Remembering Jean Bethke Elshtain | National Catholic Reporter

Remembering Jean Bethke Elshtain | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: My sympathies.  Augustine was a complicated intellect as both an author and a pastor.  Indeed, in the end, he walks back some of his younger severity - which is always a good lesson - and is likely the lesson of Elshtain.  I find it interesting to relate Aquinas and Rousseau - that it is human free will that is the divine right of kings, making adherence to the general will necessary before trying to force certain types of decisions on minorities, especially moral ones.  That, in essence, is how to bring Catholicism into the enlightenment, as is a view that the crucifixion was not about divine blood lust to satisfy and ancient debt, but instead a divine vision quest so that the Son could feel the apartness humans experience when sin moves them out of relationship with God and each other.