I confess... I don't have a good pun for this title.
Spencer Wood
What a powerful story of sin and depravity are these first few books.
When we discussed testimonies in class, I agreed with what was said, but I didn't fully grasp it until I thought about our analysis as I read a testimony. And now I totally understand what was said by the Englishman in 'the mortal remains' in the Netflix movie The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. (I highly recommend watching that movie. It was like yee-haw black mirror, but pg-13) Anyways one of the characters explains stories and storytellers as such, "You know the story, but people can't get enough of them, like little children. Because, well, they connect the stories to themselves, I suppose, and we all love hearing about ourselves, so long as the people in the stories are us, but not us. Not us in the end, especially."
When it comes to testimonies, it is no different from fiction to the audience. Well, maybe for some it is more potent, but anything is if you believe hard enough I guess. With Augustine, we are him (sinners) but arent him (pitiful). We see what's he's written, and we think "man, that sounds good" but never go as far as to look at ourselves and think "I am wretched. I am evil from evil. I am not even worth the dirt my Lord used to form me. oh Lord, my Lord, allow me to speak of your mercy."
What Augustine writes is beautiful, and I can't get enough, but I fear that many, many people have read him and done exactly what I would expect and just said "that's a good story, glad I'm not him" and moved on.
annakate and gary
What a powerful story of sin and depravity are these first few books.
When we discussed testimonies in class, I agreed with what was said, but I didn't fully grasp it until I thought about our analysis as I read a testimony. And now I totally understand what was said by the Englishman in 'the mortal remains' in the Netflix movie The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. (I highly recommend watching that movie. It was like yee-haw black mirror, but pg-13) Anyways one of the characters explains stories and storytellers as such, "You know the story, but people can't get enough of them, like little children. Because, well, they connect the stories to themselves, I suppose, and we all love hearing about ourselves, so long as the people in the stories are us, but not us. Not us in the end, especially."
When it comes to testimonies, it is no different from fiction to the audience. Well, maybe for some it is more potent, but anything is if you believe hard enough I guess. With Augustine, we are him (sinners) but arent him (pitiful). We see what's he's written, and we think "man, that sounds good" but never go as far as to look at ourselves and think "I am wretched. I am evil from evil. I am not even worth the dirt my Lord used to form me. oh Lord, my Lord, allow me to speak of your mercy."
What Augustine writes is beautiful, and I can't get enough, but I fear that many, many people have read him and done exactly what I would expect and just said "that's a good story, glad I'm not him" and moved on.
annakate and gary
This post kinda blew my mind, not gonna lie. Your assertion that we view ourselves a sinners, but not pitiful ones was a really interesting perspective to me. I guess that's because it's a true one. This shifted my perception of this book and I hope that we all will try to be a bit more intentional in understanding what Augustine is saying, since none of us are worth the dirt He used to form us.
ReplyDeleteI think that differentiation between a normal sinner and a pitiful one is what makes it so hard for people to understand the Bible in today's world. We are so convinced that we are not the worst person on the planet that we often deny anything is wrong with us. However, Augustine realized, as we all must at some point, that we are all pitiful without Christ; even if our testimony is just a life being surrounded by the church.
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