Review of St Augustine's Sin
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Review of St Augustine's Sin
Children are the greatest gifts that God could have ever given us adults. The tiny angels are refreshingly beautiful to look at and, in addition, they are our future generation. However, in the eyes of one Saint Augustine of Hippo, infants are innately evil and full of sin from the very moment they are born. This notion completely baffles both the author and me, since infants at birth are inherently helpless and do not have a sense of what is wrong and right. Unfortunately for us, this Augustinian notion has been the bedrock of our church and education systems, whereby the clerics enforce the implications of the original sin on young minds and also imbue in them the unfair need for constant guilt and repentance. Worse still, it is in the “safe” hands of the church elders that the young generation is sexually assaulted and forced to live with the consequences of trusting in the sheep in wolf clothing.
Joseph Baker, the author of St Augustine’s Sin tries to illuminate everything that is wrong with religion based on the Augustinian principles. Having been a victim himself of indoctrination, he embarks on a well-researched journey of educating modern-day parents and guardians in correctly raising their progenies. As earlier pointed out, the book is well researched with tons of citations and references for a more curious reader to peruse at their own time. The author enhances the book's originality by using real-life situations and his own experiences. The book also contains well-documented examples and statistical data that give real-time information on the ground concerning clerical child sexual abuse. Despite the austere tone of the book, it is very encouraging to see the use of emotional communication by the author to reach his audience.
The book is composed of 23 well-discussed chapters. The monotonous nature of the book is countered by the anecdotes littered around in the story. The book appears to be exceptionally well-edited as there were no errors present. Nevertheless, I did not find anything to dislike about St Augustine’s Sin.
The book is worthy of the rating five out of five stars. There may be mentions of inhumane actions taking place in various anecdotes within the book that are not appropriate for some people. St Augustine’s Sin is an interesting view on how child abuse is worryingly associated with Christianity.
I would recommend this book to an audience of religious and secular scholars, parents, and guardians as they are the individuals who are directly concerned with child-rearing.
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St Augustine's Sin
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