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Charity after Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West
Author(s): Jonathan Teubner (Author)
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: May 27, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 0198868626
- ISBN-13: 9780198868620
Book Description
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 Augustine’ 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.Editorial Reviews
Review
“Charity After Augustine is a fine work worthy of the attention of the pastor theologian.” — Joey Sherrard, Center for Pastor Theologians
About the Author
Jonathan Teubner, Research Faculty, Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University
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).
