LibriVox: free theology audio books

Since moving to Sydney and becoming a professional commuter, I've grown to love audio books (as I mentioned once before). Last year I was especially glad to discover LibriVox, a site that provides a huge variety of free audiobooks, all recorded by volunteers. They've recorded some great theological, philosophical, political and literary classics. The recordings vary in quality, but there are some real gems. Over the past several months, I've whiled away many sane commuting hours accompanied by LibriVox – including the following works:

• Augustine, Enchiridion
• Augustine, City of God (40 hours: a huge labour of love, recorded by a single reader – it took me a couple of months to finish it)
• Augustine, Confessions (very nicely read: one of the best LibriVox recordings I've heard)
• Kafka, The Metamorphosis
• Kafka, "A Hunger Artist" (beautifully read, with a kind of anorexic sensitivity)
• Kafka, "In the Penal Colony"
• George Santayana, Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy
• Aristotle, Poetics (unfortunately, it's very poorly read: I couldn't bear to finish it)
• Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History
• Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophic Essay
• Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (26 hours, nicely read: I'm still working my way through this one)

I've been so grateful for these resources, I'm even tempted to record something myself. There's info about how to volunteer here.

On desire and beauty: an Augustinian anecdote

Some years ago, I remember taking an afternoon walk down the quiet suburban street where my wife and I were living at the time. It was early summer, a warm breeze stirred the languid jacarandas that bloomed beneath the cloudless Queensland sky.

After rambling around for half an hour or so, I noticed a woman walking towards me from the far end of the street. I had left my glasses at home, as I often do when I am out for a stroll – but even at this distance I could make out her slender waist, the curve of her hips, the dark tresses falling about her shoulders. A long skirt swayed as she walked, and I saw that she was carrying a baby at her side. I had never seen her before – I'm sure I would have remembered her. I knew most of the people around here, she must be new to the neighbourhood. I am by nature a shy person, but on this occasion I decided I would pause to chat with this lovely apparition as she passed me on the street. I would catch her eye and smile, welcome her to the neighbourhood, ask where she was from, perhaps make some innocent flirtatious remark. I continued to observe her figure as she drew closer, my thoughts lulled by the jacaranda breeze and the easy rhythm of her hips. And then, with a disorienting shock of pleasure and recognition, I saw – what I would have seen at once had I been wearing my glasses – that it was my wife, strolling in the sun with our baby daughter perched on her hip.

Augustine’s Confessions is in large measure a record of misplaced desire. Our hearts well up with idolatrous desire for created things. We turn to the world of beautiful things instead of turning to the one who is Beauty itself. “In my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you had made.” But even in our corruption and confusion, God remains the hidden object of our desire. God uses our misplaced desires to draw us, in spite of ourselves, to God. “You were with me, and I was not with you.” In our desire for beautiful things, we are suddenly ambushed by God’s beauty, deep and secret and seductive – just as, that summer afternoon, my wandering desire for the lovely form of a woman was ambushed by the woman I love. “You were radiant and resplendent, and you put to flight my blindness” (Confessions 10.27.38).

Course reading tips: the spirituality of theology

At the college where I teach (which now has a new website), I take a small postgraduate seminar each year on contemporary theology. In the coming semester, I've decided to focus on "the spirituality of theology" (sorry, I'll try to think of a better title). My idea is to explore the work of Rowan Williams, Sarah Coakley and Mark McIntosh, focusing on the way these three writers have articulated (and modelled) a distinctive integration of theology and spirituality. In their work, systematic theology itself becomes a kind of spiritual discipline, more akin to prayer and contemplation than to Wissenschaft.

So anyway, I'm looking for some tips and suggestions. Do you think it's a good idea to stick with Williams, Coakley and McIntosh? Or are there one or two other writers whom you'd include? (I don't want to include too many writers: I'm aiming for depth rather than breadth.)

And which primary or secondary texts would you suggest? At this stage, I'm thinking of including a couple of full books, together with various chapters and essays. Each week we'll discuss a particular text, so the choice of readings is important. Any suggestions would be very welcome!

Edward Schillebeeckx and Mary Daly, RIP

In case you missed the news, two of the most Catholic church's most restless and controversial figures have passed away: the influential post-Christian feminist thinker Mary Daly died on 3 January, and the great Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx died on 23 December.

I guess it would be fair to say that, before his death, Schillebeeckx was the world's greatest living theologian, the last remaining figure of a generation of gigantic thinkers (we had a post here a couple months back to mark his 95th birthday). With his death, a whole theological generation has now passed away.

Theology FAIL: praying for Obama's death

Apparently some Southern Baptist pastors have been using Psalm 109:8 as a prayer for Obama's death: "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." This even inspired a line of creepy bumper stickers and T-shirts that read "Pray for Obama."

One of these pastors says: "You’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things. Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell."

Fail submitted by Paul Fischer.

Best films of 2009

Here’s my pick of the year’s best films. To be fair, I should say that the best filmmaking of 2009 lay in the first half of Avatar and the first half of District 9. But both these films were irredeemably flawed: District 9 quickly forgot its own stunning documentary style, degenerating into an increasingly mindless and preposterous shoot-em-up; while Avatar’s brilliantly imagined fantasy world was sadly eclipsed by James Cameron’s astonishing inability to unimagine the necessity of military violence. This is a real shame, since both of these could have been among the greatest films of the decade, if only they had been half as long! But anyways, I’ve still included both these films on the list, but not in the top places. Here are my top 10:

1. Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, Australia and US)
2. Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
3. Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, US)
4. Avatar 3D (James Cameron, US)
5. District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, South Africa)
6. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, US)
7. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany)
8. Brüno (Larry Charles, US)
9. Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, Australia)
10. Mao’s Last Dancer (Bruce Beresford, Australia and China)

Worst film (my wife forced me to go see it, and it was a damaging experience): Twilight Saga: New Moon