Augustine And The Fundamentalist's Daughter [Hardcover]

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. 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 chanl“p