Patience

In this book, David Baily Harned makes a persuasive case for the significance of patience as an essential ingredient of the moral life. In a bold and invigorating manner, the author addresses contemporary existence--the lives of individuals, families, communities, and nations--and demonstrates how the Christian vision informs our efforts to live in a chaotic and violent world as faithful, hopeful, loving children of God. This essay in theological ethics is rooted in classic texts: the Old and New Testaments, as well as the writings of Augustine, Gregory I, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John Calvin, Soren Kierkegaard, and W. H. Vanstone. In graceful prose and careful analysis, David Harned both inspires and instructs. This new edition also includes an afterword by one of his former students who explores the value of this study by applying its insights to the life and leadership of George Washington.

""Virtue is more than a philosophical contemplation; it's also the substance of a lived and lively faith, the stuff of life. Imagine this book, then, as a lab manual--a book to be used in the midst of activity, philosophy with genuine utility. Harned brings Patience into intimate conversation with our private concerns, like self-worth and vocation. But he makes Patience also a stimulating partner in conversation with our public life and worries.""

--Sam Portaro, Anglican Theological Review

""A beautifully written book, both welcome and unusual. This is less a book to be summarized than to be read and contemplated. It may inspire fresh thought about the sort of people we should strive to be. It is a book that a young man could probably not have written, inviting and encouraging us, as it does, to accept--indeed, to accept with gratitude--'the slowness of the good.'""

--Gilbert Meilaender, First Things


David Baily Harned (PhD, Yale) is a retired professor of religious studies who taught at Williams, Smith, and Allegheny colleges, as well as at the University of Virginia, Louisiana State University, and the University of Edinburgh. In addition, he served as department chairman at Virginia, president of Allegheny, and dean of arts and sciences at LSU. He is the author of eight books, published not only in the United States but also in Scotland, Spain, and India.