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Second, Neo-Platonism had no explanation of history. The Christian doctrine of Creation does not mean merely that when God said "poof," the material cosmos popped into being. It means also that God is a principal actor in the unfolding drama of the world, its peoples, and its destiny. As John 1:14 puts it, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Neo-Platonism had no place for the Incarnation, but Augustine came to see that this central datum of Christian revelation was the key to understanding the human story.

Between the conversion of Constantine in 312 and the conversion of Augustine in 386, the Christian movement had been transformed from a small, persecuted sect into a tolerated, then legally recognized, and finally officially established religion within the Roman Empire. While there were many benefits that came with this transformation, including the fact that Christians were no longer routinely hauled into the arena or fed to hungry lions, there was a downside as well.

Within a few generations, those who had once been persecuted became persecutors. For the first time, Christians had to think about what it means to follow Jesus Christ while also participating in civil governance. What does it mean to wage a just war? Can followers of a Palestinian peasant who declined to call armies of angels to deliver him from physical assault now sanction violence against heretics and recalcitrant pagans in his name?

Eusebius of Caesarea, the biographer of Constantine, had hailed the emperor as the 13th apostle and acclaimed his conversion in utopian terms. Nearly a century later, Augustine realized that such hopes were as misplaced as they had been premature. As wealthy refugees from Rome began to stream into Hippo with their horror stories of Alaric's acts—temples burned, women raped, citizens forced to flee for their lives—Augustine reminded his hearers that the City of God in its pilgrimage here on earth was not exempt from the ravages of time, that it was ever marked "by goading fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations."

With the assumptions of "Christendom" shaken again today by the forces of terror, Augustine teaches us that we must not equate any political entity—whether it be the Roman Empire, the American republic, the United Nations, or anything else—with the kingdom of God. Islam proclaims an undifferentiated understanding of the human community (ummah), whereas Christianity, especially in the Augustinian perspective, requires a proper respect for the complementary but clearly distinguishable roles of church and civil authority.

Whenever this distinction is forgotten or minimized, the Christian faith is in danger of being politicized and the state idolized. When this happens, religious liberty invariably gets trampled. The danger of being co-opted by forces inimical to the gospel is not limited to one political party or ideology. It can arise from any point along the political spectrum, from the raucous right, the loony left, or the mushy middle.

In the early 1930s, many earnest Christians in Germany equated the Nazi state with the direct unfolding of God's purpose in the world. In the face of this crisis, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whose 100th birthday we celebrated this year), and other courageous church leaders supported the Barmen Declaration. The first and second articles in this statement of faith argue for the supremacy of Jesus Christ over every temporal authority that would usurp the crown rights of the King of Kings:

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September 2006, Vol. 50, No. 9