Christianity and the Secular (review)

This latest offering by Professor Markus is consistent with his trajectory of inquiries and is the publication of his 2004 Notre Dame lectures, the "Blessed Pope John XXIII Lecture Series in Theology." The work exhibits the strengths and weaknesses often found in a lecture series. The argument is sweeping and engaging and contains both syntheses and intuitions of a senior scholar who has chipped away extensively at a related series of questions.

The lectures, which aim "to contribute to an understanding of the place occupied by the secular in Christian history and within a Christian understanding of society," ask "What sort of view of human society in relation to the Kingdom of God would an appeal to an Augustinus redivivus authorize" (9)? In his introduction and four chapters Markus argues that the Christian tradition offers a legitimate place for the autonomy of the secular. The first two chapters trace evolving notions of the secular in the context of the Constantinian revolution or "Constantinian heresy" as some interlocutors would argue. The fourth chapter summarizes pertinent developments between Augustine and Gregory the Great, which transformed what Markus describes as an Augustinian "liberalism" into the Christendom emerging at the time of Gregory. The third chapter focuses on the implications and adaptations of Augustine's notions for the evolving projects of twentieth-century liberalism. The order of the last two chapters is a bit perplexing.

The lectures in many ways synthesize the trajectory of inquiry (perhaps one might describe these as amounting to a project) which Markus has followed in his major publications dating back to 1960. (I should note that I participated in a graduate seminar at Catholic University which Markus offered in 1988 while he was working on The End of Ancient Christianity, published in 1990.) The informed reader will readily find vestiges of Markus's book-length studies and articles (including self-conscious comments on them). Markus's interests are not only those of a specialist scholar but are also those of one who is deeply concerned about the implications of historical developments for Christianity in the twentieth century. The work touches on the debates between Augustinian liberalism as interpreted by Markus and some alternative interpretations of the place of the secular; throughout the author spars with theologians better known for their political and cultural engagement as well as for their broader reflections on Augustinian theology than as specialist scholars in patristics (Oliver O'Donovan is an exception).

It would not be particularly productive herein to offer criticism of the three chapters by covering terrain presented in Markus's major studies which have been previously critiqued. There are, however, comments to be made about chapter three and related issues teased out elsewhere. Markus describes this chapter as his own retractatio responding to criticism that his interpretation of Augustine's view on the limits and functions of public authority comes "perilously close" to making Augustine a "precursor of modern secular liberalism" and to casting the debate in terms of a "modern individualist liberalism" (51). Markus's reply emphasizes the eschatological character of Augustine's views and stakes out a position in contrast to two other positions. The first is the stance of Oliver O'Donovan whose interpretations of Augustine carve out a middle way, offering a less affirming and engaging place for the secular within the economy of God than Markus's interpretation does. The second is the contrapositive position of John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank, who each in differing ways represent what some might term fideism, rejecting the notion that the secular has positive attributes. While acknowledging that the nature of the lectures limits the scope of the book, I found the retractatio to be all too brief.

Markus's discussions draw upon Charles Taylor's work on secularism and liberalism (albeit, by his own admission, all too briefly). One might suggest that just as he has employed Taylor's distinctions on types of liberalism, he likewise might make more extensive...