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Charity after Augustine explores why the Augustinian tradition's attempts to build solidarity in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. Focusing on the concrete practices of love and charity - almsgiving, works of mercy, good works - Teubner demonstrates how religious leaders attempted simultaneously to bind and hold communities together while also, in fits and starts, to expand and include others in their communities.
The first part probes how Augustine's thought is put into practice, informing a tradition of political action inspired by concepts of love and enacted through practices of charity. In a second, more expansive part,
Charity after Augustine turns to the ways in which the Benedictine tradition, as recieved by Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux, transforms this vision and puts it into practice in contexts radically different from those of Augustine's age. At the heart of this book is an attempt to find a non-idealized vision of love that can inform thick relations within a community that are not diluted but are rather strengthened by the incorporation of outsiders.
List of contents
- I. Historiographical Intervention I
- 1: Charity and the Formation of Spiritual Judgment
- 2: Charity and the Limits of Unity
- 3: Charity and the Spirituality of Reciprocity
- II. Historiographical Intervention II
- 4: Benedict and the New Pastoral Arts
- 5: Gregory the Great and Charity's Professional Demands
- 6: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Fragmentation of Charity
- Epilogue: Solidarity and the Practice of Theology
About the author
JONATHAN D. TEUBNER is a member of the Research Faculty at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. Previously, Teubner held an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship at the Institut für Antikes Christentum at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and was the Associate Director of the Initiative on Religion, Politics and Conflict at the Univeristy of Virginia. He is the author of
Prayer After Augustine (2018).
Summary
Charity after Augustine explores why our attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion, at least in the West, have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about a more just society. By focusing on concrete practices of love or charity, this book probes the double-sided nature of the Christian concepts and practices of charity.
