Review of St Augustine's Sin
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- Dani Strayer
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Review of St Augustine's Sin
St. Augustine’s Sin by Joseph (Joe) Baker explores clergy child sexual abuse (cCSA) in Christianity and why it occurs so frequently. Lorna Graham authored the last two chapters and both explored their individual experiences growing up in the UK and attending faith schools. The book starts out detailing the historical figure, Saint Augustine and his writings. There is evidence presented that the idea of the original sin being sexual was not considered until it was proposed by Augustine in his series of books Confessions which were written before AD 398. Augustine’s ideas about the original sin that Adam and Eve committed was sexual and that every child is stained with that sin, is proposed to be the reason for baptism. Baker explains how baptism is meant to wash infants of their sin, the original sin, and that despite the fact that he was baptised as a child, he was still indoctrinated with the idea that he was still stained.
Christian guilt is also a major point in St. Augustine’s Sin. Baker describes his internal struggle with guilt and shame despite the fact that he did not do anything inherently wrong. The book includes many UK statistics on the religious population which has been shrinking in the last couple of decades despite Christian teachings still being a legal requirement in the UK. In the UK, religious leaders have a lot of say in the decisions that the government makes and Baker argues that this is not right. Government and Religion should be separated. High percentages of British people reject religion once they are out of school and no longer being shamed into it. Graham describes her perspective as a teacher in various schools over the course of her career. She was not baptised and experienced alienation from many of her religious coworkers because of this.
I will say that I agree with much of what Baker and Graham discuss in this book in regards to religion as an institution. Many of the arguments that they make, I have thought to myself, and this book has put many of my thoughts and feelings into words backed with evidence. The authors are well informed and the “End Notes” of the book includes 392 citations from various types of sources including but not limited to government websites and surveys as well as many academic articles from sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. This provides hard evidence for the arguments and Baker and Graham make throughout the book. Baker brings many of his own personal experiences to light in this book which helps readers to understand that the points he is making are not just based on statistics and research but what he himself experienced. The resources used in this book also prove that these experiences are not just his but are commonplace among children who grew up in church sanctioned spaces. There are also a lot of acronyms but each one is well explained and fully written out the first time it is used throughout the book.
One of the most notable negative points in the book is the switch from Baker’s writing to Graham’s. Chapter 12 and 13 are the only chapters that Graham writes but there isn’t anything to indicate the switch. When she started discussing teaching I was confused because it hadn’t been mentioned before and I had forgotten that chapter 12 and 13 were written by a different person. Another negative I found, is some of the language is very specific to Christianity and church, and because I hadn’t been raised christian, I often had to use a dictionary to really understand the context. It became easier as I continued to read through the book and learned what more of the words had meant but the confusion was still there in the beginning.
Overall, I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars. I did like the book and it was quite informative but there were parts that were repetitive especially in the later half of the book. I would recommend this book to people who are questioning their religious upbringings or experiences as well as to people pretend like clergy child abuse does not exist. This book is for more mature audiences because of the nature of many of the topics discussed. There should be a content warning for mention sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, violence, and detailed descriptions of certain experiences from both authors.
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St Augustine's Sin
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