Augustine for 2007

It makes very little sense for a thirty-seven year old man like myself to commend to you the writings of someone like Augustine of Hippo, as if my endorsement mattered. But tonight, because I'm riding high on the Sunday-night exuberance of a day well spent, I will. Apart from Jesus, the biblical prophets and apostles, Augustine is the most influential person in the history of Christian thinking. Amazingly, such a statement would be largely undisputed, even by his critics, a full 1,500 years after his death. As all philosophy is footnote to Plato, all theology is said to be a footnote to Augustine. I just found a few new websites dedicated to Augustine's complete writings and secondary literature about him (www.augustinus.it is one, though most of the site is in Latin or Italian). Did you know that a current biliography about this man runs to over 25,000 entries? If you've never read Augustine's Confessions, maybe this is the year to check it out. Arguably, it is the most published book in history other than the Bible, and is instantly enjoyable as an autobiography of a staggeringly smart man who encountered Christ as a great sinner, while in his friend's backyard. He was never the same after than night (nor was Western Christianity). The whole Reformation, as some have said, was nothing more than a debate in the mind of Augustine, with his view of grace triumphing over his view of the church. Grandiose statements aside, the Confessions is surpisingly intimate and warm. If you are a Christian, you will easily recognize in this book the voice of a fellow traveler, someone who may have little in common with you culturally, but many things in common spiritually. No one will blame you for skipping the last couple of chapters on the philosophy of time, etc., but the rest is gold. It you're a non-Christian, the Confessions contains an interesting account of how a man with plenty of intellectual ammunition against Christianity in the end found Christ to be more compelling than all his doubts.