In the introduction to his book Love and Virtue in a Secular Age, political theorist reflects on how liberal Christianity tends to value the universal over the particular, and thus the needs of “mankind” over those of specific communities. (See for instance the immigration debate.) He writes:

In modern times Christians have, sometimes more and sometimes less willingly, become partners (by now, it is clear, junior partners) with modern rationalism or the modern ethic of scientism (including moral and political science) in dissolving the legitimacy of anything that particularizes and divides our humanity. To stand up for anything particular— therefore, to stand up for anything positive— is to stand against humanity.

Hancock begins the following paragraph:

We are thus all post-Augustinians now…

Writing before the election of Pope Leo XIV, Hancock could not have foreseen that an Augustinian priest would become the world’s visible and authoritative Christian leader. If what the world needs now is a stiff dose Augustinian thought, that’s what we’re getting from this Pope, who cites St. Augustine constantly.