ELECTION POST MORTEM [R, 11-7-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ELECTION POST MORTEM [R, 11-7-24]

 

In the aftermath of the election, I am thinking of Augustine of Hippo--who by the time he died was Augustine of Rome, and who became St. Augustine--because he was the James Madison of Christian theology. Yes, it was Madison who was the primary writer of The Constitution, and Augustine was the primary theologian who gave us Substitutionary Atonement, The Trinity, and Original Sin, with the transmission of said Original Sin through sex.

 

When Augustine died, he could hear the shouts of the barbarians at the gates of Rome. He knew that the Pax Romana of the great Roman Empire was at an end. He had given his life to making Christianity both palatable and primary in the Roman Empire, and he died knowing that all his work was for naught. The vandals, those without the law, were taking over.

As a young man in Hippo, Augie had no interest in theology, or anything but his own pleasure. His mother, Monica, was a Christian, though, and she prayed devoutly for her son to be converted. Instead, he decided to go to Rome, because there were many and better fleshpots there. Monica prayed even more devoutly. “Don’t let him go to Rome, God. He’ll be lost forever.” Augie went anyway, and there, by chance, he heard Anselm preach his famous bee hive sermon. [2] He was converted, and set about making Christianity acceptable to the legalistic Roman culture and philosophy, which is why the simple belief “…in Jesus Christ, and him crucified” became a huge and impenetrable edifice of conflicting legalisms.

Two points: Monica’s prayer was answered the way she wanted, conversion for her son, even though it wasn’t answered the way she prayed. If Aug had not gone to Rome, he would not have heard Anselm and become a Christian.

And he would not have developed the theology that was so completely in sync with Roman philosophy and culture and government that it became The Roman Catholic [universal] Church—not The Jesus Universal Church.

Second Point: Augustine was a serious and devoted Christian. He really wanted everyone in the Roman Empire to be able to become Christian. He worked to that end. But as he died, he heard the barbarians at the gate. Original sin was going to overwhelm from without rather than from within, and all the work of his life was completely useless.

But the church went on. Lots of bad times along the way, some periods were so bad they were called the dark ages. And Augustine’s theology is triumphant, available for a Hoosier hillbilly to take issue with it.

The bottom line, I think, was said by John Wesley as he died: “The best thing is, God is with us.”

There are plenty of times that we don’t know the way or the will of God, but we can still know the presence of God.

John Robert McFarland

1] He died twelve years younger than I am now.

2] The church is like a bee hive, with one queen bee, and lots of workers, etc. It’s why the sports teams at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA are called The Bees, and why I give “Ambrose” as my pickup name at restaurants. [Don’t spend too much time thinking about that last part.]