Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter
In Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter, Margaret Miles weaves her memoirs together with reflections on Augustine's Confessions. Having read and reread Augustine's Confessions, in admiration as well as frustration, over the past thirty-five years, Miles brings her memories of childhood and youth in a fundamentalist home into conversation with Augustine's effort to understand his life. The result is a fascinating work of autobiographical and theological reflection. Moreover, this project brings together a rare combination of insights on fundamentalists' convictions and habits of mind, as well as on differences among fundamentalists. Such reflections are especially urgent in this time in which fundamentalism is prominent in political and social discourse.
Top Highlights
“But this does not account for his feverish anxiety to understand time. Why such anguished appeals to God to allow him to understand? What is at stake for him?” (source)
“I remain (at best) agnostic about immortality; the beloved community is enough for me” (source)
“distractions—if that is what he means by ‘curiosity” (source)
“Augustine was constantly and painfully aware of encroaching darkness, in himself as well as in others” (source)
“But the me that came out was a surprise: lusty, full of desires, bursting with energy” (source)
"For over thirty years we have read and heard Margaret Miles on
Augustine, and her insights on this spectacular ancient have been
compelling. Now we read Miles in Augustine's Confessions, and her
self-disclosure is as compelling as Augustine's. This is a
soul-rending book that opens the world of Augustine to the world of
a fundamentalist's daughter. We have known for a long time that
scholarly study reflects the life experience of the scholar, but
Miles has taken this both to new heights and new depths. This book
reveals both Augustine and the world of a fundamentalist, and it is
simply stunning in its depth of disclosure and revelation--all what
we have come to expect from Augustine and now from Miles."
-Richard Valantasis
Co-director, Institute for Contemplative Living, Santa Fe
Canon Theologian for Formation and Education, Diocese of the Rio
Grande
"Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter is a revealing,
lively, and deeply engrossing conversation among many speakers,
from Saint Augustine to modern poets to the multiple voices age and
insight have given Professor Miles on her own journey from
fundamentalism to wisdom. In this book, we meet the rich tapestry
of life's defeats, fears, delights, and changes in the vignettes of
memories narrated from either Augustine's new state of restful
faith or Margaret Miles's hard-won place of gracefully honest
reflection. Find a quiet room, pull up a chair, and listen to this
superb scholar and teacher talk with her longtime mentor,
Augustine, about life, love, sex, faith, and family. It is a
conversation not to be missed."
-Mary Ann Tolbert
George H. Atkinson Professor of Biblical Studies
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean
Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley
"For over thirty years we have read and heard Margaret Miles on
Augustine, and her insights on this spectacular ancient have been
compelling. Now we read Miles in Augustine's Confessions, and her
self-disclosure is as compelling as Augustine's. This is a
soul-rending book that opens the world of Augustine to the world of
a fundamentalist's daughter. We have known for a long time that
scholarly study reflects the life experience of the scholar, but
Miles has taken this both to new heights and new depths. This book
reveals both Augustine and the world of a fundamentalist, and it is
simply stunning in its depth of disclosure and revelation--all what
we have come to expect from Augustine and now from Miles."
-Richard Valantasis
Co-director, Institute for Contemplative Living, Santa Fe
Canon Theologian for Formation and Education, Diocese of the Rio
Grande
"Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter is a revealing,
lively, and deeply engrossing conversation among many speakers,
from Saint Augustine to modern poets to the multiple voices age and
insight have given Professor Miles on her own journey from
fundamentalism to wisdom. In this book, we meet the rich tapestry
of life's defeats, fears, delights, and changes in the vignettes of
memories narrated from either Augustine's new state of restful
faith or Margaret Miles's hard-won place of gracefully honest
reflection. Find a quiet room, pull up a chair, and listen to this
superb scholar and teacher talk with her longtime mentor,
Augustine, about life, love, sex, faith, and family. It is a
conversation not to be missed."
-Mary Ann Tolbert
George H. Atkinson Professor of Biblical Studies
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean
Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley
Product Details
- Title : Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter
- Author: Miles, Margaret R.
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2011
- ISBN: 9781621894537
Margaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She is the author of A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (2008).