Augustine and Social Justice

This volume examines some of the most contentious social justice issues present in the corpus of Augustine's writings. Whether one is concerned with human trafficking and the contemporary slave trade, the global economy, or endless wars, these essays further the conversation on social justice as informed by the writings of Augustine of Hippo.

How I would have loved a volume like Augustine and Social Justice to help me explore the implications of such reflections on justice. Despite the many works written on Augustine, including those that address Augustine’s understanding of justice, very few helped me probe what Augustine’s thought means for how we conceptualize and seek social justice. This volume does just that. The essays in this volume represent an impressive diversity of perspectives and cover a remarkable array of topics.

Scholars. . . who are interested in the topics of justice, wealth and poverty (esp. Herdt's essay), slavery, just war and friendship will find this book a helpful point of entry for their research.

The temptation in much conventional theological talk about Augustine is to reduce him to a limited set of clichés concerning the several heresies he critiqued: Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. This fine collection of essays of course does not avoid all theoretical issues and abstract questions, but it primarily shows the way in which this practicing church theologian had a continuing concern for the administration of “the city of man.” These scholars trace the ways in which his commitment, from classical categories, to order led him to think about justice as giving ‘to each what belongs to him.’ This book will be a significant contribution to current thinking about justice and the theological underpinnings that are required for faithfulness about the political economy. This discipline of first order thinking is indispensable in the face of crusading fads.

Sixteen hundred years later, Saint Augustine is as popular as ever. A plethora of scholarship on the Bishop of Hippo's political theology and theological ethics is now available, even with different schools of Augustinian thinking circulating. Just when one might believe that Augustine's work and legacy have been exhaustively mined?, along comes Augustine and Social Justice, a lode containing rich veins of original contributions by established and emerging scholars. With topics ranging from just war to restorative justice, and from consumerism to family ethics, this volume is a must-read for anyone interested in Augustine for today.

Teresa Delgado is associate professor of religious studies and director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Iona College.

John Doody is professor of philosophy and Robert M. Birmingham chair in humanities at Villanova University. He is also director of the Villanova Center for Liberal Education.

Kim Paffenroth is professor of religious studies at Iona College and the interim director of the Iona College Honors Program.