Augustine’s very very short version Christian history, from a sermon he preached in 407: “Among all Christians (your attention please, brothers and sisters) … among all Christians, there are four sorts. Either good ones are born of good ones, or bad ones are born of bad ones, or bad ones of good ones, or good ones of bad ones. I think that is plain enough.”
And right there, you’ve got to get into change, causality, contingency, complexity, and context—all the stuff of the study of history.
Donatistism You Will Always Have With You
Augustine wasn’t really doing history in that sermon, of course, but urging faithful African Christians to be faithful. The last “sort” that he names, “good ones of bad ones,” is offered specifically as a counter to the Donatist heresy and the Donatists’ claim about purity—that you’re faith isn’t pure if it came from people who’s faith isn’t pure. Maybe your parents taught you but then fell away, or your childhood minister was also a sexual predator. Maybe the person who baptized you did horrible things the same day.
So many heresies come and go. Donatism seems to be perennial, always a temptation to us.
I know so many Christians who worry about what they’ve inherited, coming to faith through the ministry of Ravi Zacharias, for example, or being discipled by Mark Driscoll, or having their spiritual sensibilities shaped by ___________ (fill in the blank).
And such things matter.
But also.
As Augustine says, there’s this deep, old Christian idea that sometimes good ones come from bad ones.
Conceiving a Need
Have you noticed a lot of new ads for AI tools? The ones I see on various streaming services are aimed at convincing college students and young professionals and would-be creatives that this tech will turn them into magical, mechanical centaurs who can do great things.
Does this mean that people have to be convinced to use AI?
Compare to the early days of search engines or social media. No one had to be persuaded to Google. And the pressure to join Facebook in the early days was from friends being on Facebook, not TV advertising telling you that you were missing out.
The AI ads convey a feeling of inevitability and ubiquity, but might actually indicate the opposite—the need to advertise.
Why Care About Church Politics?
I’ve been thinking about these monks who advanced arguments for papal authority in the Early Middle Ages. The monks weren’t really trying to do that, according to historian Peter Heather. They were trying to escape the meddlesome interference of petty local bishops.
But it turns out a good way to dodge episcopal control is to get direct authorization from the pope. Of course the pope might meddle too, but it is a lot more difficult to do that from Rome, and the monks figured the Holy Father would probably have other things going on, and be much, much more likely to just leave them alone. So in Europe in the 800s and 900s, more than 450 monastic houses requested and received papal charters. Another 150 of so forged papers. Those documents—real and fake—empowered monasteries to tell their bishops to take a hike (and incidentally but significantly furthered the idea of a central power over Christianity).
Andrew Jotischky, in his new 1,200 year history of The Monastic World, notes that was actually only one such maneuver. Look at the longer story, you see monks asserted the rights of kings over local lords when that helped them. They appealed to wealthy benefactors when that helped them. They worked hard to set limits on bishops, but also argued for bishops, when that was an effective way to limit secular power, which could also be meddlesome
We’re so sorry, they might say to a sheriff or mayor or duke, but only a bishop can tell us what to do. And then to the bishop, we’re so sorry, but only the pope …. And to the pope, our deepest apologies, but the king ….
Now, sometimes people think that historical accounts of power and checks on power undermine or even delegitimize the religious part of religious history. Like, because an account focuses on power relationships and political maneuvers, that is saying that that’s the only part of human experience that’s real. But monastic men and women really did aspire to sainthood. They achieved great feats of ascetic athleticism in those monasteries. They lived lives of prayer, meditation, devotion—in the contexts made possible by conflicts over governance.
What’s interesting to me is the way the history of church politics gives shape to the space for spiritual lives. The story of the monks’ arguments for the pope helps explains what was possible, what was available, what choices were apparent to people when, as Augustine said, good ones were born of good ones, bad ones of bad ones, bad ones of good ones, and good ones of bad ones.
Redemption Arc
Three things that seem easy to believe:
Good ones —> good ones
Bad ones —> bad ones
Good ones —> bad ones
And a thing that takes some kind of faith:
Bad ones —> good ones
(I hope you can find it.)
That final bit about the history of religious authority’s centralization is very interesting. Some of the most illuminating theological conversations I’ve listened into have pivoted around a careful look at history, and how interpretation of Scripture fits into the whole matrix of socially and materially pressing issues—and their conceivable solutions.
Our best and worst moments all emerge out of the story of people trying to be faithful, personally and together, in a complicated world.
Thank you for providing a word to describe what I see among many of my friends "Donatism." Throwing out everything after a leader's fall from grace has never made sense to me. If it aligns with Scripture, after all, what makes it errant? I now need to read this sermon of Augustine.