BTW, St Michael’s by-the-Sea has a pretty decent website, with audio from the sermons and also from the (excellent) Adult Formation lectures, if you feel so inclined. Not the same as being there, but it’s good stuff.

http://philosophisingplasterer.blogspot.com/2010/03/10-books-meme.html

Here are my books:

1. Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk. It showed me as a young girl the power of fiction and the way a story can transport a person away from the present.

2. The Aenied by Vergil. Reading this in high school tied several disciplines together for me (Latin and English) and showed me how words arranged on a page (because Latin is not tied to a specific order as English is) can be create a vivid image.

3. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis because it played a pivotal role in bringing me to the faith as an adult in my early thirties. I recently read The Great Divorce and found that excellent as well. I know Lewis was heavily influenced by Chesterton, but I have found him harder to read and can’t get into his works.

4. For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann because it introduced me to a sacramental view of the world. I read it while I was in the process of converting to Orthodoxy over two years ago.

5. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky because of its heavy Christian themes and its portrayal of Orthodoxy. I read it when I was converting to Orthodoxy as well.

6. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton because I thought it was a wonderful story and because it re-engaged me with classical literature as an adult and convinced me to spend more of my time reading such works.

7. The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Connor because she showed me how to remain steadfastly faithful despite serious life difficulties.

8. A Sever Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken because it honestly portrays a marriage based on Christ’s love.

I truly have gotten some wonderful book ideas from this post. The older I get the more I realize that I want to read quality works rather than junk.

I have up in my classroom (I teach philosophy and Biblical Lit at a high school) pictures of Saint Michael’s. I’m Anglican, I LOVE North County, and I pray often that God will help me move to that area one day. For a while my prayer was to become a priest and be the rector of that parish.

That was a great book.

The Dark Side of Calvinism by George Bryson. . . Why I’m Not a Calvinist by Jerry Walls

Those sound positively horrific. ; )

Matthew Lee Anderson Is it too early to say Left Behind and the Late Great Planet Earth?

You don’t want to wait too long—after the Rapture it’ll be too late.

So are you Reformed plain-and-simple (Michael Horton, R. C. Sproul), Reformed Baptist (Wayne Grudem, Mark Dever, John Piper) or Reformed Presbyterian (Philip Graham Ryken, Ligon Duncan)?

That’s a good question. I was a Baptist before I was Reformed so technically I could be considered a “Reformed Baptist.” Although I’m still Baptist-like in my ecclesiology (though I prefer elders to deacons) I’m more on the “mere Reformed” side. I would say that I admire all the men you list, I’m more in line with Sproul.

Alison I definitely want to look into the books on intellectual history as well as the Tom Wolfe.

I’m a sucker for broad-sweeping books on how ideas shaped the world, and Tarnas’ book is a good one. Johnson’s “Modern Times” is a doorstop size tome that took awhile to get through (though I need to reread it.)

Wolfe’s books are short gems. He’s a bit more dismissive of modern art and architecture than I am now, but books are great.

Holly Ordway The Resurrection of the Son of God

I need to get that one. That’s been on my to-read list for awhile.

Philip Rieff – The Triumph of the Therapeutic.

James Poulos over on the Postmodern Conservative blog is a huge fan of Rieff. That’s another one I need to catch up on.

One of my personal fav.’s is Athanasius _On the Incarnation_.

Thanks Craig for the tour down memory lain. I remember the 88 Reasons pamphlet. It scared the you-know-what out of some folks in my neck of the words.

I also like the Hal Lindsey honorable mention. I remember Steve Brown, who heads Key Life Ministries in FL, once say that as a Presbyterian pastor, he would give Late Great Planet Earth to people to get them converted and then disabuse them of it when they got in the church. It reminds me of the old Larry Norman song, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music.” I’ll let the readers decide how to apply the metaphor.

George A. Marquart

I’m blessed to have such a wonderful church and a great spiritual director who was willing to spend a lot of time with me, helping me wrestle with tough concepts like prayer, spiritual growth, and so on. The Life of Antony is maybe not a typical book to recommend to new Christians (?) but it was an excellent choice for me. The Enemy is real, and quite upset about losing a soul he’d had under his thumb for many years. Knowing that I should expect spiritual attack has helped me a great deal – otherwise I might have been blindsided by it.

Wow. What church do you go to?

Philip Rieff – The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Part of a larger literary conversation that has helped me see the way that our modern society has become “therapeutic” in orientation: looking not for truth, but for how to feel good.

The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: An ongoing source of joy and insight. Reading his poetry, before I became a Christian, helped wake me up to the fact that there might just be something more to Christianity than I thought… because Hopkins had tremendous faith, but it wasn’t sugar-coated, pie-in-the-sky stuff. It was tough, strong, thrilling, and beautiful.

Athanasius: The Life of Antony. One of the first books that my pastor recommended that I read as a new Christian, to help me understand the reality of the Enemy and of spiritual warfare. An amazing book, and one that I have returned to for fresh insights about how to call on the name of Christ when under spiritual assault.

Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines. Very helpful in helping me understand something of what it means to live the Christian life.

and of course,

C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, Miracles, The Screwtape Letters, and The Four Loves.

Actually, come to think about it, that book did have a big influence in my life. Maybe not the influence the author intended. :)