Church Times 100 Best Christian books

[Jackson Richardson]

Church Times, the London based weekly for the Church of England has come up with a list of 100 best Christian books. Here it is:

http://www.ct100books.co.uk/

It inspired me to get new translations of Augustine's Confessions and Pascal's Pensee (can't do accents).

There are a number of books there on the shelves which I haven't read (eg Schussler Fiorenza' In Memory of Her). C S Lewis' Mere Christianity/I] impressed me as a teenager, but is not a good thing now, IMHO. His [I]Screwtape Letters is fun though "She's a woman who lives for others. You can tell the others by their hunted expression".


Professor Sarah Coakley's God, Sexuality and Self looked interesting and I bought it. I will read it in the next six months, I will.

Any other thoughts?

[ennison]

I had a glance at that list. It contains many good and interesting writers. When I was young there was only a handful of books in the house that weren't about the sea or crofting or various Gaelic texts. These other books were mainly Puritan writers or modern evangelicals. It gave me a taste for that kind of reading which even today has a strong pull on me. I like how the list is catholic and boundary crossing.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, it's an odd idea in a way. I mean, The Rule of Benedict is good. But it's kind of short. And at the end of the day, it is, you know, a monastic rule. And Aquinas' Summa Theologica? Well, it was an interesting concept...

So I don't quite know about the whole idea. It seems to include too many categories. If I were to talk about religious novels, I would probably say, in no particular order:

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantakis
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Under the Garden by Graham Greene
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa (still reading, but it can easily stand with the best of 'em so far)
Moby-Dick (yes, Moby-Dick)
A Christmas Carol
Death Comes for the Archbishop

For ancient(ish) authors, it's harder because the most heartfelt works weren't necessarily by the most gifted writers (although some were). I guess I would say:

The Holy Bible (King James Version, if you wan't gorgeous language)
The City of God by Augustine (speaking of gorgeous language--it's even better in a Latin)
The Confessions of Augustine (gorgeous language plus a story most guys can relate to)
Inferno by Dante (I haven't read the other two yet)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake (Blake being Blake)
The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (my favorite martyrology--not a lesbian porno flick)
The Nag Hammadi Library (the evil creator tries to rape Eve, who turns into the tree and the serpent in Eden--you can't make this stuff up
The Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous (Christian mysticism)
The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila (more Christian mysticism)
The Dark Night of the Soul by Teresa of Avila's heart-throb, I mean mentor, John of the Cross (Christian mysticism gone wild)