Augustine and Social Justice
Contributions by Mary T. Clark, Aaron Conley, María Teresa Dávila, Mark Doorley, Todd French, J. Burton Fulmer, Jennifer Herdt, Rodolfo Hernandez-Diaz, John Kiess, Matthew J. Pereira, Siobhan Nash-Marshall, Edmund N. Santurri, George Schmidt, Sarah Stewart-Kroeker, Sergey Trostyanskiy, Darlene Weaver, William Werpehowski Edited by Teresa Delgado, John Doody, Kim Paffenroth
Publication date:
14 January 2015Length of book:
344 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498509176
This volume brings into dialogue the ancient wisdom of Augustine of Hippo, a bishop of the early Christian Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, with contemporary theologians and ethicists on the topic of social justice. Each essay mines the major themes present in Augustine's extensive corpus of writings—from his Confessions to the City of God— with an eye to the following question: how can this early church father so foundational to Christian doctrine and teaching inform our twenty-first century context on how to create and sustain a more just and equitable society? In his own day, Augustine spoke to conditions of slavery, conflict and war, violence and poverty, among many others. These conditions, while reflecting the characteristics of our technological age, continue to obstruct our collective efforts to bring about the common good for the global human community. The contributors of this volume have taken great care to read Augustine through the lens of his own time and place; at the same time, they provide keen insights and reflections which advance the conversation of social justice in the present.
How I would have loved a volume like Augustine and Social Justice to help me explore the implications of such reflections on justice. Despite the many works written on Augustine, including those that address Augustine’s understanding of justice, very few helped me probe what Augustine’s thought means for how we conceptualize and seek social justice. This volume does just that. The essays in this volume represent an impressive diversity of perspectives and cover a remarkable array of topics.