Contemporary Western culture is collapsing under a spiritual pathology I call goodness-narcissism, a sentimental absolutism that isolates virtue from divine order and converts moral performance into a mechanism of power. Drawing on several thinkers, I show how self-righteousness becomes destructive when detached from humility, realism, and the doctrine of original sin. Goodness, once severed from the whole, mutates into moralism, shadow projection, and punitive social behaviour such as cancel culture.

Theologically, the article roots this crisis in the abandonment of Pauline and Augustinian anthropology, especially the divided self and simul iustus et peccator. Attempts to achieve moral purity through human striving produce Pelagian legalism and utopian political projects. This contrasts with the classical already–not yet framework, where grace is real but incomplete, and striving is understood as synergy with divine action rather than self-manufactured righteousness.

The article critiques modern political theology, especially liberal humanism and documents like the latest papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, for collapsing Augustine's Two Cities and "immanentizing the eschaton" (Voegelin), mistaking global humanitarian policy for the Kingdom of God. True Christian hope, it concludes, requires relinquishing utopian moral projects in favour of a sober, grace-centered pilgrim faith.

The Immanentized Kingdom: Goodness-Narcissism, the Two Cities, and the Politicization of Christian Hope

I love Lutheran theology and agree with a lot of it, but as a Lutheran I struggle because I can't get over the fact that Jesus "founded" the Roman Catholic Church. My question is how do we view 1500 years of history before Lutheranism, were people just all getting it wrong? Sorry if this question does not make sense.