Reading Augustine amid Pluralism and Nationalism: Theological Resources for Understanding Public Institutions and Identities

This dissertation contributes to Christian theology of public life by seeking theological resources for resisting the current growth of religious nationalism (especially among American evangelicals) by turning to the theology of Augustine. It uses an interdisciplinary method, conducting theological retrieval while applying insights from social science and political philosophy, particularly by viewing institutions and identities as loci of community. It investigates the question: How can the ecclesiological, eschatological, missiological and anthropological aspects of Augustine’s theology of public life, expressed in De Civitate Dei and in the anti-Donatist writings, serve as a resource for theological retrieval to inform Christian theology of public life today, particularly in light of current Christian vulnerability to nationalism? Chapter 1 reviews representative samples of theologies of public life currently influential among American evangelicals, with the problem of nationalism in view. Chapter 2 considers the context in which Augustine wrote. A key characteristic of social crises in his time was that no clear and consistent distinction had ever been drawn between political institutions and identities on the one hand, and religious institutions and identities on the other. Augustine’s originality and importance stand out in contrast to the two approaches that dominated his time: the religious isolationism of the Donatist movement, and the redemptive view of the Roman state exemplified by Eusebius. Chapter 3, focused on ecclesiology, examines Augustine’s argument that the church is a trans-national, and therefore trans-political, institution, because the biblical testimony teaches that the gospel must go out to all the nations. Chapter 4, focused on eschatology, considers his argument that the church must be distinct from the world, because the “two cities” are separated by the doctrine of election. Chapter 5, focused on missiology, looks at how Augustine reframes what constitutes true human happiness in order to argue that the heavenly city is to use politics only to pursue penultimate ends of justice and mercy. Chapter 6, focused on anthropology, considers the running theme in De Civitate Dei that treats the social order of the political community as a common ground in which the two cities meet – permanently attached by a common human nature, but permanently alienated by the spiritual opposition between the sinful and the redeemed. Each of the above chapters concludes by considering how Augustine’s influence contributed to the emergence of the distinction between political institutions/identities and religious institutions/identities. The Conclusion discusses how Augustine can help us understand the value, and dangers, of a theology of public life adept at what one scholar called a “constant dodging of extremes”; the importance, and difficulty, of keeping the church trans-national, trans-political and distinct from the world; the urgency of maintaining, or rebuilding, a functional relationship between religious institutions/identities and political institutions/identities, distinguishing them without separating them; the necessity of interrogating modern social categories (“culture,” “society”) theologically; the extent to which American evangelicalism has oscillated between Donatistic and Eusebian tendencies; and ways we can begin using more complex conceptual toolkits to rethink what religious and political communities are and how they relate.