Vance vs. Augustine, Round 2
A further dive into De Civitate Dei to dredge up some more contemporary issues facing JD Vance's behavior and the attitudes of the party he belongs to.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I really don’t enjoy discussing theology. I take the Socratic opinion that most supernatural occurrences are beyond human understanding, and trying to pin down concrete evidence about matters meant to be taken on faith is pure folly. Besides, I’ve found that the more fervid the defender of their religion in our place and time, the less likely it is that they’ve read and comprehended the actual teachings of their holy book.
Because of that whole J.D. Vance debacle at the beginning of the year, I pulled my copy of St. Augustine’s City of God out from my closet. Under my dress pants and polo shirts, I keep a shelf of books that I don’t need often enough to display in my bookcase, but which come in handy often enough that I would regret cycling them out. More specifically, it’s crammed between Emily Post’s Etiquette and the two-volume Johnson O’Connor Vocabulary Builder. I figured that while I still had it off the shelf, it would behoove me to squeeze a little more juice out of it for another article before tucking it away again. Though the work as a whole is about contrasting pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs, it also concerns itself with the way earthly cities are run. There are certain modes of conduct in rulers that Augustine condemns which have little to do with religion. I find it fascinating how often the behaviors of the current political administration in the White House are indirectly condemned (and further, mocked) by passages in this book. Here are three more ways Vance has failed to live up to basic principles enumerated by St. Augustine in City of God.
Blaming heretics for weather events
Just to get ahead of a little potential criticism, I understand that Protestants believe in the whole “sola scriptura” thing, and the televangelists that started this phenomenon might consider themselves as part of an entirely different religion from Vance, but these people caucus with the Republican Party all the time. Moreover, I’m sure some of them are people he’d call his friends. As someone who lacks a spine, I’m sure JD would gladly endorse any and all of these theories if he believed it meant he’d win another election, regardless of his actual beliefs. Book 2, Chapter 3 points out that natural disasters happen indiscriminately, to both those who claim to worship the revered deity in the particular civilization and also to the infidel. They happen during times of supposed faithfulness as well as contemporary faithlessness. To claim that one natural disaster is heaven-sent begs for justification for every other earthquake, tsunami, and hurricane in human history. Also, it breaks with the Abrahamic God’s modus operandi to cause such an event without forewarning. Genesis 7 details how Noah was instructed to build an ark prior to the flood, and Genesis 19 shows that he also cared enough about Lot to give his family the opportunity to flee Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction as well.
Using the injustice of neighbors to justify petty land grabs
Book 4, Chapter 15 details the way that cities looking to expand their borders can act in such a way as to cause their neighbors to appear unjust, and though justice is a good reason to go to war, this scenario serves as an exception. Donald Trump has repeatedly stated his desire to expand the borders of the United States into Canada, Palestine, Greenland, Mexico, and even technically Panama. Moreover, anytime he’s asked whether military invasion is off the table, he avoids the question entirely. Vance denies that an invasion is in Mexico’s future, but his word is worthless. Particularly in Mexico’s case, we can see that drug cartels are given as the shoddy justification for our increased military presence on the border in the same way Augustine has detailed. The administration is rejoicing in the injustice of a neighbor in order to make war and expand the borders, rather than attempting to resolve the problem through peaceful means.
Mistaking glory for domination and vice versa
We touched on this idea a little in the last article, but the “love” Vance feels is closer to the normal person’s definition of “loyalty.” There’s nothing mutual about the esteem he seeks; depending on their position, he either wants a pat on the head from others, or for them to brown-nose him endlessly. Book 5, Chapter 19 deals with this quality. In the meeting with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, multiple failures of communication occurred due to piss-poor leadership on both ends, but things came to a head when Vance repeatedly pressed Zelenskyy on whether he’d said “thank you” for any of the aid his country has received. Of course, social media clip aggregators were quick to collate videos of every time he thanked the U.S., but they have entirely missed the point of Vance’s interrogation. He did not care whether Zelenskyy thanked America as a whole, nor did he care whether he thanked the previous administration. His concerns were about what kind of tribute he’d pay on this trip specifically. I don’t approve of Zelenskyy for a litany of reasons, and there were certainly ways he could have navigated that meeting without puckering his lips, but Vance was there to pick a fight because of his desire for domination.
For Vance to claim that his disagreement with Francis on St. Augustine to be a matter of opinion ignores the reality of the situation. Either he’s failed to properly read the words set in front of him, or he hasn’t really read the texts at all. It’s one thing to be a scumbag, but it’s an entirely different problem when we have to deal with scumbags who try to cloak their viciousness in theology. During Biden’s term, people often brought up the idea that he should be excommunicated because of his stance on abortion, but he was never claiming to make that decision based on his faith, and to my knowledge his family hasn’t ever sought to abort a child. In this case, however, Vance has sought to pollute the popular understanding of Catholic doctrine in order to push his own interests. I’m a lapsed Catholic, so far be it from me to tell the new Pope what to do, but my goodness does it reflect poorly on the Church as a whole to permit a public figure of his stature to lie about doctrine. Only time will tell how Leo XIV will choose to judge these plainly heretical beliefs among the gentry.