Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter

Description: In Augustine and the Fundamentalists Daughter Margaret Miles weaves her memoirs together with reflections on Augustines Confessions. Having read and reread Augustines 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 Augustines 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. Endorsements: 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 Augustines Confessions and her self-disclosure is as compelling as Augustines. This is a soul-rending book that opens the world of Augustine to the world of a fundamentalists 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 Fundamentalists 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 lifes defeats fears delights and changes in the vignettes of memories narrated from either Augustines new state of restful faith or Margaret Miless 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 About the Contributor(s): 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).