Our doctrine of history undermines both the nostalgia and the utopianism that can lead to extreme political views. Progressives look at the past as filled with darkness and evil and believe our only hope is in a future society we can achieve through politics. On the other hand, conservatives often look back to past “golden eras” and see the present and future as flawed and bleak. But St. Augustine’s great work The City of God shows the biblical view of history, namely, that the past, present, and future were all filled with human evil and God’s sustaining grace, that we can work for a more
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