Just a few comments, Rowland.

"Rowland Croucher" <> writes:

>I've just modified this list ( it's on

>http://skyfamily.com/rcroucher/index9.html )

>Whast would you add/delete?

>RECOMMENDED BOOKS.

>What would you say are the 100 or so essential books a literate Christian -

>particularly a pastor - should read?

>Any response has to be personal/subjective of course. But as a

>counselor-of-clergy I know the time-constraints they're under. And I'm also

>coming from my own specialist field of Practical Theology (rather than,

say, >academic theology). I don't buy the excuse that pastors and Christian

>leaders are 'too busy to read': our task as pastor/teachers is to drink in

>the wisdom of the ages and pass it on to others. There's hardly anything -

>except prayer - which is more important. And there is a great need for

'lay' >people to be more theologically literate (but while the church is plagued

>with clericalism they may not have too many opportunities to share what

they >learn with others... Pity).

>The best recommended reading list available today is Eugene Peterson's

>excellent guide Take and Read: Spiritual Reading, an Annotated List. It's

>well worth buying as a start to this quest.

>I won't generally mention the publishers: a good theological bookshop has

>all that info on their computers.

>The best Bible? I'd go for the HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible (with the

>Apocryphal/ Deuterocanonical Books). The NRSV is generally considered by

>thoughtful scholar-pastors to be the best of all the translations today,

not >least because it's non-sexist. The latest edition of the GNB is also

>non-sexist (and may be the best pulpit version in a non-literary culture).

>Likewise there is a now a non-sexist edition of the evangelical

translation, >the NIV NT. Best parts of the Bible? For me they would be Psalm 27, Isaiah

>40, the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Peter and the Book of

>Revelation.

Rather than "non-sexist" I prefer to use the term "gender-accurate". It's fairly easy to determine whether a trtanslation is accurate when it comes to translation of the words in the NT referring to females, males or persons. In I Timothy 2, where Paul is writing about praying for rulers, verse 3 should say sopmething about God wanting everyone to be saved. And in verse 8 it is the men who are to pray. If verse 3 says that God wants all *men* to be saved, it is innacurate - see the NIV, except for the "Inclusive Language" edition, which was banned in USA. And if verse 8 says that everyone is to pray that, too, is inaccurate - the CEV (if my memory is correct) has this.

For general use, particularly with people who don't have a background of ecclesiastical language (which is most of the younger - under 40 - generation) it's hard to beat the GNB. And if you are dealing with people whose first language is not English, much of the NRSV is quite difficult to comprehend.

>Best Prayer Book? Either the New Zealand or Australian Anglican Prayer

>Books. They both have morning and evening prayers for each day, and I think

>are brilliant! Another that comes highly recommended is Clouds and Glory -

>Prayers for the Church Year (YearA) by David Adam (SPCK). And don't forget

>the prayers and benedictions in the eight books in the Still Waters Deep

>Waters series, produced by John Mark Ministries. (Some pastors/church

>leaders use a different benediction each Sunday - there are about 400 in

>these books).

Agreed. The Catholic Chaplain uses this at our Tuesday morning meetings in Chaplaincy Services when it's his turn to lead the devotions.

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>I'm asking various biblical scholars for their recommendations for the best

>contemporary commentary for each book of the Bible (particularly as raw

>material for preaching, rather than for pure academic scholarship), if you

>could only afford one. For the Psalms, get Walter Brueggemann's The Message

>of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary. I agree with Eugene Peterson: this

>is the best introduction to the Psalms as spirituality. (Buy anything by

>Walter Brueggemann: he's the best popular speaker/writer on the Old

>Testament today. And he's marvelous to listen to on tape as well). Gordon

>Fee on 1 Corinthians, and Cranfield's two-volume work on Romans are highly

>recommended. I was challenged by John Stott's commentary on 1 John. On the

>Book of Revelation: I shared a conference recently with someone doing their

>PhD on Revelation, who said 'Don't buy anything written before 1990!' His

>recommendations: Aune (the best), Boring, Harrington or Beale's

>commentaries. You should get a set of William Barclay's commentaries on the

>New Testament - they're quite commonly found in Op/Charity shops. (But in

>Third World countries you can get 'em cheap: I bought a whole set in India

>for about $10 Australian).

I tend to use the Bible Societies' "Handbooks for Translators" series, for those volumes which are available. They regularly give hints about how the meaning can be put into appropriate forms for languages which have a very different grammatical structure from English, and these help me to realise (again) the need to make Christianity relevant to people of all cultures.

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>Theology. I'd start with my little book Recent Trends Among Evangelicals

>(it's on our website - http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2913.htm)

>for a brief introduction to what's happening to the thinking of people like

>me. The most popular 'evangelical' in the last half-century has been John

>Stott: maybe start with Authentic Christianity (quotes from most of his

>books). The most prolific contemporary evangelical writer, Allister

McGrath, >summarizes in Introduction to Theology the contributions made by scholars

of >every ilk throughout history without rancour, rhetoric or ridicule. Two

>modern books about evangelicals - Dave Tomlinson's The Post Evangelical and

>Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Then go to Matthew Fox's

>classic Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality. Fox says

>Augustine's shadow has caused the Fall/Redemption paradigm to be prominent

>in Western theological thinking, but this was not the primary paradigm of

>Jesus and the prophets and the saints. You might not agree with Fox's later

>theological developments (but read his Autobiography for an interesting

>description of his thinking), but this one I believe is ground-breaking. If

>you want a shorter version of Fox's thesis, read it in about 40 pages in

the >Introduction to his book on Meister Eckhart - Breakthrough. Or (you lazy

>person) in one page in the article 'Creation- Centred Spirituality' in the

>SCM's Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Best modern Protestant

>theologian? Jurgen Moltmann. Get his little book Jesus Christ for Today's

>World for starters, then read his best book, The Crucified God. The two

>Karls - Protestant Karl Barth and Catholic Karl Rahner - together with Hans

>Kung are erudite but a bit ponderous: read some summaries of their thinking

>in Dictionaries of theology. Joachim Jeremias New testament Theology Vol 1

>is a superb gospel study. A classic about theology and social justice is,

of >course, Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society. I was also moved

>by Donal Dorr's Spirituality and Justice. Two challenging books on the same

>theme: Robert McAfee Brown's Creative Dislocation and Spirituality and

>Liberation. On women and ministry begin with Elaine Storkey's What's Right

>with Feminism. Two highly-rated Australian books: Bruce Wilson's Reasons of

>the Heart and John Harris's One Blood (essential reading if you want to

>understand Aboriginal issues).

Mark Noll's "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" and John Harris' "One Blood" should be compulsory reading for all those who consider themselves "conservative" or "evangelical" - or even "fundamentalist".

Alister McGrath also has a couple of good introductory books about the relationship between science and religion. These have adequate bibliographies to point you to other resources if you want more information.

>Apologetics. A good recent evangelical apologist is the UK's Alister

>McGrath. His book Bridge-Building: Effective Christian Apologetics is as

>good as any. Of course, no list would be complete without C.S.Lewis' Mere

>Christianity: the greatest work on apologetics written in English in this

>century.

Agreed.

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>Church History. One of the best overviews I've read is Gavin White's How

the >Churches Got to Be the Way They Are. Hilarious! A friend who teaches Church

>History tells me Gavin White has another book, The Mother Church (your

>mother never told you) on the early church. A standard work, beautifully

>illustrated and reasonably priced is The Oxford Illustrated History of

>Christianity, edited by John McManners. E Cameron, The European

Reformation, >Clarendon, Oxford, 1991 is a good contemporary introduction to that period

>of church history. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R.H. Tawney will

>tell you where the 'Protestant work ethic' came from.

The series of small books on the history of the church in the Pelical series (probably Penguin now) are a bit dated, but give a concise introduction.

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>Popular Christian books. The best are Philip Yancey's books on The Jesus I

>Never Knew and What's So Amazing About Grace. Then go to the three by the

>dynamic Australian speaker and author Michael Frost. Begin with Jesus the

>Fool, then read his latest (and the book Michael considers his best) Eyes

>Wide Open. Y'all should have read Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. Then

>read his later book In Search of Stones (where he repents of the idea that

>adultery is sometimes O.K.).

And some more C.S. Lewis.

>Psychology. One of the best popularizers of psychological research is the

>University of Pennsylvania's Martin Seligman. Begin with What You Can

Change >and What You Can't (includes a whole chapter on dieting, where he says most

>diets are a waste of money, and simply make you more discouraged). You then

>might want to read his best-seller, Learned Optimism. Ernest Becker's The

>Denial of Death is on most intellectuals' lists: a quite brilliant book.

Two >books on the the men's movement: the classic Iron John by Robert Bly

>(everything else is derivative), and the best Australian book by far -

>Manhood by Steve Biddulph. My thesis in talks to men's groups: the

inability >of our culture to produce men from boys, fathers from sons, is the root

>cause of most of our social problems! Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor

>Frankl is a classic. His question (forged in a Nazi concentration camp):

how >do people survive when, for most, hope has gone?

I don't know whether Psychology would be the right place for books about life after bereavement, but Catherine Marshall's "To Live Again", C.S.Lewis "A Grief Observed" and E.M. Blaiklock's "Kathleen" are all worth including somewhere.

>Novels/Poetry etc. Here are three you must read: Dominique laPierre's City

>of Joy (the movie is a bit trashy), Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, James

>McBride's The Color of Water - about poverty in India, Ireland and New York

>respectively. McCourt's sequel to Angela's Ashes - 'Tis - is just out, and

>is even more earthy than his first book (partly because he spent some time

>in the U.S. army!). For a recent (1999) blockbuster with an evangelistic

>theme read John Grisham's The Testament. The (American) English best

>wordsmith? In my view it's John Updike: I'm ploughing (sorry, plowing)

>through his massive Odd Jobs at the moment. Best American humorist?

Garrison >Keillor, compere of The Prairie Home Companion radio show. Start with his

>Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories. His most famous story

is >'Gospel Birds' - in another book, about a wandering evangelist who'd

trained >birds to be clever, and used this gimmick to attract crowds. (Keillor was

>brought up in a Brethren-type church; these days he's agnostic, but very

>funny). The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien is still a bestseller: deals

>brilliantly with the issues of evil and

>power. George Bernard Shaw's introduction to Androcles and the Lion is an

>excellent philosophical analysis of Christianity (from the outside looking

>in). The greatest novels ever written are, by general consent, Dostoevsky's

>The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and The Idiot, and Tolstoy's

>War and Peace and Anna Karenina. For sheer majesty of language, and dense

>religious allusion read Moby Dick by Hermann Melville. And of course

William >Shakespeare tops most lists of the greatest writer in any language (pity

>that for some of us he was spoiled by our school English teachers!). The

>Geography of the Imagination by Guy Davenport is a series of essays on 20th

>century American poets. Travel? Into Thin Air by John Krakauer is about the

>1996 Everest tragedy. And last year I read an absorbing book by him about a

>young fellow who lived in the American and Canadian wilderness - forgotten

>its title.

Also on evil and power you could include the C.S. Lewis trilogy "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra" ("Voyage to Venus" in later editions), and "That Hideous Strength". And what about his "Narnia" series - even though they were intended for children, they can be very thought-provoking for adults. [You probably guess, correctly, that C.S is one of my favourite authors]

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>Current Affairs/Postmodernism et. al. Read something by/about Marshall

>McLuhan - pretty seminal.His son Eric McLuhan's book Electric Language is a

>masterpiece about communication in an electronic age. Michael Medved's

>Hollywood Vs America says the entertainment industry has broken faith with

>its audience (he is or was the film critic for the New York Post, and is

>very conservative). Blinded by Might by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson is about

>what went wrong with the Religious Right and what we can do about it. John

>Ralston's The Unconscious Civilization says our Western societies are only

>superficially based on the rights of the individual and a commitment to

>democracy. See my review -

>http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2138.htm. It's in the genre of

>Fullbright's The Arrogance of Power - and the writings of intelligent

>conspiracy theorists like Noam Chomsky, Ivan Illich, Franz Fanon et. al. A

>popular and controversial contemporary writer in this genre is John Pilger

>(start with his Hidden Agendas). An interesting musician/theologian/

>educator in the USA named Thomas Hohstadt has just published a book on the

>cyberchurch called Dying to Live. Jobshift by William Bridges offers a

>discussion of trends in the modern workplace to get a handle on what people

>in our congregations are going through with economic rationalism,

>restructuring etc.

Don't forget to read the daily newspapers and watch some TV to get a feel for some of what is going on in society.

>[Watch for more.. I've had some wonderful suggestions from many friends and

>will incorporate some of these over the next few weeks]

>Footnote: My son Paul is quite an intellectual and an expert on the

literary >origins of modern secular humanism (which he dates from 1798). His top

>twenty authors and/or books in this genre (dated roughly chronologically):

>Wordsworth & Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads; Keats' Selected Poems, and Keats'

>Letters; Emerson's Selected Essays; Thoreau's Walden; Whitman's Leaves of

>Grass, especially Song of Myself; the essential Dickens is in Great

>Expectations; Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd; Emily Dickinson,

>Collected Poems; Robert Frost; Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems; T S Eliot,

>The Wasteland and/or Four Quartets; D H Lawrence Lady Chatterly's Lover;

>William Carlos Williams; Gary Snyder; Kenneth White; Seamus Heaney; James

>Hillman, especially A Blue Fire.

>Rowland Croucher

>July 1, 2001

Ken Smith

12 July 2001

-- Dr Ken Smith - Christian, husband, unpaid mathematician, skeptic, ... `He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.' John Calvin, in "Commentary on Genesis