CHOOSING A PATH: A STUDY OF THE THEORIES OF CHRISTIAN CONVERSION AND CHRISTIAN NURTURE IN THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND IN CHRISTIAN NURTURE BY HORACE BUSHNELL

Abstract

Abstract (Summary), 321 pages. This dissertation is a comparative study of the phenomenon of Christian conversion with the praxis of Christian nurture in the thought of St. Augustine and Horace Bushnell. The primary sources of the investigation are St. Augustine's Confessions and Bushnell's Christian Nurture. Brief reviews of studies of the primary documents provide interpretations and set the historical context in which each person lived and worked. Augustine was a theologian in the early centuries of the post-New Testament church during the generation after the rule of Emperor Constantine and the legalization of Christianity. Bushnell was a congregational minister in New England during the 19th century of revivalism in America. There is a basic difference between Augustine's and Bushnell's guiding theories of human nature. Bushnell wrote that a person who is born in a Christian family should never grow up knowing himself or herself as anything other than a Christian. But Augustine felt that each person needed to have an individual moment of conversion when that person finds their rest in God. Another difference is that the philosophy of nurture for Augustine is primarily tied in the Confessions to God, who seeks lost humankind and, in his other writings, to the church as an instructional agency for religious education on earth. Meanwhile, in Bushnell's theory of nurture, his main repository for all education including anything religious is the home; everything else is seen as assisting the parents. More intricate aspects of Augustine's and Bushnell's perspectives on human nature are explored and, in specific, a deeper analysis of their beliefs on conversion and nurture is investigated in this paper. The principles from this study should be applicable in most faiths or settings; although Christian educators in schools (parochial or private), home school families, parents, caretakers of children, and workers in churches and other Christian education settings may find it especially helpful and pertinent.