Cultural Christians Slow Read: Chapter 8, where Augustine critiques Christian Nationalism
It's not just an American thing after all
In 1 Samuel 19, when Saul is pursuing David and is planning to kill him, David’s wife (and Saul’s daughter) Michal helps David escape. To allow David to gain a head start in running away, she puts a large idol in his bed, and tucks it in under some covers to look like a sleeping man.
The trick works and buys David just the time he needed to get far away. But that’s not what I find so fascinating about this story. Rather, it’s the IDOL.
Have you noticed it? The man after God’s own heart and his wife, the daughter of the first king of Israel, just happen to have this man-sized idol sitting around the house. Well, more like standing somewhere, likely more prominent than we’d like to think.
Today, anything weird or unusual, we can stick in the closet, especially if guests come over (if you’re visiting my house and open a closet door, toys will rain on you; you’ve been warned! One closet in our old house even used to have a hanging toy skeleton—I kid you not!). But there were no closets or garages to hide large objects easily in ancient houses. The floor spaces were open. Any idol—presumably a statue of some pagan divinity—would have been standing there, visible to all who came to visit David and Michal in their home.
Why is it in their house? Also, what kind of a person thinks (as Michal did), when confronted with a time of difficulty, “hey, it’s a good thing I have this idol around. I could totally use it to save the day”?
But then, people have always been really good at making idols or, at least, keeping them around, just in case. You just never know when one might come in handy!
In chapter 8, I tell a story about one such pagan statue of a goddess in the increasingly Christian Roman Empire. For much of the fourth century AD, emperor after emperor kept trying to figure out what to do with a 400-year-old altar to the pagan goddess Victory, complete with the statue of the goddess.
This altar and its statue used to stand in a prominent place in the Senate house in Rome—they have been there since before the birth of Jesus! Well, over the course of the fourth century, some emperors moved the altar out and placed it in storage. Other emperors, in turn, kept placing it back in its original location. So it went, back and forth, for nearly a hundred years.
Why didn’t it occur to anyone just to destroy the idol, I’ve wondered?
But the story of this particular statue and its altar fits in well with the story of Roman religious nationalism. The Romans, since their founding, believed that the gods had given a special blessing to Rome, making it into a prosperous empire. It appears that some Romans, when they came to Christ, continued to believe this, but seeing this belief as Christians—that God had given a special blessing to the Roman Empire.
But then in AD 410, the city of Rome was viciously sacked by the Goths. Both the pagans and the Christians, as a result of this horrific and unthinkable event, found their faith shaken. The pagans blamed the Christians for allowing such evil to come to the empire—their neglect of the pagan gods had clearly resulted in the violation of the age-old pax Deorum (peace with the gods), leading to this calamity. The Christians, in turn, blamed God for abandoning them and for allowing such great evil to happen.
Augustine wrote his City of God to respond to both groups. To summarize this 800+ page book, his answer to them was two-fold: First, it was always God, not the pagan gods, who made the Roman Empire prosper, just as he has always sent rain to bless the just and the unjust. Second, God is in control in both times of prosperity and of evil. But excessive concern for the earthly city, whether it be Rome or Jerusalem, can too easily become an idol for believers. We must remember that the true city, the one we should love most, is the City of God.
This is an appropriate reminder as we are just days removed from celebrating July 4th. Of course, we should love our country and pray for its well-being and for God’s blessings upon it and us. Of course, we should mourn evils that we see around. But we should also remember that the true city and the only perfect one is the City of God.
We are citizens of a city and a nation here on earth, but our hearts long for heaven.
Three books I would recommend for anyone wondering about how to think theologically and historically about the love of nation and the love of God, and what this means for us as citizens of this nation.
John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?
John Wilsey, American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion
Tracy McKenzie, We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy, is one of my absolute favorite books of the past few years. It has really stayed with me, I’m realizing—the sign of a powerful read.
Chapter 8 Reading Questions
1. What do we learn from the fights over the Altar of Victory?
2. In what ways did early Roman history make the Roman world the perfect place for developing a culture of religious nationalism?
3. What did Augustine learn about the sack of Rome from interviewing the survivors? What about the event was normal, and what was exceptional or unusual?
4. What does Augustine have to say in response to the profound suffering of those who survived the sack of Rome?
5. What is theologically sound history, according to Augustine? Why is such a view of history the best antidote to Christian nationalism?