. Yet, even in this case the delight in truth should not be utterly abandoned, for fear that we should lose this enjoyment and that compulsion should overwhelm us. In XIX.20, he refers to the happiness that hope brings in this life. In XIX.21, he discusses the notion that justice unites people into an associate by a common sense of right. Without it, we would have only a mob. Where there is no justice, there is no commonwealth. 

In the City of God, Augustine seizes on the lust for domination that he says characterizes the Earthly City. Once established in the minds of the powerful, how can that lust for mastery rest until, by the usual succession of offices, it has reached the highest power? The answer is the arrogant not rest until they have achieved dominion. This restless love for power explains the sway of history’s great empires and Rome’s hegemony over Augustine’s own world. Indeed, love and conflict are central to Augustine’s discussions of politics. In terms of slavery, government, and property, Augustine is relatively uninterested in a question about government that was of central concern to both Plato and Aristotle: which form of government is best? Unlike Plato and Aristotle, Augustine is uninterested in the historical and social processes by which one regime is typically transformed into another. Augustine is interested in the rationale for a human relationship. He observes that some human beings have the authority to govern or to control the actions of others by the use of coercion. This is unnatural. He then asks how such an authority relationship came to be and what ends it serves. His answer is that it exists only because human beings are sinful creatures who need to be humbled and restrained by force and the threat of force. What is significant is Augustine’s use of traditional ideas about slavery to explain government. Augustine says that human beings are naturally social. They have a common origin in Adam and because of this common origin they are naturally drawn together by bonds of sympathy and kinship. Indeed, he remarks that there is no species so naturally social as humanity. What is it about sin that makes Augustine think political authority exists because of it? The psychological disorder that is symptomatic of our sinfulness makes it difficult for any of us to live in peace with ourselves and others. The human tendency to conflict is so strong that peace could not be brought about if groups were governed only by parental power. Augustine says the earthly city desires an earthly peace, and it limits the harmonious agreement of citizens concerning the giving and obeying of orders to the establishment of a kind of compromise between human wills about the things relevant to mortal life. Their authority comes ultimately from God, who ordained political authority as a remedy for sin. Augustine’s treatment of property is consistent with other Patristic writers in thinking that the division of property is not natural. Augustine continues that one of the functions of laws of property is to protect unjust possession so that those using their property badly become less injurious than they would otherwise be. Those who make bad use of the property to which they are legally entitled do so because of their strong attachment to material goods. Their attachment is so powerful that they would steal or illegally retain the things they wanted if the laws required them to give them up when they used them badly. Laws that allow the unjust to retain possession of property thus keep them from obstructing the faithful by their evil deeds. So strong an attachment to finite goods is an affective disorder that results from human sinfulness. Therefore the fact that sinful human beings have an undue love for material things is what explains the feature of private property. What is it about political authority that makes Augustine think it would not have existed if human beings were not sinful? The answer is that for Augustine, the most salient feature of political authority is just that feature an authority would have to have in order to govern a society of people all of whom are constitutionally prone to conflict: the authority to coerce them. In comparing Augustine, Cicero, and Rome, the notion that political subjection is akin to slavery is weak. First, few societies maintain peace through forms of coercion that bear any resemblance to the treatment of slaves. His study of history should have taught him that peace in any society depends on a large measure of voluntary compliance. Secondly, political society exists to bring about some degree of justice. The fact that societies are perceived by their members to do so helps to explain why the members of those societies comply with the demands of the social order. Thirdly, it might be thought, it is precisely because political societies effectively aim at justice that citizens, especially citizens who are active in political affairs, realize important elements of the human good. Cicero stressed the second and third of the points. Augustine takes a strong stand against that tradition. Augustine is sometimes labeled a positivist or political realist. Positivists in the philosophy of law maintain that some precept counts as a law in virtue of having been enacted or posited in the right way. Immediately after offering his own definition of a people as a multitude in agreement on the objects of their love, Augustine continues that the objects of this agreement, the better the people; the worse the objects of this love, the worse the people. Augustine does not believe that various aspects of political life are beyond any ethical assessment. What he does believe is that the moral assessment of political authorities turns crucially on how they try to bring about earthly peace. The moral assessment of the peace they establish depends upon its terms. Augustine had modest hopes about what public officials can accomplish and so he has modest hopes for politics. In justifying warfare, at least some forms of violence may be justifiable if they proceed from a heart that loves rightly. Augustine argues that laws that permit the use of force to defend oneself, and perhaps another, against unjust attack are not unjust laws, laws may permit lesser evils to prevent greater ones. If Augustine is to argue that Christians may participate in war, he must argue both that the legal actions declaring war are morally acceptable and that Christians are permitted or obliged to obey them. The first he establishes by arguing that wars may be waged in self-defense, if another nation refuses to return property it has unjustly appropriated or if it refuses to rectify injustices. The second he establishes with the qualified assertion that soldiers are obliged to fight a war that has been declared by lawful authority. In terms of the continuing significance of Augustine’s political thought, the force of his theological critique depends upon the alternative social model that he develops, the City of God. That city serves as a social ideal the rightly ordered love, peace, and justice of which no earthly society can realize. It is an ideal by comparison with which every earthly city must suffer. He therefore uses the City of God as a standard against which actual political societies, especially the great empires, can be measured and found wanting. 

 In setting up this situation, as Pannenberg (Human Nature, Election, and History, 1977) points out, Augustine is defending Christianity from the charge that it brought about the downfall of the Empire. He argues that Christians will make their contribution to the political and economic order of a peaceful and just society, but that war is part of human history, and Christianity should not be blamed for that. Although the intellectual achievement of Augustine was impressive, it came at the price of a form of dualism between the “kingdom of God” and the world. He lost the “coming” nature of the reign of God, as it steadily became identified with the church itself. 

Robert E. Webber (Who Gets to Narrate the World? 2008) discusses the three ways that sociologists generally discuss the relationship in relationship to society. One is the separatists or those who think of the church as opposed to the secular world, who argue for a countercultural understanding of the church. The two “cities” are in antithesis. Christians are to live one city, the city of God, and not the other, the city of humanity. The Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren traditions have their own way of living out of this antithesis. Two is the identifiers or those who think of the church as part of that world, who argue that we live in both cities simultaneously. We live in constant tension between service to God and the expectations of our own service in the city of humanity in which we find ourselves. Three is the transforming agents of that world, who argue that the goal of the reign of God is to convert the the city of this world into the rule of God. Medieval Christendom brought both “cities' under the pope. John Calvin attempted to bring church and state together. 

One of the books that has shaped the way many pastors think about the relationship between the church and culture is the book by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951). He notes that we need to be careful in defining what we mean by “Christ” when we set up such an antithesis. For him, “Christ” means the one preached and proclaimed in particular types of Christian communities. He defines these communities in relationship to how they envision Christ in relationship to the culture in which they exist. Now, any of the five responses of a community to its culture could be appropriate as a response. Thus, some communities, like Tertullian, Epistle of Barnabas, Mennonites, Quakers, the Rule of St. Benedict, have a view of the community “against” culture. In this approach, the line between the community and culture is quite thick, almost a wall of separation. Now, some cultures may be so evil that this is an appropriate response, but the community had better be very careful, or else it will become like the Amish communities in America. At the other end, represented by the Christian liberal theology of Schliermacher and Ritschl, as well as the Deists like Thomas Jefferson and John Locke, is a view of the community as “of” culture. It assumes much symmetry between the community and culture, in the sense that the culture largely supports the values of the church. The problem here for the community is that as supportive as the culture may be, it is not the reign of God on earth. The community will always need to discern prayerfully the values of a culture in light of biblical values. In between these two extremes he finds three other ways a community relates to culture. One, represented by Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas, has the community “above” culture, in that Christian reflection represents a synthesis of biblical teaching and cultural influences. When a breakdown of the culture occurs, as it did at the beginning of the Medieval period, the church stood in the breach and held European life together in a synthetic way. Two, represented by Martin Luther, Reinhold Niebuhr, Ernst Troeltsch, Kierkegaard, Augustine, sees the paradoxical relationship between Christ and culture, and is in a sense a dualist approach. The relationship between the community and culture is an uneasy one, to say the least. Three, represented by Augustine, Calvin, Wesley, and Edwards, is that of the “transformation” of culture, and it thus has a conversionist stance. The point is to steadily bring culture toward the light that the community sees in Christ. The involvement of the church in America in abolition and later Civil Rights, prohibition, women's right to vote, and prison reform, are examples of such an approach. It recognizes that while the culture will never fully reflect the values of the community, there may be specific areas where it can, in a sense, get closer. Although Niebuhr does not recommend any of his typologies, readers generally assume the superiority of transforming culture, regardless of whether one is liberal or conservative politically. Niebuhr himself encourages people to do the responsible and realistic thing, reading the culture properly, and then determining the proper response, which he assumes will be one of the five typologies he presented. He assumes that the individual Christian will have a certain degree of reasonableness, rationality, and even detachment, in order to make such a judgment. 

Before I examine a bit more closely what Niebuhr has said, I would to mention another influential work, that of John Howard Yoder (The Politics of Jesus, 1972). What he adds to this discussion, from his Mennonite and classical Anabaptist perspective, is that Jesus needs to the “norm” of any Christian ethic. For him, this means Jesus as a nonviolent zealot, who sought political reformation through nonviolent means. In response to criticism of this position, he says that what is of concern is the politics, so whether Jesus was actually a sage, rabbi, or wisdom teacher does not affect the political effect, which is his primary concern. His book is largely an exploration of the New Testament foundation for this proposition. For him, the cross is central to the ethic of Jesus, and therefore to how Christians ought to act in culture. This willingness to accept the cross as followers of Jesus is central to his proposal, especially since the “powers” of this world are “fallen,” and therefore always require of the Christian resistance. Adherence to the “norm” of Jesus will give the Christian community to oppose the “powers,” whether they be economic, cultural, or political. Any alignment of the church with the “powers” of this world is a denial of the “norm” of Jesus. 

Yoder has established a methodology that leads to viewing the church as opposed to the secular world. As Pannenberg (“Kingdom of God and the Church,” 1967) points out, opposition is a type of relationship that determines an understanding of the church. It has an element of the truth, but taken in isolation, it becomes false. It tends to contradict itself by regarding the opposition as essential for a true understanding of the church, when in reality, it must presuppose a relationship. Further, the idea of opposition neglects the universalist thrust in the notion of the reign of God, a thrust present in the message of Jesus that, for Pannenberg, is central to the mission of the church. For me, such an emphasis upon opposition suggests that the Christian community needs to be pure, and the only way it can do so is disengage from the culture in which the community finds itself. It is also a denial of the ways in which God may be active in culture. Yoder also assumes that what Jesus did in first century Judaism, under Roman occupation, is an absolute that Christians in every age must follow. I want to explore all of this after I have explored some significant critiques of Niebuhr. 

A strong reaction has set in against the typology of Niebuhr. One example is Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (2006). It becomes rather clear that Carter is upset that he would fit into the first type, that of setting the community “against” culture. Although he does not explicitly say this, for him, the only response of “radical discipleship” is to be against culture, to bear the cross of such discipleship, regardless of the culture in which one lives. In order to justify this course of action, he must tell a story of “Christendom” and “Western Civilization” that paints it as largely an evil presence in the world. Carter gathers in the heavy artillery. He values John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas in particular. His critique of Niebuhr is that he assumes the notion of cultural Christendom. It is the “unexamined” background of his book. Yet, Carter’s own Anabaptist and Mennonite assumptions seem quite unexamined as well. His point is that whole history of the rise of Christendom was a bad idea, one that the Christians who engaged in it should have known if they had just paid attention to the gospel. Therefore, bishops would not have worked with Constantine and the emperors after him. Had this not happened, the practice of infant baptism would not have arisen, the use of coercion to make others Christian would not have happened, colonialism would not have happened, and the list goes on. He thinks it was “unsuccessful.” Yet, it persisted, in his understanding, in one form or another, from the fourth century to the 1960's. I guess longevity counts for nothing. He grudgingly admits that it was not all for nothing, in that the church had some positive influence upon caring for the poor and other ways. Yet, for him, the history is largely negative. His willingness to say that “Constantinianism” and “Christendom” are largely the same thing is another attempt to create a negative evaluation of 1600 years of history. I do not want to engage in dissecting this notion, but it has been customary since at least the 1960's to deplore the Constantianian epoch. For example, Pannenberg (Human Nature, Election, and History, 1977) notes that this tendency considers the period the downfall of the moral authority of the church, since it united with the Empire and thereby was no longer the church of the martyrs. He grants that the historian has much evidence to support the charge. First century Christianity likely viewed the Roman Empire as the last and worst world empire. However, Origen argued against Celsus that if Christianity would become the dominant faith of the empire, it would not lead to the destruction of the empire. Rather, the peace that Rome brought to this part of the world met a counterpart in the peace that Christ seeks to bring. Eusebius, an early author of the church, sought a unity between Christianity and State. Richard Tarnas (The Passion of the Western Mind, 1991) says the church became the only institution capable of sustaining some semblance of social order and civilized culture in the West, and the bishop of Rome, as the traditional spiritual head of the imperial metropolis, gradually absorbed many of the distinctions and roles previously possessed by the  in fact, the Western church assumed an extraordinarily universal authority in medieval Europe. The Roman Church became not just the religious counterpart to the Empire, but its historical successor. Rome the persecutor became Rome the defender, progressively uniting itself with the church. My point is that although a church of the martyrs sounds morally superior to a church of the empire, I am not sure that long term, a church that tries to exert its emphasis upon the state and culture might not have long term positive effects. The difficulty, as I will point out, is that coercion, which is the extreme weapon of choice of by political authorities, a weapon that Jesus, Paul, and Peter seem to endorse (the powers of the sword and so on), does not seem fitting in the hands of bishops. In that sense, the two cities idea of Augustine and the two kingdoms idea of Luther become attractive. 

Carter grants that the cultural Christendom of modernity has created some positive trends, such as the value of the individual and freedom, it has largely been negative in its colonialism, sexism, slavery, capitalism, and so on. Well, he accuses Niebuhr of being “nice” in his portrayal of the choices between “Christ and Culture.” One cannot accuse Carter of being “nice” to the Christian tradition, to Medieval Europe, or to those Christians who sought to free the church from state establishment. For Carter, there is a narrow strand of faithful Christian witnesses that finally re-stated itself in the Anabaptist movement in the Reformation period and continues on in Kierkegaard to Barth to some extent, but especially in Yoder, Hauerwas, and himself. 

Carter offers his own typology for a post-Christian age. For him, Christendom types accept violent coercion, whether they legitimate culture, humanize culture, or transform culture. These types recognize that in this world, every culture will need to exert force in order to defend itself, and Christians need to accept their responsibilities within the culture to do so if necessary. However, non-Christendom types are pacifist, whether they accept the vision of transforming culture (Martin Luther King Jr.), of humanizing culture (Mother Teresa), or separating from culture (Amish). Carter himself does not seem to acknowledge that his own “non-Christendom” positions of pacifism actually assume a degree of tolerance and even acceptance from the culture. In other words, they also must assume some moral symmetry between their community and the culture in which they live. He rightly points out that this typology shows the diversity within the pacifist position. Yet, Carter makes it clear that the only valid, faithful Christian witness is that of pacifism. His concluding chapter, “Jesus or Constantine,” makes it clear the type of choice he thinks Christians of all ages must face. Any choice other than the “non-violent” choice is not one he will accept as the response of a faithful disciple.

I hope the reader can see the arrogance of the position Carter takes. People like Augustine, Pope Gregory, Duns Scotus, Anselm, Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Billy Graham, have all been placed outside of the realm of genuine discipleship. For me, any approach that does this, while lifting up a small strand of thinking in the history of the church, that of pacifism and the Anabaptist movement, is immediately suspect. Carter writes of the unexamined presupposition of Niebuhr. One of the unexamined presupposition of all brands of pacifism is that culture is largely evil. Culture is part of the fallen “powers” that represent a danger to the Christian community. If you engage culture in an honest dialogue, it will harm the purity of your community. Yet, his brand of “non-Christendom” reactions also assume some symmetry and tolerance from culture. My point is that he has put such a negative read upon his notion of Christendom that the only reasonable discipleship response is to repent of the past and separate in the present. Quite bluntly, culture is not a worthy dialogue partner for someone as “pure” as Craig Carter, Yoder, and Hauerwas. The background assumption of pacifism, however, is that you can only be contaminated by engaging the culture. I think I am right in suggesting this, for this is a violent world. At least, this is what my own brand of Christian realism I learned from the Niebuhr brothers teaches me. As much as any culture may want to avoid violence, if the culture is to defend itself against its enemies, it will need to have the courage to fight. The pacifist of all types is actually calling for the destruction of the culture in which he or she lives. The pacifist is “too good for this world.” Its demands of a perfect civilization will never find realization in this world. The courage to take stands in the midst of ambiguity is not part of the approach that Carter recommends. Pacifism will reign in heaven, but o earth, the courage to fight will always be necessary. 

These are weighty matters before us. It involves us in an attempt to properly “read” a culture, “read” Christ, and then engage in meaningful action and witness in the world. 

What Carter calls Post-Christendom is another way of referring to postmodernity. While Christianity had an important role to play in forming modernity, postmodernity is the flowering of the skepticism that modernity always had of Christianity, a skepticism we see present in Deism and in the French Revolution of 1787. We also see judgment of the cultural role that Christianity played within modernity by Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. One might even think of such thinkers as the birthing stage of the postmodern setting in which we now find ourselves. In any case, it might be helpful to see that the view Hamm has of modernity and postmodernity is hardly one that has achieved consensus. 

Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (1989), would largely agree with the analysis of Western Civilization and Christendom as provided by Carter. They would sharpen the above discussion of modernity that its fulfillment is Nazi government. The shame of such a statement is that the Nazi movement, along with the Communist movement and the Muslim Militant movement, are violent reactions against modernity, which does indeed have its emphasis upon democratic institutions and scientific methods designed to improve the quality of everyday life. Granting their point that many German liberal theologians joined the Nazis, as did philosopher Martin Heidegger, it does not mean they all did so (many did not). In any case, the authors seem horrified at the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, not acknowledging that Truman struggled morally and spiritually with this decision and opted for it because of the human cost of invasion. They make it clear that their real objection to the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Truman was that Western Civilization actually defended itself against the threat of the axis powers. Although they acknowledge on the one hand the evil that Nazi and Japanese Empire brought upon the world, they discount the courage showed by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Truman to act against this evil and in defense of Western Civilization as combating evil with evil. Therefore, they reject any form of accommodation to modernity as they define it, and therefore reject the entire project of a theologian like Paul Tillich. 

Hauerwas and Willimon go on to criticize the notion of Martin Marty, who thought of the church scene in the 1960's as one of the evangelical community as a “private church” and the liberal theology of the time as “public church.” For them, Reinhold Niebuhr is the great apologist for the public church. Of course, the public church notion assumes symmetry between church and a culture somewhat friendly to the church. There can be little doubt that when culture changes, as all of these authors agree, then the mission and vision of the church needs to change. My point is that Marty and Niebuhr were ministering to their settings with faithfulness, and we need to learn to minister in a new setting. They show how far they reject modernity by rejecting its notion of individual rights. They assume that the state created these rights, when the founders of America said that the rights are from God, and thus the Nation has a responsibility to acknowledging rights that God already gave. As already noted, Tarnas makes it clear that modernity received its valuation of the individual from the Christian notion of the worth of the individual as created in the image of God, and even from the Reformation notion of priesthood of believers. Theologically, then, in creation, God gave independence to human beings, creating them in the image of God, granting them worth and dignity, and granting to them rationality and creativity. Human beings are to join with God in caring for creation and for improving this planet as a home for human beings, both in nature and in its political structures. Thus, Christians can happily see the prevenient grace of God present in the notion of individual rights. However, Hauerwas and Willimon will not go this direction because they want to reject “modernity.” They go on to reject another Niebuhr, this time H. Richard, in his book, Christ and Culture for its subtle repressiveness and suggestion that transformation of culture is a goal of Christian involvement in political life a democracy. I agree, again, that the assumption of H. Richard Niebuhr is that there is some harmony between the goals of culture and the goals of the church. Hauerwas and Willimon, in portraying modernity as the perpetrator of evil, clearly fault the Niebuhr brothers for not seeing it. Personally, I think the negative review they offer of the Niebuhrs reveals the shallow quality of their thinking. I do not fault the Niebuhrs for addressing their times as they were. I will reserve some fault, if we must go down this road, for post-modern church leaders for not perceiving that the times had changed, and then not finding a way to address the needs and language of this new culture. By the way, we can see the pacifist trend of this book in lifting up John Howard Yoder as a better theologian of church and culture than the Niebuhr brothers. As they summarize, for Yoder, the activist church seeks to improve society, the conversionist church seeks to call people out of culture, and the confessing church seeks to create a community that worships Christ in all things. Faithfulness is the goal of the confessing church. It will be a church of the cross in the world. 

What I am suggesting is that those who, like Yoder, Hauerwas, Willimon, and Carter, have clearly taken a political stance in relation to Western Civilization in general and America in particular that is one of opposition. They have laid onto their political stance the label “radical discipleship.” They have offered a read of America and Western Civilization as evil, in the sense that all “powers” are evil, and have then sought at some level to disassociate themselves from their cultural home. The church of the martyrs is a morally superior to the church that sought to work with the Empire in order to stabilize the economic and political order. Minnesota megachurch pastor and theologian Greg Boyd also espouses an Anabaptist message since he renounced his more conventional conservative beliefs in a controversial 2004 sermon series called "The Cross and the Sword" that earned him a 2006 New York Times feature story. He also wrote a popular book called The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church. A younger neo-Anabaptist is self-proclaimed "urban monastic" Shane Claiborne, a thirtysomething popular lecturer whose 2008 book, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, likened America to the Third Reich.

Part of the current theological debate that involves both evangelicals and liberals is the extent to which the Mennonite tradition will expand its influence to that of other traditions. In the context of church history, Anabaptists are best known as Mennonites, Brethren, Moravians, and, in their more dedicated forms, Amish. Quakers are sometimes associated with the tradition in outlook though they have separate historical origins. Traditionally Anabaptists are pacifist and separatist from society to varying degrees, foreswearing national loyalties. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestant and Catholic governments persecuted them for their perceived theological and political subversion. Many Anabaptists immigrated to colonial America, where they prospered. However, the Anabaptist tradition has often emphasized its history as victim and outsider. Mennonite World Conference chief Larry Miller confessed to the Lutheran reconciliation service: 

"At times, we have claimed the martyr tradition as a badge of Christian superiority. We sometimes nurtured an identity rooted in victimization that could foster a sense of self-righteousness and arrogance, blinding us to the frailties and failures that are also deeply woven into our tradition."

 

This admission is significant because the notion of “radical discipleship” among some Christians equates to the notion that if you do not suffer for your faith, you are not being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Yet, for these authors, and for the many pastors who have followed them, the nature of this “opposition” is not essential to discipleship, even by the way they lives their lives. They receive the blessings of that home, whether they be economic, intellectual, political, or cultural, and yet alienate themselves from their home because it was not a perfect home. They view themselves as too pure, so they encourage rejection of culture. Further, I find this view of this culture narrow and alienating. Spiritually, it disconnects its followers from the prevenient grace of God at work in the past 1600 years. It disconnects its followers from any sense of gratitude for the gifts that this culture has given them. If one writes a story of their cultural home that is only an account of its sins, one can only feel alienated and frustrated. It may seem as if this opposition is a radical form of criticism of the present social reality. As Pannenberg (“The Kingdom of God and the Church,” 1967) points out, it turns out to be the most dreadful and conservative conformity to society. Its social function diverts attention from the human situation into the realms of otherworldly fulfillment. If I might offer an anecdotal conversation with a clergy who was into this mode of thinking, when I suggested that his position would lead not only to the death of Western Civilization, but to his own as well, his response was that it would not bother him if that was the will of God. For me, this conversation is some verification for the statement by Pannenberg that this vision of the church actually allows for its exploitation as one of the social institutions of society. The church must not confuse criticism with aloofness. It must take with great seriousness the present arrangements of society in light of the coming reign of God. The point Pannenberg is making that the church has a responsibility to make every culture an increasingly loving, just, and peaceful place, and that means involvement in its political and economic institutions and willingness to use coercion against criminal elements within and against external threats. Thus, in contrast, I would suggest that the place to begin is love of our home. Yes, our cultural home is not what it can be. The ideals of liberty, peace, and justice are always ahead of this civilization, but they are goals towards most participants in this society find worth and acceptable. The reason that pacifist approaches to reform like that of Ghandi and King work is that they can tap into the core values of this civilization and lead people toward a fuller application of them. Tiananmen Square stands as a witness that a nation and culture that does not have such values is not moved by pacifist witness. The fact that pacifist reform can work within Western Civilization is a testimony in itself of its worth and greatness, as is the willingness of Muslim militants, Communist governments, and Nazis to squash pacifists a testimony to their evil. 

The focus on “Jesus” in this group of writers makes of Christ the ultimate basis for a doctrine of the church, which then allows them, as Pannenberg (“Kingdom of God and Church,” 1967) puts it, to exist in “that splendid isolation of religion from society.” 

The focus of these political attacks upon Western Civilization upon the admitted sins does not acknowledge the progress it has made. For example, Hegel made the point that the ideals of freedom and tolerance arouse out of Christian ideals, as did the ideals of the modern constitutional state, of human rights and especially of freedom. Pannenberg (Ethics, 1977) says they represent a tolerant form of the Christian faith that is critical of authority. Such political ideas draw their strength from the continuation of the Christian tradition. Advances in the quality of everyday life of its citizens, deriving legitimacy of governance from the consent of the governed, abolition of slavery, removal of racism, elevating the rights of women, are just a few of the significant advances it has made. Western civilization has created political and cultural institutions that can change as new knowledge arises that gain the consent of the people. 

Further, the focus on the sins of Western Civilization is often done in isolation from the sins present in other cultures. The American brand of slavery in the South was evil. Yet, it did not bring slavery to Africa. The tribalism of Africa often led to one tribe making slaves out of another. Colonialism as a program of Western Civilization was sad chapter of that history. Yet, the tribalism it found in Africa was hardly pure. It had its own sins, as did the civilizations of Asia. What often comes across as a form of self-loathing by members of Western Civilization is a denial of the sins that every culture and civilization has in its history. 

The attempt to ground pacifism in the teaching of Jesus is a way of abstracting the historical Jesus from his setting. In fact, these political authors create a “Jesus abstraction” that is somehow to be a norm for Christian behavior in every age and culture. Clearly, Jesus adopted a nonviolent strategy for his immediate followers. We can all be grateful that he did not try to form an army. Yet, given the Roman occupation, it may well be that he sought to provide a way for the Jewish people to avoid the self-destructive path of resistance to the Roman Empire of his time. The history of first century Judaism that led to zealot rebellion and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple suggests that he had some wisdom here. However, in disagreement with Yoder, Paul and Peter suggest that governing authorities have a responsibility to use force to in order to keep the full flowering of human evil at bay. In that sense, governing authority, while imperfect, is hardly so evil that Christians have no responsibility for it, if given the opportunity. It would take several hundred years, with Constantine, before the church would have such an opportunity and responsibility. Very simply, pacifism, given the world in which we live, is a call for the church in the West to assist in the collapse of Western Civilization. Clearly, I do not think this would be a good, either for the church or for humanity. 

Pannenberg (“The Kingdom of God and the Church,” 1967) offers a way to think differently about church and world by saying that the primary point of the reference for understanding the church is the reign of God if it is to be faithful to the concern of Jesus. This means that the message of the church has a universalist thrust. The expectation of the reign of God explains the factual inseparability of church and world. The church is true to its vocation in the world when it anticipates and represents the destiny of all humanity and of the goal of history. If we narrow the concern of the church only to opposition, we actually deprive the church of its social significance. If we are not careful, the concern of the church will become the religious needs of some people, needs which a secular culture is leaving to fewer of its numbers. For him, then, the secularizing of the culture that postmodernity represents is a challenge to which the church of this time has not responded. It continues in its present (1960's, for him) stance by being “a hangover from another historical period.” If the church is to respond to this challenge, it will need a new emphasis upon its vocation as an eschatological community “pioneering the future of all humanity.” Now, for me, this is quite prescient. Already in the mid-1960's, Pannenberg was able to see that the transition from a modern to postmodern era had begun, and he proposed a way for the church to respond to the challenge. 

For Pannenberg, an emphasis upon the coming reign of God means the church points beyond itself. The coming rule of God over history suggests a form of unity to humanity toward which history is moving. In an addition, this unity is suggested in the notion that if God is “one,” then humanity must also have a unity. Significantly, this unity is not one that can be coerced. It cannot be enforced by violence. Such a forced unity would not testify to the Creator of humanity and world for human nature cannot be ultimately opposed to the Creator and the divine rule. A rule by violence or coercion means that the subjects are by nature opposed to the divine rule. Such a unity would contain the seeds of its own destruction. The only unity consistent with the rule of God is one based on justice and caring for each other. The reign of God will fulfill the social destiny within the emerging unity of humanity, thereby satisfying the needs of each individual as well. The reign of God is the concrete reality of justice and love, concerned with both individual behavior and social institutions. Since the coming reign of God is “coming,” no present arrangement of social institutions can reflect it, and therefore theocratic societies are out of the question in terms of faithfulness to the message of the reign of God. Any political acts by Christians is provisional, of course, but that does not make them irrelevant, for they have an oriented toward a worthwhile goal. The measure of this activity is the movement toward justice and love. The church is itself preliminary to the reign of God, in which, as the conclusion of Revelation makes plain, there will be no “temple” and no “church” as we understand it. Yet, this preliminary, provisional activity of the church on the way to the reign of God does not make it irrelevant. 

For Pannenberg, humanity needs an “honest” or “authentic” institution that will uncover the limitations of all present forms of social and political life, bringing them into contact with the ultimately destiny of humanity in the reign of God. The church is to be that honest place where one can confront the short-comings and limitations of the present life of humanity. It accomplishes this unity through its communion with Jesus, its mission in the world, and its sacramental community. This “critical” function toward society must not succumb to the temptation of severing itself from the problems of society, as the separatist or oppositional understanding of church and society suggests. The presence of the church as a social institution within a culture is a reminder to political life that the present arrangements of society are not the “end” in any meaningful way and the church stirs the imagination for social action that moves society toward the fullness of the reign of God. For Pannenberg, this stirring can occur because the Holy Spirit is a life-giving force in the community and world, offering an anticipation of the joy of the fullness of the reign of God, healing, and counters the trend toward specialization by focusing on wholeness.

To conclude, it seems to me that the stance of the church as one in basic opposition to culture, the Mennonite option that has gotten wider acceptance among many clergy, at least, through the work of Yoder, Sider, Carter, Hauerwas, and Willimon, is not a viable option. It has an entirely too negative read of both modern and postmodern culture. Frankly, if followed by many Christians, it would justly be labeled as the reason for the downfall of Western Civilization in general and America in particular. The violent result of such a fall would rest upon their shoulders. I do not consider the church of the martyrs as more moral than the church that seeks to work with society to create an increasingly loving, peaceful, and just culture. Thus, my judgment is that some form of either simply recognizing the tension or of accepting some form of transformation of the world. In both cases, one would recognize that the political arrangements of any society do not fully reflect what God wants. For that reason, theocracy is not a valid Christian option, or it assumes the imposition of the reign of God on earth through coercion. In any case, such involvement by the church would have the goal of avoiding use of coercion, while also seeking expansion of justice, peace, and love. Coercion could mean soft tyranny that inappropriately restricts the use of personal property, inordinate government taxation, inability to keep spending within receipts, law to inappropriately restrict individual behavior, and so on. It could also refer to more obvious forms of tyranny present in Communist, Fascist, and Radical Muslim states. All of this suggests some form of “Christian realism” and “public theology.” It means that Christians need to be willing to make the tough choices, including war, in order to protect political and economic institutions. If Christians are too pure, too Jesus-like, to make such decisions, then they are, in a sense, too good for this world. They are truly so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.