St. Augustine was no stranger to culture wars – and has something to say about today’s

(The Conversation) — Americans are deeply divided, and the results of the 2024 presidential election are unlikely to heal these divisions. If the 2020 election is any indication, they might even become worse.

As a scholar of character and politics, I think a lot about how to bridge differences. In this heated election season, I keep returning to a surprising source: a thinker who lived in a time of deep division, 1,600 years ago.

Augustine’s culture wars

Augustine of Hippo is one of the most influential thinkers in Western history, holding sway across religious and political divides.

A celebrated Catholic saint, the theologian and bishop was also foundational to Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. Public intellectuals from New York Times columnist David Brooks to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham cite his influence. President Joe Biden quoted Augustine in his inaugural address, while Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, chose Augustine as his patron saint when joining the Catholic Church.

Yet Augustine’s reputation in his own day might give us pause. Born in North Africa in the fourth century C.E., he lived at a time of deep division in the Roman Empire and was often seen as a culture warrior.

An Algerian stamp commemorating the life of St. Augustine.
State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Augustine experienced the tumultuous decline of the Roman Empire, as internal struggles and invasions drove the vast realm toward collapse. He died while his own city of Hippo was under siege by the Vandals.

Meanwhile, the empire had seen dramatic religious change. Over Augustine’s lifetime, Christianity went from being a persecuted sect to the official religion of the empire – but not without controversy.

In his influential book “City of God,” written between 413 and 426, Augustine vigorously defends his religion against “pagan” critics who blamed Christianity for the sack of Rome. At the same time, he challenges “heretics” and “schismatics” who questioned the authority of the Catholic Church.

These debates were acrimonious. Some Catholic priests were killed, beaten or blinded by Circumcellions, a radical group of Christians that attacked opponents with the hopes of becoming martyrs. Once, Augustine narrowly avoided being assassinated because he took an alternative route home.

Despite such violence – and even because of it – Augustine advocated for political and religious unity. In “City of God,” he offers a vision of the political community, or “commonwealth,” that emphasizes “peace” and “concord” among diverse citizens.

Common objects of love

While advocating for peace, Augustine combined rigorous critique with efforts to find common ground – one reason his example is relevant today. In my recent book on his political thought, I identify three practices of his that can help people today deliberate across differences.

First, in his book, Augustine didn’t require diverse citizens to share the same faith or ideology. He defines a commonwealth as a “people” united “by a common agreement as to the objects of their love”: the goods, values and aspirations they share. These common objects need not be religious. In fact, the bishop of Hippo advises Christians to unite with non-Christians, and he encourages citizens with different beliefs to agree on specific common goods without agreeing completely on why.

An illustration from ‘The City of God,’ showing Troy’s construction – and destruction.
Mel22/Philadelphia Museum of Art via Wikimedia

Living in an empire riven by violence, Augustine focused especially on civic peace. He understood peace not simply as the absence of violence, but as a relationship of justice and friendship among citizens. Centuries later, another Augustinian, Martin Luther King Jr., described a similar vision of “positive peace” in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

For Augustine, sustaining this peace requires securing other basic goods, from physical health and a sense of community to “breathable air, drinkable water, and whatever the body requires to feed, clothe, shelter, heal or adorn it.” Many recent debates in the U.S. – from climate change and COVID-19 to economic security and health care – reflect disputes over basic goods that contribute to peace.

But civic peace does not mean repressing dissent. Augustine invoked the Roman statesman Cicero, who lived 500 years before and compared civic concord to musical harmony among “even the most dissimilar voices”: “What musicians call harmony in singing is concord in the city, which is the most artful and best bond of security in the commonwealth.”

Like harmony, civic concord is not permanent or stable. Harmonizing with other citizens requires careful attunement, attentive listening and sustained practice.

Common goods – and common evils

Second, Augustine knew that sharing a good in common can get conversation off the ground – keeping dialogue alive when disagreement threatens it.

This focus on common goods may be especially useful in our current political environment. A March 2024 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most Americans agree that specific rights – for example, to vote and assemble, and to privacy and equal protection under the law – are essential to the country’s identity, as are freedoms of speech, of religion and of the press.

Similarly, an early 2024 Ipsos poll found that, though Americans feel the country is more divided than in the past, 69% believe “most Americans want the same things out of life.”

Yet, even if citizens cannot agree on what they support, they might at least agree on what they oppose. A “lover of the good,” Augustine wrote, “must hate what is evil.” Focusing on common evils might help to secure consensus.

As philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has observed, social movements often begin not by agreeing on a vision of justice, but by uniting around what they resist – whether that be slavery, domination or discrimination. This is why community organizers ask people what makes them angry: Agreement on common threats can help diverse citizens form coalitions to secure common goods.

A bipartisan task force of the American Bar Association provides a recent example of citizens with different politics uniting against common challenges: threats to democracy, fair elections and the rule of law. Since an October 2024 New York Times/Siena College poll shows that 76% of likely voters believe “American democracy is currently under threat,” this shared concern could provide a basis for finding common ground.

Scholars debate in an illustration from ‘The City of God’
Maître François/National Library of the Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking their language

Finally, Augustine recognized that persuasion is often more effective when we engage other people on their terms rather than on our own. In “City of God,” he advances his arguments by appealing not only to “divine authority,” but also to reason. His criticism of the empire’s moral corruption, for example, was rooted in his religious convictions, yet he also cites the Romans’ own intellectual authorities, such as Cicero and the historian Sallust, to press his points.

Appealing to others’ authorities shows respect for their values. It’s also effective. Across a range of issues, from same-sex marriage to military spending, research shows that engaging opponents according to their own moral values is typically more persuasive than trying to convince them based on ours. Social scientists describe it as “the key to political persuasion.”

Americans cannot expect complete harmony. Differences are real, and conflict is inevitable. But as Augustine believed, identifying common goods and engaging others on their own terms might help diverse citizens find concord – and perhaps even sing in the same key.

(Michael Lamb, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, Wake Forest University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)