Margaret R. Miles

Amor Dei

Theology

“John Burnaby's masterful establishment of love of God as the center of Augustine's psychology and theology inspired a generation of scholars to the energetic examination and refinement that has characterized the last seventy years of Augustine scholarship. A classic work in its original publication, its republication will refresh readers' awareness of Augustine's passionate advocacy for love of God as the key to happiness.”

Called to Follow

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Many religious texts and teachers focus on providing one-size-fits-all answers. Called to Follow demonstrates instead the value of fruitful questions--questions that bring new and deepened perspective to life's dilemmas. Jesus's probing questions, recorded in the Gospel of John, brought new insights to his listeners. Drawing on her own richly experienced and thoughtful life, Stortz demonstrates that the right question can give contemporary recipients fresh approaches to the issues and situations confronting them.”

Dazzling Bodies

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“In this important book, Valanatasis criticizes the dominant understanding of 'spirituality' as addressed to a psychospiritual world within individuals. Instead, he advocates corporate spiritual formation in a liturgical community. Recognizing that 'ideas do not change people; experiences change people,' Valantasis brings together his academic and pastoral experience as well as his background in Greek Orthodoxy and Episcopal priesthood to describe and illustrate corporate spirituality. Dazzling Bodies should be required reading for Christian clergy and lay people.”

Dying to See You!

Christian Living

“Christian authors have given a great deal of attention to intellectual examination and explanation of doctrines and ideas. In Dying to See You, Charles Taliaferro describes the relationships, experiences, and feelings that have accompanied and illuminated his understanding of religious language. He demonstrates that religious feeling can be playful, woven through the beauty and richness of everyday life, an immensely valuable invitation to a life that is ‘fully alive’ (Serapion of Thmuis).”

Hurting Kids

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“In her thoughtful and passionate book, Michelle Lelwica explores the ‘afterlife of religion in secular culture’ through the voices of delinquent youth for whom the multiple stresses of poverty and racism seem to reveal a judging and condemning God. Lelwica traces her own journey toward a realistic and compassionate awareness of systemic racism in a society in which all are both victims and perpetrators, a society in which some benefit while others are harmed. Hurting Kids is insightful and helpful, a necessary read.”

Living Devotions

“Living Devotions describes a Catholic community in San Pedro, California, in which a visual and material piety infuses the activities of daily life. In this community, the sacred and the mundane--praying and partying, catching fish and feeding others--are easily integrated. In this engaging book, Moschella considers critical questions and explores theological and psychological conceptual frameworks that assist understanding without allowing theory to overpower the voices of the people who told her about their 'sacramental way of life.' Living Devotions is a moving account of the beliefs, values, and practices that inform and support their vibrant faith.”

Testimony

History & Biography

“Paul Kahn bears Testimony to the pain and helplessness of dealing with a loved one whose psyche is damaged and whose inner world is intractably hardened against persuasion. This thoughtful saga of frustration and vulnerability is an honest and vivid depiction of suffering which affects not only the sufferer but everyone who loves, and thus is unable either to help or to flee a relentless cycle of illusory hope and crushing despair. Testimony advocates no traditional remedies, yet faith is crucially important. For Kahn, who lacks religious rituals, faith ‘without myth is love,’ a way of being in the world expressed, not by arguments but by actions. Kahn writes persuasively and beautifully, ‘I call my faith love.’”

The Making of the Self

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“In the context of belligerently hedonistic North American society, a society reduced to waging war to support our lifestyle, Richard Valantasis's The Making of the Self has never been more relevant. Valantasis proposes that past and present can best be compared, not through ideas, but through analysis of practices and what they produce. This book asks, What did historical people seek to achieve through the ascetic disciplines they practiced? What do we seek? Could some of the ascetic repertoire of historical people be of practical use toward our goals? Valantasis describes a theory and practice of asceticism for secular twenty-first-century society. Both informative and inspirational, The Making of the Self should be required reading for everyone who seeks to make intentional choices that shape the self.”

The Scope of Our Art

“These challenging and moving essays address everyone who teaches religious studies. They make the point that we are all student-teachers, perennially learning the quality of attentiveness that characterizes good teaching.”

Wisdom’s Friendly Heart

Philosophy

“Wisdom’s Friendly Heart tracks St. Augustine’s response to the skepticism and conspiracy theories of his time through 1,500 years and from North Africa to North America. His emphasis on truth-seeking as embodied friendly relationship with others and with truth can also address the urgent questions and concerns of our time. This brilliant and well-researched book will be useful to scholars and to anyone who has been intrigued, puzzled, and stirred by reading Augustine.”

Women and Redemption

Theology

“In Women and Redemption: A Theological History, Rosemary Radford Ruether offers a wealth of information; she also models feminist pedagogy by providing questions and bibliography for further research, inviting students and scholars to participate in ongoing theological and historical reconstruction. Additions to the second edition emphasize the central importance of "the plurality of cultural and social contexts" for women's theological reflection, charting the emergence of feminist theology in Western Europe, North America and the Third and Fourth Worlds. Women and Redemption is a tour de force, an essential text for understanding women's theological reflection throughout the centuries of Christianity and around the world.”

Wrestling with the Angel

Arts & Literature

“Sail with the poet, singing in pellucid waters veined with delight. Breathe together in the dark violent seas that threaten to smother our painstakingly composed arias. Ours too the darkness, and ‘just beyond the darkness is the light.’ These poems gift readers with real presence, the beauty and the pain of human experience.”