World<\/em> magazine he is part of the Evangelical Presbyterian\u00a0Church, was formerly a staff attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and counts among Capitol Hill\u2019s most devout figures.<\/p>\nStewart makes the surprising assertion that to understand the senator\u2019s role in the unprecedented furies of recent weeks we must look back 16 centuries to one of the hottest theological disputes in Christian history<\/p>\n
At issue back then was Pelagianism, a version of Christianity named for its major proponent, the British-born monk Pelagius. His orthodox opponents included two of the early church\u2019s greatest figures. St. Augustine, a hugely influential thinker, is still widely read today; his social philosophy, \u201cThe City of God,\u201d was quoted in President Biden\u2019s inaugural address. St. Jerome was the translator of the seminal \u201cVulgate\u201d Bible in Latin.<\/p>\n
Pelagius taught briefly in Africa and was declared a heretic by church leaders there at the Council of Carthage (present-day Tunisia). That judgment was endorsed by Pope Zosimus in A.D. 418 and reaffirmed by the universal church in 431 at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (present-day Turkey), which also condemned Pelagius\u2019s disciple Caelestius.<\/p>\n
In Stewart\u2019s opinion, the senator\u2019s hostility toward Pelagianism shows a \u201cneo-medieval,\u201d \u201cstarkly binary\u201d and \u201cnihilistic\u201d vision that\u2019s \u201cincompatible with constitutional democracy. . . .Mr. Hawley\u2019s idea of freedom is the freedom to conform to what he and his preferred religious authorities know to be right.\u201d This attitude was also seen, she says, in the maxim of Dutch Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper (cited by liberal as well as conservative Christians) that \u201cthere is not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus Christ is not Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, Stewart contends, Hawley thinks that life in our \u201cinevitably pluralistic, modern society committed to equality is inherently worthless.\u201d Instead, \u201ca right-minded elite of religiously pure individuals should aim to capture the levers of government, then use that power to rescue society from eternal darkness and reshape it in accord with a divinely approved view of righteousness.\u201d Quite the indictment.<\/p>\n
Well, then, what was that 5th Century feud all about?\u00a0 Augustine attacked Pelagian thinking in works such as \u201cDe Gestis Pelagii\u201d (417), which summarized some of Pelagius\u2019s errors as follows.<\/p>\n
.\u201dAdam\u2019s sin hurt only himself and not the human race.\u201d (This rejected belief in \u201coriginal sin\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were sinless men before the coming of Christ\u201d and \u201ca man is able to live without sin if he likes.\u201d (Scripture teaches that all people are sinners in need of salvation, and that only the Savior, Jesus Christ, was sinless.)<\/p>\n
\u201cInfants, even if they die unbaptized, have eternal life.\u201d (This undercut the need for infant baptism.)<\/p>\n
Unless rich people \u201crenounce and give up all\u201d they cannot \u201cpossess the Kingdom of God.\u201d (Pelagius demanded rigid asceticism and self-abnegation not just for his fellow monks but each and every Christian.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Law no less than the Gospel leads us to the Kingdom.\u201d (Pelagius was a strict moralist who made salvation depend largely upon a person\u2019s righteousness in deeds of piety and charity rather than salvation through Jesus Christ.\u00a0British historian J.G. Davies put it this way:\u00a0 \u00a0 Pelagianism disparaged God\u2019s grace with a \u201cbelief that human nature is not corrupted. . . . Man, to Pelagius, is the captain of his soul; his salvation is his own to make, or not.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Now, then, what does salvation have to do with Hawley and 20th Century American culture more broadly?<\/p>\n
Stewart\u2019s chief resource is Senator Hawley\u2019s 2019 commencement address at The King\u2019s College, a specialized Christian school in New York City. [Disclosure: The Guy\u2019s late wife taught at an earlier incarnation of this institution.] The speech got wider circulation when an adapted version was posted online by the evangelical magazine Christianity Today.<\/em> (Read it for yourself at https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2019\/june-web-only\/age-of-pelagius-joshua-hawley.html\/).<\/p>\nHawley suggested that \u201cwe might refer to this era as the Age of Pelagius,\u201d as typified by a quote from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood<\/em> ruling that affirmed abortion choice: \u201cAt the heart of liberty is the right to define one\u2019s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.\u201d<\/p>\nThis means, said Hawley, that \u201cliberty is the right to choose your own meaning, define your own values, emancipate yourself from God by creating your own self. . . . Family and tradition, neighborhood and church \u2014 these things get in the way of uninhibited free choice.\u201d He said this outlook results in cultural decay and \u201ca society defined by elitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the last point, he explained that Pelagius wrongly thought \u201cindividuals could achieve their own salvation,\u201d whereas Christ\u2019s salvation through death on the cross \u201cannounces the weakness and need of every person. And that means it excludes the boasting and the pride of the few.\u201d Like Augustine, Hawley insisted \u201cwe are fragile. We are fallible. We suffer weakness and need. And we all stand in need of God\u2019s grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quite the odd stretch from Pelagius to Trumpite Hawley to Stewart to the readers of The<\/em> New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE QUESTION: How is Trump ally Senator Josh Hawley linked with 5th Century Christianity\u2019s hottest dispute? THE RELIGION GUY\u2019S ANSWER:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 New York Times contributor Katherine Stewart doesn\u2019t care much for conservative Christians. Consider the subtitle of her 2012 book \u201cThe Good News Club: The Christian Right\u2019s Stealth Assault on America\u2019s Children.\u201d (Actually, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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