Augustine’s Cure for Religious Contempt

In The Confessions of St. Augustine (Book II, Chapter 7), Augustine creates a map for Christian’s to follow who wish to avoid the pitfalls of self-righteousness and judgmentalism. First, Augustine begins from the humble position of a pardoned sinner. Second, his understanding of God’s grace and mercy includes the sins that he avoided because of God’s guidance. Methodologically he suggests that starting with oneself and one’s own weakness, which is a natural self-righteous inhibitor. Humility of this sort is not simply for building virtue, but to enhance ones ability to love. Third, Augustine expands the details of the map for one spared various sins by the guidance of God. This spared one, should not reject the person who fell into the pit like a bad ex-smoker. Instead, they (the spared ones) should love that person (who like Augustine) fell into the pit but were healed by the same Physician who guided them away from danger. In fact, Augustine says the proper reaction is that the fallen one should be loved that much more because he (or she) has recovered from the common Physician who preserved the other.

Isn’t the ironic cultural indictment against the “narrow minded Christians” of today a sign that at least some Christians have failed to heed Augustine’s advice? Another way to state this charge is that the ones sent to love offer only unjust judgments or condemnations, and for those who are guilty of self-righteous finger pointing Augustine has good advice. This objection would totally fail if they were no experiences to relate to it. The crazy “sin police” are out there proclaiming that girls wearing make-up are whores, and guys with long hair worship the devil. And most informed American’s know that one need not carry a placard to be a bigot.

Further, were Christians to keep in mind that if they ARE right and Christ did guide them safely past various sins or pitfalls, then they have more to be thankful for and humbled by. I have met many of these humble Christians that follow Augustine’s map, and “narrow minded” and “self-righteous” are titles that even their critics would not use them. I

However, I also think that the picture of health and of Augustine’s healer remind me that some of those who wish to point fingers at the finger pointers do so by one or more of the following : 1) claiming that all religious truth claims (and/or all claims generally) are like witch hunts (that is fictions that kill innocent people), 2) committing the genetic fallacy (something is wrong because of the source it came from – even liars might tell the truth), 3) Deny there is sickness (or health). Although the list may not be exhaustive, the point is we all need to look at what the person is saying and discover the truth of the matter before we join a possible witch hunt against Christians. Maybe as we investigate such claims, we might begin by following Augustine’s map so we can love a little more. In this way even if they ARE self-righteous bigots, we don’t become like them.