The more specific you can be about why you chose the book, or what you enjoyed about the book, the better–KSH.
Blog Open Thread for Monday: What Books are you Reading Right Now?
Posted in * Culture-Watch, Books
The more specific you can be about why you chose the book, or what you enjoyed about the book, the better–KSH.
Richard Baxter, “The Reformed Pastor,” his late 1600s compendium of pastoral care & theology from a very effective ministry in Kidderminster. He was tagged “a moderate Nonconformist” and ultimately was sued by the Presiding Bishop . . . ok, he was denied preferment and late into his life was harassed by church (& state) authorities for preaching without standing, I mean, without a license.
Anyhow, I’m finding Baxter’s life oddly pertinent as I try to sort out the coming decade. There’s a good short but full bio at Wikipedia I can happily commend — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Baxter
I got into ministry reading George Herbert, started seminary reading his “The Country Parson,” c. 1630, and there’s a symmetry to 25 years later reading avidly (if ruefully) the 1657 “The Reformed Pastor.”
Or so it seems to me . . .
[b]*A Short History of Nearly Everything[/b] by Bill Bryson
It has a very good description of our present understanding of the Universe and is in laymen’s terms. The section on how really really large our own solar system is, is worth the price of admission all by itself.
Teaser Quote:
“Pluto may be the last object marked on schoolroom charts but the solar system doesn’t end there. In fact, it isn’t even close to ending there. We won’t get to the solar system’s edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets… Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one 50,000th of the way. Of course we have no prospect of such a journey. Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system — ever. It is just too far”.
Bryson makes the point that the fastest man made object, the Voyager probe, travels at about 35,000 mph. If man could travel in a spaceship at that speed, the fastest we have yet achieved, it would take about 10,000 years to get outside the Oort cloud of our own solar system (starting from Pluto)…but everyone would be dead from radiation before they even got to Mars.
Cool beans.
If Audio Books count, I am listening to the book of Revelation on CD (NIV version) as I travel to and from work, and have been for the past several days. I think I have been through the book about 4 times now. It has some difficult to understand things, but there is a promise of a blessing for those who read or listen to it…so, who couldn’t use a blessing from God?
“The Art of Pastoring” by David Hansen. A refreshing set of reflections on “the pastor as parable.” Some refreshing and renewing looks at things that can become stale in our lives.
“The Crucifixion of Ministry” by Andrew Purves. One of his memorable terms is “hitching a ride on what Christ is doing.” A good book of Biblical theology, inviting clergy in particular to step away from “my ministry” thinking and to seek/reclaim union with Christ. A call to get back to Christology as the foundation of ministry.
“Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace” by James B. Torrance. Torrance was the theological influence on Purves (see above). Torrance writes a compelling critique of how our worship lapses into unitarianism. He calls on the church to “participate in the love of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.” As you can see, I am captivated by recent “back to basics” books – not “basics” in terms of simplistic propositions, but back to foundational Christian understanding of God in Christ.
“Seeking Life” by Esther De Waal. She ponders the Rule of St. Benedict as a Baptismal teaching or exhortation. After finishing the opening chapters, which set forth her idea and approach, I am reading the second half of the book for short noonday reflections on the meaning of Baptism. A good corrective for those turned off by sloppy “baptismal covenant” ideology.
“Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel” by Gregory the Great. Yeah, still at it. His preaching has a mystical side that requires laying the book aside for stretches to ponder what he’s saying. There will be too much allegory for the more Reformed reader, but also some real gems to be mined if one is patient.
” Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility” by DA Carson & “Biblical Theology” by G. Vos.
” Everlasting Righteousness” by Horatius Bonar
Sorry, hit enter to soon.
The book by Carson ended up in my hand after starting an ongoing discussion about the subject with several people.
The book by Vos I picked up after hearing my friendsquote from it so much and talked about the richness in its pages.
Everlasting Righteousness I started to read with my accountability group as a group study.
“After You Believe” by N. T. Wright. It is a good book about the need to develop virtue in the Christian Life.
I am finally getting to Tom Wright’s big book on the resurrection, “The Resurrection of the Son of God.” I thought I would dive in now; it is Easter and its been over a decade since I read the first two volumes of the series. It reaffirms for me that he is the greatest living biblical scholar.
I am preaching and teaching out of the Acts of the Apostles, so I have Ben Witherington’s commentary by my side. It is vintage Witherington: insightful exegesis of the NT written with narrative verve. An enjoyable read.
Finally, I am reading the complete poetry of Cesar Vallejo, the great Peruvian poet. Before I travel to a country, I always try to read its best poets. I find that it prepares me to enter sympathetically into the mind and heart of the people.
On the way to the New Wineskins mission conference last week, I needed something to bide the time during the 9 1/2 drive. In the local library, I came across the abridged CD version of Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard. This is history that grips like an adventure novel. The CD version was marvelous, but I intend to purchase and read the unabridged print version.
Highly recommended. I learned quite a bit about both Stanley and Livingstone as complex characters. There’s a lot more to the story than “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
[i]Sacramental Life: Spiritual formation through the Book of Common Prayer[/i] by David A. DeSilva who, like myself, is a United Methodist pastor interested in recovering our Anglican liturgical heritage.
[i]The Two Towers[/i] by J.R.R. Tolkien (almost finished!)
[i]Forty-Four Sermons[/i] by John Wesley
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (on CD read by Ian Carmichael)
The Liars Club and Lit by Mary Karr – because I read an interview with her in Books and Culture. (The books are her memoirs about growing up and her struggles with alcoholism.)
The various essays by Michael Spencer on Internet Monk.
George William Rutler,The Cure D’Ars Today: St John Vianney
David Bentley Hart, [i]Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and it Fashionable Enemies[/i]
Douglas Porch [i]The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force[/i]
I am waiting for Bishop Andrew Burnham’s [i] Heaven and Earth in Little Space: The Re-enchantment of Liturgy [/i] which will be released in the United States on April 19
Father Dean A. Einerson
Rhinelander, Wisconsin
‘After You Believe’ by N.T. Wright. I heard a lecture by Wright about the Christian virtues during which he spoke about how he saw the makings of a book. This seems to be it.
I’m also working my way slowly through ‘Thomas Cranmer’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I had wanted to learn more about this time in history and am being rewarded though its is at times very heavy slogging. If we think the church in our time was political . . .
I’m also reading ‘Praying’ by J.I. Packer & Carolyn Nystrom. My own prayer life is still very much a work in progress so I thought I would read a work by someone for whom prayer has been a lifelong spiritual practice.
I also picked up at the Augsburg Fortress annual post-Easter book sale in Kitchener a copy of Jurgen Moltmann’s little book ‘The Source: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life’. It has a fascinating first chapter. I have yet to get into chapter 2 but I’m hoping the book helps provide some stimulus and ideas for a Pentecost sermon. Even if it doesn’t it only cost me $4.00 so I’m not out of pocket that much.
[i] On Global Wizardry: Techniques in Pagan Spirituality [/i] by Dr. Peter Jones. This book is a collection from the Truth Exchange conference 2008 and examines a multitude of neopagan influences finding their way into the culture and church.
[i] Fight: Are You Willing To Pick A Fight With Evil [/i] by Kenny Luck. I picked this up at this year’s Promise Keeper’s Winnipeg. Kenny is the men’s pastor at Saddleback Church, and I find him very engaging. The book is not deep, but it makes a point TECUSA priests might have needed say 90 years ago, and even more now.
[i] Vintage Church [/i] by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Brashears. If you don’t know Driscoll, it’s time you meet him. Driscoll is a jedi suit short of being exactly what the Anglican Church in the West needs. In fact, I plan on ordering his newest books today.
[i]The Prodigal God[/i] by Timothy Kellar
I’m currently reading [i]That Hideous Strength[/i] which is the third book of C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, although in many ways I believe it stands alone and can be read apart from the other two. I’m reading it for a few reasons, (1) because it is a great book and this is my first reread of it, but more importantly, (2) [POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT] because I am a doctoral student in computer science living in a very anti-Christian, very anti-God and incredibly “enlightened/progressive” Northeastern town and much of what Lewis criticizes in Bracton College (a fictional college in a fictional university that is similar to Oxford or Cambridge) and in the N.I.C.E. (a fictional, ostensibly scientific organization in the book) could easily be made of the modern university and many of its pursuits, or at least its motivations for its pursuits.
Guess that makes three of us reading N.T. Wright’s “After You Believe”. It’s got some good stuff in it, though I’m a bit irritated by the way he keeps saying, e.g. “I’m going to deal with that later in the book.” But it’s good on Christian Virtue. I’m also reading St Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses (HarperCollins), also about the virtuous Christian life, based on an allegorical reading of Moses, which brings out wonderfully how we can apply Exodus imagery to our own lives. I also am trying to read Hart’s Atheist Delusions, but can’t seem to get into it– probably just my frame of mind.
By the way, the quotes around “enlightened/progressive,” were there because it is how many here would describe themselves, and NOT as I would describe them.
Oh lord, after reading the above comments I realize I should be reading the latest theological work by Pope Benedict or something, but actually I’m reading “Too Good To Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff” by Erin Arvedlund.
It has got to be easily the worst written book I’ve ever read (each chapter repeats about 30% of the previous content, sentences sometimes seem to be almost randomly inserted in a paragraph about something else, etc.) but it is (for now) the most technical book on the subject, and as someone who spent 13 years on Wall Street I wanted to know more technical details about the fraud.
One of the most interesting things was how many people simply were too lazy to do the most basic due diligence just because somebody else was already investing with him. Basically “well, such-and-such a firm (or person) has billions with him and they certaintly must have done due diligence before they invested so why should we bother?” I was discussing this book with a friend of mine this weekend and she said “yeah — like if you can’t trust a priest who can you trust so therefore let’s not bother with oversight.”
Hans ur von Balthasar on Gregory of Nyssa — Presence and Thought. Tough, tough read; but incredibly rewarding.
Here lately, Ignatius of Loyola is really commanding my attention. So, beginning to work through The Classics of Western Spirituality edition of Ignatius; along with James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything (found out about it through this blog).
Didn’t know about N.T. Wright’s book, but if virtue ethics makes a comeback, yeah!
1. “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis for our Adult Forum.
2. “Lord, Open our Lips: Musical help for Leaders of Litugry” Robinson and Boch. (As a recently ordained priest, I thought I’d do right by the parishioners and get the music right.) Priest-craft is not easy.
Good grief you are all reading such worthy books. I am reading Dave Eggers Zeitoun about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, a slightly fictionalized biographical account; and Through Wood and Dale the diaries of James Lees-Milne 1975-1978. Are any of you anglophiles in the North American continent familiar with the Lees-Milne diaries? I forget how many volumes they run to now, but they are such a joy: the memories of a well-connected, snobbish (and self-deprecating) writer sprung from the landed gentry.
“The Faith Instinct” by Nicholas Wade. The book’s thesis is that the propensity to religious belief can be explained in terms of evolutionary advantage.
“Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism (The Church and Postmodern Culture)” by James Smith. I chose it because it asserts that deconstruction need not be the death of Christianity. Haven’t read far, yet.
Eventually, I’ll get around to opening “Christianity” by Diarmaid Macculoch. Chosen due to its previous favorable mention here at T19.
Sarah Ruden, Paul among the People (2010). Will use it next semester in my NT class. It is unusual in its forthrightness on various issues–such as women and homosexuality–and in its remarkable ability to place Paul much more fully in his Greek and Roman setting. Highly recommended.
I would also recommend David Hein and Charles R. Henery’s new book, an edited volume called SPIRITUAL COUNSEL IN THE ANGLICAN TRADITION, just out this day from Wipf & Stock (Eugene, OR), but modesty prevents my attempting such a shameless move.
Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill. Interesting read but he does not like the present RC Church.
I just finished “Christ the Conqueror of Hell: The Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective” by Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev which was a great Holy Week read and a marvelous segue from my Lenten re-read of “Christus Victor” by Gustaf Aulen.
Just started “Postmodern Metaphysics” by Christos Yannaras which is (quoting the back of the book here) “an important contribution to the theology/science debate. It offers a respectable alternative to creationist resistance to materialistic evolutionism. It shows how spiritual reality transcends the categories of chance and necessity that materialists believe can explain everything. It argues passionately for the priority of relationality and reciprocity, the spiritual dimension through which we can discover God’s causality and so enter into personal relation with him.”
And I just received “Lectures in Christian Dogmatics” by Metropolitan John Zizioulas, which I’ll begin this weekend… (again quoting the back of the book) “Zizioulas presents Christian doctrine as a comprehensive account of the freedom that results from our relationship with God.”
Fr Fountain: I’ve taken classes with Prof Purves and he often mentions James’s brother Thomas F. Torrance as his influence. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued to read something by the younger Torrance, so thanks for the recommendation.
Nothing theological at the moment; I started re-reading the complete Sherlock Holmes.
[i]The Brother’s Karamazov[/i] by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
I’ve been working on it with stops and starts for a few years now and I’m only to ‘The Grand Inquisitor’. This is the latest stop in my tour of Russian writers in different translations.
[i]Father Elijah: An Apocalypse[/i] by Michael D. O’Brien.
I finished a third reading of this novel a week or so ago. I enjoy this book mainly for its prophetic look at the attacks on Christianity and discussion by the protagonist both in thought and with other characters on Man’s ability to perceive the world and its events as being outside what he would consider normal rather than being extraordinary portents of the End Times.
Two books right now:
[i]The Crisis In Islam[/i] by Bernard Lewis. I picked it up because, first of all, a dear friend gave it to me when I was ordained and it somehow, sadly, got lost in the shuffle. Just the first chapter alone has provided great insight into the struggles that they (and we) are dealing with.
[i]The Screwtape Letters[/i], by C.S. Lewis. When doing battle with the enemy, it helps to know how he fights. This book is timeless and helps me to continue to identify how Satan is trying to throw us off course.
Sorry that so many of you have been made to feel inadequate because of what others of us are reading. All work and no play makes Father Johnny a dull priest. So I’m also on a steady diet of John Grisham novels. C.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake mysteries are really good too. Tried Ken Follett for a while, but he throws too much gratuitous sex and violence in, and after you’ve read 3 or 4, you can guess when and where scenes of each will appear.
Last year my daughter and I read the two Alice in Wonderland books– what fun. [edit]
[edited by Elf]
Last year as my New Year’s Resolution, I read all of the Lord Peter Wimsey books/short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers – that was fun! This year I’m tackling the Great Books of the Western World series published by the Encyclopedia Britannica. I have the 1952 version that belonged to my father, with the first volume being the essay “The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education” by Robert M. Hutchens – an excellent introduction. (Interesting side note – in the essay, the author notes that the Bible is not included in the Great Books series because they assume everyone already has one and has read it – don’t think that can be assumed these days.) One of the ways they suggest reading this 54-volume set is a breakdown into “Ten Years of Reading in Great Books of the Western World” and they offer readings grouped loosely by subject/idea. But I want to do it in five (don’t know if I have ten good years left), so I’m in year one, just getting to Aristophanes’ Clouds.
Got my fingers in a few books:
[i]Christianity Beyond Belief[/i] by Bishop Todd Hunter of the Anglican Mission. Using this to focus common mission in the parish.
[i]Never Silent[/i] by Bishop Tad Barnum (also of the AM). Reflecting on the spiritual genocide in North American Christianity.
[i]Forgotten God[/i] by Francis Chan. Meditating on the person of the Holy Spirit, preparing for Pentecost!
Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. John’s Anglican
Park City UT
‘Easter Enigma’ by John Wenham.
Copleston’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’ (this will take a long time!)
[i]An Absence so Great[/i] the second book in a series by Christian author Jane Kirkpatrick. It is the sequel to [i]A Flickering Light[/i], the start of the tale of the author’s grandmother, an aspiring photographer who moved from Minnisota to Wisconsin and ultimately to Eastern Oregon. This author’s series involve historical fiction and give wonderful insights into her characters’ dreams and concerns. Kirkpatrick uses copious amounts of historical correspondence to flesh out the charaters and their experiences. She has also written a moving and thoughtful history of the Big Muddy Ranch, former home to the Bagwan and Oregon’s experience of domestic terrorism by use of biological warfare.
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. (I’m amazed at how similar his viewpoints are to St Paul’s.)
Charles Williams: The Forgiveness of Sins. Any other appreciators of the Coinherence out there?
Congratulations, David Hein! (#24) Glad your book is now out.
Among other things (I usually have several books going at once), I’m really enjoying Barry Powell’s lively, engaging introduction to Homeric scholarship simply called [b]Homer[/b]. It’s only 176 pages (2004). Powell teaches Classics at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison and much of the background he provides about the origins of Homer and the Greek alphabet and how oral poetry is turned into a written tradition is very relevant to biblical studies.
I just got the book I requested for my birthday, although it’s a heavy tome (in more ways than one) that only hardcore church historians could love. It’s Everett Ferguson’s massive (953 page) [b]Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries[/b], published last year by Eerdmans. Ferguson is a superb patristic scholar, in the Campbellite tradition (Church of Christ), and this is his magun opus, reflecting a lifetime of study on the early evolution of baptismal theology and practice. If you agree with me that we’re now living in a post-Christendom social era in the Global North, then studying the pre-Christendom era suddenly takes on a whole new importance, and not least in terms of recovering some of their insights about how to evangelize, catechize, and sacramentally initiate adult converts from a pagan world.
David Handy+
Being sufficiently foolish enough to contemplate doing some writing myself, and having just finished [i]Life is a Miracle[/i] by Wendell Berry and [i]The End of the Modern World[/i] by Romano Guardini, I am currently working on [i]A Theory of Personalism[/i] by Thomas R. Rourke, before plunging into [i]The Heart[/i] and [i]The Nature of Love[/i], both by Dietrich von Hildebrand.
I’m also working on [i]A Companion to Bede[/i] by J. Robert Wright and [i]The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets[/i] by Christopher Seitz. Both of these I will be reviewing for The Living Church and will need to do a fair amount of background research on both books before submitting reviews.
Also, a friend loaned me [i]Catholic and Reformed: Selected Writings of John Williamson Nevin[/i] edited by Charles Yrigoyen and George Bricker. It probably isn’t wise to admit it in this space, but up until now, I didn’t know anything about Mercersburg Theology. Fascinating stuff.
“A Life Pleasing To God” by Augustin Holmes for starters. It is a book on the Spirituality of the Rules of St. Basil. It is a good book which will be liked by those who are concerned about the loss of any kind of ascetic impulse in modern Christianity. It is published by Cistercian publications.
The other book I am reading is “God’s Battalions” by Rodney Stark. It is a thoroughly researched history that makes the case for the Crusades. It will be enjoyed by anyone sick and tired of the Christian bashing on the issue of the Crusades. It makes a strong case for the Crusades as a Christian War of Defense against the Islamic bloody conquests of Christian peoples of the Middle East and beyond. Unlike virtually all the liberal biased media he doesn’t regard the Crusades as unwarranted wars of conquest against an area that somehow “belongs” to Islam.
Trust in an Age of Arrogance – Bishop C FitzSimons Allison
This book (published in 2010) is an insightful summary of the influence of the yeast of contemporary Western cultural values and how they influence the mind of the Church. The book uses a theme of Jesus warning to “beware the yeast of the Sadducees and Phariseesâ€. We all are infected from birth by the lie that we are the center of our world and God is not. Meditating with Bishop Allison helps me to put God at the center. BTW although it is scholarly, the book is very readable and has many helpful examples to elucidate the argument.
Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity, Andew Radde-Gallwitz
If you are interested in the doctrine of divine simplicity this is, to use the cliche, a must read. Pleasurably, the author quotes in his preface from The Outlaw Josey Wales. Wittgenstein famously enjoyed westerns but are there any other patristics books that refer to gun totin’ cowboys? Maybe there’s a doctorate to be written on the relation of the The Magnificent Seven to the pro-Nicene theologians.
So many books to go (38) now you have added more to my list.
“Reason for God,” Timothy Keller-
“Mending the Heart,” John Claypool-Grievence, Guilt, and grief.
“The Lost Art of Gratitude,” Alexander McCall Smith-fun read.
Roman
No. 36: Thanks so much, David. I really appreciate it. Here’s the Web page describing this new collection:
http://wipfandstock.com/store/Spiritual_Counsel_in_the_Anglican_Tradition
Please check back soon–in a day or two–to see the terrific cover for it. It includes a great picture (via the Imperial War Museum) of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in the midst of the destruction caused by Nazi air attacks in World War II. (I.e., the picture is richly symbolic of all sorts of things….)
Anyway, I hope that Kendall won’t mind this posting. The contents–I can indeed say in all modesty, since I am merely an editor–are wonderful and sure to be of interest to readers of this blog, if to no one else.
Hmmm. Driver8, is that pro-Nicene or pre-Nicene??
Another of the books I’ve wading through slowly is Jaroslav Pelikan’s masterpiece on the Cappodocians, his Gifford Lectures of 1992-93, [b]Christianity and Classical Culture: the Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Encounter with Hellenism[/b]. As always with Pelikan, it’s stunningly brilliant and is best savored in small doses, thoughtfully. Although, of course, the Cappodocians are post-Nicene. But very much pro-Nicene.
David Handy+
No. 37: “Also, a friend loaned me Catholic and Reformed: Selected Writings of John Williamson Nevin edited by Charles Yrigoyen and George Bricker. It probably isn’t wise to admit it in this space, but up until now, I didn’t know anything about Mercersburg Theology. Fascinating stuff.”
Yes, it is, and what you don’t mention is something else that might interest readers here: the connection between German Reformed theologians at Mercersburg and Episcopal High Church bishops and theologians (as well as Old Catholics and others). This mutual interest shows up in a good bit of the literature of the day, both published (church newspapers and other periodicals) and unpublished (such as a series of letters from John W. Nevin to Maryland High Church Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham, which I edited for Anglican and Episcopal History in 1991). John Woolverton has also published on all this. And a periodical, The New Mercersburg Review, might also be of interest to readers of this blog. The Mercersburg movement is also of perduring interest to some of my Roman Catholic friends.
[i]Exclusion and Embrace[/i] by Miroslav Volf and [i]The Suffering of Love: Christ’s Descent into the Hell of Human Hopelessness[/i] by Regis Martin were my Lenten reading–both very worthwhile. For fun, in the evenings: [i]Endurance[/i] and [i]Resolute[/i]–both polar exploration narratives (with plenty of human hopelessness). Maybe there’s a connection?
#43 Pro-Nicene homoousian theologians.
“The Jesus Wars” by Philip Jenkins: an historical review of the development of our Christology in the midst of the politics and strife of the early church.
“The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande, MD. It not a medical book, rather it is a exposition on how a simple management schema called a checklist can save lives and minimize disasters. It has applications in missiology and ecclesiology.
“Strange Things Happen” an autobiography by Stewart Copeland of the band the Police. Having lived a somewhat eccentric and extraordinary life, his music has consistently shown up on my list of favourites.
Do class books count? Then I have to include “New Testament Greek for Beginners” by J. Gresham Machen.
I just finished Angela’s Ashes last night. What a depressing book, I’m glad to be done with it. Y’all have given me some ideas of what to read next.
After reading the other selections here, I’m [i]almost[/i] ashamed to admit this:
[url=http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347]Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,[/url] by Seth Grahame-Smith.
An interesting diversion but nothing spectacular.
Jim Elliott
Florida
Thanks folks for the grand tour …!
For enrichment: Francis Cardinal Arinze, [i]Meeting Jesus and Following Him[/i] (Ignatius), which is a series of meditations from “a retreat given to Pope Benedict XVI and the papal household†last year. It is delightfully simple yet profound stuff from this great African man of God. While focussing in the first instance upon those in clerical orders, the essential themes apply to all Christian folk who are seeking a closer, down to earth yet exhilarating walk with Jesus.
For work: Alister McGrath’s [i]The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology[/i] (Blackwell), which now applies some of the results of his earlier “scientific theology project†to reframing natural theology. I suspect his proposals might upset some more traditional types while also exciting others! Plus, Stephen Grabill, [i]Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics[/i] (Eerdmans). Am looking forward to seeing the results of these last two authors engage directly with each other!
What with Richard Dawkins being all the rage etc: [i]Theology after Darwin[/i], eds. M Northcott and R Berry (Paternoster). As with any collection, some entries might be deemed better than others, but overall a solid engagement, covering sundry angles/topics, with prevailing scientific data and theory from those who know both their science and their Christian theology. A refreshing contrast to both Creationism and ID – but that comment also gives my own game away!
Huzzah for Jim at #49!
The Ecumenical Luther, The Development and Use of His Doctrinal Hermeneutic. The book lays out Luther’s development of his theological doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.
I normally have two to three going at the same time: Just started Tracy Kidder’s “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, the true story of Dr. Paul Farmer who found his life calling to cure the world of infectious disease; Richard Stengel’s “Mandela’s Way”; and just about to delve into the Beatrix Potter series, which, oddly, I never read as a child.
We really enjoyed ‘Jesus of Nazareth”
and ‘The Apostles ‘ by Pope Benedict.
Jesus of Nazareth is one of the most worshipful books we have read in a long time, and “the apostles” has some very
interesting observations.
For fun we are reading the Paddington Books which ensures that we have the required number of laughs a day
Mr. Hein #44 – Having recently written in TLC about the cooperation between Anglican Evangelicals and German Protestants in establishing the joint Jerusalem bishopric in the 1840’s, I would think it fitting to further examine the connection between the German Reformed and Anglo-Catholics. Much thanks.
Re #54, an excellent precis of Benedict XVI’s biblical theology can be found in Scott Hahn’s [i]Covenant and Communion: the Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI[/i], of which a review will be forthcoming in TLC. Hahn’s work in biblical theology prepares him well for this undertaking. He’s an excellent writer and is well versed with the subject matter. He argues, entirely plausibly, that Benedict/Ratzinger is the first world-class biblical theologian to ever sit on the papal throne. Orthodox Anglicans could do worse than examine developments in this area in the Roman Church and Hahn’s book is an excellent place to look for an overview.
No. 55: Yes; you’re welcome. But keep in mind that older High Churchmen like Bishop Whittingham (Maryland) were not Anglo-Catholics. I know it gets confusing…. In fact, he had some trouble with the A-Cs at Mount Calvary in Baltimore, as I recall.
Currently reading –
Armed Struggle; The History of the IRA by R. England
The Dissolution by J.C. Sansom
Dogmatics in Outline – Barth (very, very slowly)
“The Little Way of Saint Therese of Lisieux” by John Nelson.
I tried it 10 years ago and it seemed sentimental and idiotic and made no sense. Now, I find it amazingly refreshing, comforting and full of wisdom.
Becoming a Christian is like becoming a parent. All kinds of receptors you never realized you possessed suddenly turn on, and your IQ drops about 100 points. (And thank God for it).