Confessions...

It's unconscionable that I finish Augustine’s Confessions; it’s a large book and, intensely dense, full of the authors musings about everything from his childhood, to Aristotle’s ten categories, to Platonics, to his conversion, to his mother and his mother church. Perhaps, it’s because of it’s great length, being inside someone’s head for what seems to be an extremely long time, but he is now my conscience. If I do something wrong, I hear Augustine's (as played by Sean Connery) voice warning me about sin and righteousness. 

Before, I didn’t know if I was comfortable with his theology after learning he advocated force to compel religious conversion. (Bad theology makes for bad behavior?) For me, it’s one thing when God uses pain for redemptive purposes, but another completely when a human tries to wield that same rod. 

There's this idea, in the emerging church, that truth is relational, incarnational. Augustine, who lived in the 300's, understandably, seems to see the world in such stark black and white and blames human beings for EVERYTHING. It seems, in maintaining this view, sacrifices mercy to the god of rightness in a way Jesus never seemed to do. I used to hate the guy's theology, his militaristic stance on things such as original sin. 

Now, however, that the book and subsequent paper are over, I miss him!