What We’re Reading

Charles J. Kim, Jr., The Way of Humility: St. Augustine’s Theology of Preaching. Few figures in western history are as important and influential as Saint Augustine. Author of the Confessions, City of God, and On the Trinity (De Trinitate), he is famously remembered as the Doctor of Grace and misremembered as the inventor of doctrines such as original sin and predestination despite earlier church fathers commenting on these issues. One of Augustine’s more understudied aspects of his writings is his theology of preaching. The past generation of scholars asserted Augustine’s congregation in Hippo was predominately wealthy and educated, to the extent that one could be in Hippo Regius in the fifth century. Charles Kim Jr takes to task this view, highlighting how a careful study of Augustine’s surviving sermons indicate a much lower class and commonfolk audience and this helps us understand Augustine’s emphasis on humility in his homilies, how humility influences his Christology, ecclesiology, and soteriology. The Way of Humility is an important work, correcting the deficiencies of past Augustinian scholarship and advancing it in a new and positive direction. Kim reminds us that far from the magisterial author we tend to remember Augustine as, he was, in fact, a preacher – preaching as much as three times a day to the congregants at Hippo Regius.

~ Paul Krause

Richard Gamble The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What it Means to be an Educated Human Being. Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition seems to keep following me around. Several years back, I first purchased this book because it was required reading in the Faulkner University humanities graduate program. I then discovered that it was required reading for faculty at a classical school that I taught for, and I have thereafter found this anthology to be of consistent value ever since. Once more, this month, I have found myself going back to read selected portions. Whether someone is a teacher, professor, writer, or working professional, this book will provide a remarkable introduction to the Western world’s seminal writings on education. The modern world too often reduces education to its material usefulness. Hillsdale College professor Richard Gamble, in this wonderful collection of excerpts, resists this utilitarian temptation and instead brings to light the perennial educational aims of wisdom and virtue. This volume includes figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Jerome, Augustine, Aquinas, Erasmus, Luther, Burke, Newman, Babbitt, Lewis, Eliot, Dawson, Voegelin, and others. In contrast, figures like Locke, Rousseau, and Dewey are intentionally omitted. The great tradition of liberal education, as Gamble understands it, is rooted in classical and Christian humanism, and it helps men and women to flourish in non-material ways. Each of the figures included in this anthology has contributed to the ongoing conversation in the Western world about what it means to be a truly educated person. By reading this volume, you, too, can join that conversation.

~ Darrell Falconburg

Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Muriel Spark’s novel takes place at the Marcia Blaine School in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the 1930s. Miss Jean Brodie teaches six children for two years, sharing her knowledge of Europe, arts, sciences, and more. Her style is quite unique as she does not lecture specific concepts or topics, rather shares her experiences with the children as an applicatory mode of learning, or an unorthodox presentation of material. While I think providing stories is not inherently problematic, Brodie solely uses her experiences to teach her children.

Brodie’s signature statement is that goodness, truth, and beauty should be in high priority; she does not seem religious in the beginning chapters of the novel, but her traditional means of guiding her students is to heighten the liberal arts, teach life’s realistic experiences, and form her students to become the crème de la crème in society. Aside from Brodie, her students are quite interesting; each student is given a specific nomenclature that corresponds to their personality or physical trait. Each girl outside of Brodie’s core group urgently tries to become hip with this crowd. Characters like Joyce eagerly want to join the set. She is quite intellectually savvy, and she tells the set her brother fought in the Spanish Civil War – her coolness must give her a spot. However, the girls refuse her presence in the set. There is a plot in Blaine concerning Brodie and her removal from the faculty, hoping she moves to a more progressive school; she believes her students know of this plan, so she invites her students for dinner. Right off the bat, her students seem overly suspicious.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is largely a novel on academic influence through teachers being an outlet to knowledge. Without their instruction, students will either come to resent or love academic rigor. Having the perfect teacher will make the schooling experience worthwhile. She makes her teaching interesting by using stories, not through lectures. Even if this is an unorthodox mode of teaching, it impacted her students far beyond their schooling experience, taking her influence well into their adulthood. It is a story of what a great teacher can be, and what values and lessons can be transmitted to students through a great teacher. Miss Brodie is in her prime not just because of her personality and love of teaching but also her students who allow her to be a great teacher.

~ Sarah Tillard

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