Rudy Giuliani compared Donald Trump to St. Augustine

(Image credit: Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images)

last updated 9 October 2016

Speaking with CBS host John Dickerson on Face the Nation, Trump campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani continued his lonely task of defending Donald Trump by comparing the candidate to arguably the single most famous theologian in Christian history, St. Augustine of Hippo.

"I hate to get terribly theological about it, but ever read the Confessions of St. Augustine?" Giuliani asked when Dickerson questioned Trump's character in light of his graphic sexual remarks. "The reality is men can change, people can change," Giuliani added. "Sometimes going through things like this makes you a much better person."

Augustine was a native of North Africa who whiled away his early years with wine and women. He became an academic and through his interactions with Ambrose of Milan, a bishop who gave away his wealth to the poor, Augustine converted to Christianity and became a celibate priest. He was known as a prudent and thoughtful man who expressed concern for the oppressed and took an exceedingly low view of sexual promiscuity. I'll leave you to locate points of difference from Donald Trump.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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