On Augustine

For my doctoral program I’ve been thinking and writing about Augustine, paying particular attention to Rowan Williams as one of the most interesting interpreters of the famous Bishop of Hippo.

In On Augustine (Bloomsbury)—really a collection of lectures and papers spanning decades—Williams writes with subtlety and affection, exploring nuances in Augustine’s thinking we might otherwise overlook, and paradoxes we might be tempted a little too neatly to resolve. An excerpt I love from Williams’ sermon on the 1600th anniversary of Augustine’s conversion:

“The gospel still sounds through: at the heart of everything is a love that can bridge all difference and enmity, whatever the cost, however long the waiting, however hard and bloody the search for the lost. This is what is poured out for us and in us in Jesus; and we are set free by the assurance that nothing can deflect or weaken such a giving. . . . In the world we know, the world of widening gulfs, hardening enmity, violence and suspicion, this is good news we must never cease to proclaim. From over the wall which traps us in our various social paranoias we must hear the voice that cries, ‘Pick it up and read! Pick it up and read!’ Read the record of God’s mercy in Scripture and in the stories of the triumphs of his grace in the saints; read and be moved to trust and action and growth. ‘You know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep.’”