RECOMMENDED BOOKS as at August, 2004

What would you say are the 100 essential books a literate Christian – particularly a pastor – should read? This list is grossly incomplete: I’d appreciate your help in refining it!

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. And there’s Google, Amazon.com and ABE Books.

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. 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.

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!

The little-known Roget’s Thesaurus of the Bible (A.Colin Day, Marshall Pickering) is excellent if you’re looking for Biblical sources of various themes.

If you want to start with a basic one-volume Bible Commentary and the companion Dictionaries/ Encyclopedias of the Bible/Theology/Psychology/ Apologetics etc., get the Baker series edited by George Elwell and others. But if you’re going to be a serious student of the Scriptures, you’ll need the six-volume Anchor Bible Dictionary, and the multi-volume New Interpreters’ Bible Commentaries. You get more value for the dollar/pound in Dictionaries of this-and-that than buying books on individual themes, in my opinion. I’d highly recommend anything by Gordon Fee – particularly his How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth. I attended a course he taught in Hong Kong last year, and would rate him the best Pentecostal expositor of the Bible in the English language.

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). 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).

Just one book on preaching? Buy the excellent Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching (William Willimon / Richard Lischer editors). Anything by William Willimon on preaching is worth reading. Michael Duduit (ed.) Handbook of Contemporary Preaching is good. The best collection of sermons I’ve seen is Thomas Long & Cornelius Plantinga’s A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today’s Preacher (although it’s weighted towards American and European preachers: I’d have added a few more British ones). John Claypool and Barbara Brown Taylor – both American Episcopalians – are the best contemporary writing preachers in my view: buy anything by these authors. Fred Craddock is also worth buying: he’s supposed to be the ‘father of modern preaching’. Best sermons ever preached? I’d put James Stewart’s ‘The Wind of The Spirit’ up there, and A J Gossip’s ‘But When Life Tumbles In, What Then?’ (preached when his wife died) and John Claypool’s ‘Tracks of a Fellow- Struggler’ (preached when his nine-year- old daughter was dying of leukemia). And Karl Barth’s sermons from Basel Prison (easier to read than his theological writings).

Many recommend John Henry Newman’s University Sermons but I confess I haven’t read them yet.

Spirituality. Start by getting Richard Foster’s three classics – Celebration of Discipline, Prayer, and his latest Streams of Living Water (which says there are six answers to the question ‘How can we know God?). From there, if you have to limit the number of spiritual classics, make sure you get The Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, The Cloud of Unknowing, and perhaps Teresa of Avila’s autobiography (I can still remember the suburban park where I read that!). (Many would include Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress which I think is corny, or Brother Lawrence’s Practising the Presence of God which is too much ‘out of this world’). Three modern ones: Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation (Merton is a bit wordy in other books, and his Seven Story Mountain is quite bigoted against Protestants! And you can read my review of the latest Merton book – ‘The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals’ where you can wonder about his love-affair with a woman!), Dom Helder Camara’s A Thousand Reasons for Living. (Dom Helder Camara – my hero – died at the age of 90 in August 1999), and Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer (anything by Nouwen is good). For selected readings see Foster’s Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups.

A generation ago W.E.Sangster wrote similarly: get his magnum opus The Pure in Heart if ever you see it in a secondhand bookshop. His thesis: whatever your Christian denomination, the more like Jesus you strive to be the more you’ll resemble others with a similar quest! The American Franciscan Richard Rohr integrates academic theological scholarship with social justice and spirituality better than anyone I know. Start with his chapters in Richard Rohr and others, Grace in Action, then read his studies on the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’ Plan for a New World. I reckon he’s the best modern prophet (in the English language). Buy anything by him – and get his tapes in a Catholic bookshop: he’s a brilliant speaker! Never heard of him? Shame (probably ‘cos you’re not Catholic – or catholic!). Put his name into a Google search of the John Mark Ministries site: I have his permission to republish anything’s he written.

For a good ‘missionary’ approach to spirituality, get Stanley Jones’ Growing Spiritually: it’s still fresh after a generation. Jewish spirituality: you can’t go past Abraham Heschel, particularly his Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism. Prayer from an Eastern Orthodox perspective – you can’t go past Anthony Bloom’s Living Prayer and School for Prayer. For some spiritual exercises, buy Anthony de Mello’s Sadhana: a Way to God. He was the most outstanding spiritual director of his era in India. For more exercises, buy just about anything published by The Upper Room (in Nashville, U.S.A.). They have now published a Spiritual Formation Bible.

Theology. I’d start with my little book Recent Trends Among Evangelicals (it’s on our website -) 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). 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 ground-breaking but a bit ponderous: read some summaries of their thinking in Dictionaries of Theology. 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.

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 the last century.

Pastoral Theology. Here the best author in the English language is Eugene Peterson, who says pastoral leadership is not about ‘running the church’, its only about helping people as their Spiritual Director to know God. You might start with The Contemplative Pastor or Under the Unpredictable Plant – then you’ll want to buy other titles by this excellent writer. If you want to buy your pastor a gift, spend $100 and buy her/him the whole Mastering Ministry series published by Multnomah/ Christianity Today: excellent wisdom from a range of (non-Catholic) pastoral leaders.

The best book on Christian community is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – a classic. For a good book integrating some management ideas (like accountability, performance appraisals, managing change etc.) with church leadership you can’t go past Paul Beasley-Murray’s A Call to Excellence: An Essential Guide to Christian Leadership. America’s best church strategist has been Lyle Schaller (though he’s weak on theology in my view). The two current writers-in- vogue are of course Bill Hybels and Rick Warren (his The Purpose-Driven Church is excellent. And of course every evangelical/pentecostal/fundamentalist church has done the 40-days of reflection and prayer with The Purpose-Driven Life). George Barna is America’s leading church-researcher, and publishes a book about ‘trends’ each year. User-friendly Churches is interesting, but non-Americans will have to de-Americanise it! The best introduction to counseling is still Gary Collins’ Christian Counseling: a Comprehensive Guide. Larry Crabb is excellent, too. And in the last few years there have been several books on Boundaries issues by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

Church History. I’ll try to find out what’s recommended these days, but the best overview I’ve read is Gavin White’s How the Churches Got to Be the Way They Are. Hilarious!

Charismatic Renewal. Most of the fuss about baptism in the Spirit and tongues etc. is now over, but you’ll want a few introductions to the general subject. Start with David Watson’s One in the Spirit, also Robert Hillman’s 27 Spiritual Gifts. I also found Charles Hummell’s Fire in the Fireplace excellent.On healing you still can’t go past Francis McNutt’s two books Healing and Power to Heal. The challenge for the church today is to combine the ancient / biblical notions of redemptive suffering and divine healing: the devil’s job is to separate what God has joined.

Auto/biographies. The very best biography written about a pastor in the last century, in my view, is still Paul Sangster’s biography of his father, titled Doctor Sangster. W.E.Sangster combined godliness, a charismatic personality, administrative gifts, (Wesleyan) scholarship, brilliant preaching and writing to be, probably, the greatest Methodist since Wesley. Sheila Cassidy’s Audacity to Believe is powerful: she’s an Australian-born doctor who was tortured during the time the Allende government was overthrown in Chile. (Her book Prayer for Pilgrims is also one of the best little books on prayer I’ve ever read). Then of course there’s the very funny The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4.

Popular Christian books. Buy anything by the dynamic Australian speaker and author Michael Frost. If you can only afford one, get his Jesus the Fool. 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.).

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!

Novels 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 (the movie is excellent), 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 even more earthy than his first book (partly because he spent a 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 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. 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!).

Current Affairs. 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). John Ralston Saul’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. 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).

Rowland Croucher