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Below is the corpus of writings that I have read so far and would most quickly reccommend to others, on a basis of theological or philosophical merit and personal impact. The books, series, etc. are alphabetized by title (not author), and exclude two areas: first the Bible, because that Canon is prior to and infinitely greater than my canon, and second, my own writings, which I believe others should be the judges of. The boundaries are hazy — I'm sure that your favorite book not on the list is better than your favorite book off the list. All entries should be assumed to be books unless stated otherwise.
Looking for a good book, for me, is a quest a little like a detective's searching for clues: anything that can be anticipated is not it. It is like a good surprise birthday present: you know it when you see it, but anything you can anticipate is not it. (In that regard, it is like a foretaste of Heaven: eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor any mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.) The list should grow longer as time progresses.
I told a friend once that I thought that some things would be a lot better if theologians would do all the apologetics, and apologists would do all of the theology. I'm not sure how to explain that remark (beyond asking people to think about it and let it sink in), but I often get more out of lesser works than greater. I am not including Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae on the list, for instance, because I got less out of reading it (in abridgment) than out of reading Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and less out of reading parts of Dante's Divina Commedia than C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. Maybe when I have matured more I will be ready to read some of the greater works, but now I usually learn best at the hands of the lesser masters. My judgment has certainly bothered people; the aforementioned friend was quite surprised when I gave high acclaim to Titanic, and he eventually said, after seeing what I saw in it, that my reading was so beautiful of a reading that he almost hesitated to attribute it to Kirk Cameron. Many of these works are lesser classics; I am aware of the greater classics, but have not learned much from most of them. Readers who enjoy this list may also like to see my favorite haunts on the web.
The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis
An excellent and concise description of what Western culture is trying to do, and what will come of it.
Abortion: A Failure to Communicate.
On Saturday Night Live, the announcer said, "Kenny G came out with his new Christmas album. [pause] Happy birthday, Jesus. I hope you like crap!"
Being aloof from popular artists, it took me a while to realize that Kenny G is not a Christian artist. Most of what goes by the name of Christian is intellectually and artistically worthless, in a sense a blasphemy against the Creator who lovingly and lavishly created no two blades of grass alike. In looking through Christian this and Christian that on the web, it was a very refreshing pearl amidst a desert of sand. This was the first good Christian article I found in a long while.
Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts, by Franky Schaeffer
This book provides an excellent analysis of bad philosophy as it leads to an impoverished culture — dealing with how utilitarianism (leaving the obvious critique related to pursuing only means and never ends) has nearly killed one aspect of the imago dei in our culture. A good and accessible read to anyone concerned with philosophy, art, or culture.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman
After I read this book (a quick read, in contradistinction to Jerry Mander's weightier and slower Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television), I've never looked at a TV the same way again. This would be a good candidate for the first book on this list to read, because once you've read this one you'll find it easier to break away from television's accursed spell and read other books and otherwise experience life.
There's something that must be said for television. It must be said, because it cannot be printed.
All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections, by Gandhi
This book, and in particular the chapter entitled, "Ahimse or the way of nonviolence," provided a large part of my real beginning in understanding peacemaking, and the loose prototype for Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Real Peace through Real Strength. It's largely a collection of excellent quotes, and well worth reading to anyone asking the questions concerning violence and peace.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson
C.S. Lewis said that children's books should be good enough for adults, and that childrens' books which aren't good enough for adults won't be any good for children, either. All of the best children's literature is good for adults, and this book in particular is interesting, funny, and truly profound. (Something similar, incidentally, might be said for Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.)
The Book of Heroic Failures, by Stephen Pile
This book I debated putting in, but I decided for: first, because when I read it I laughed so hard I cried and could barely talk, and second, because it does help to come to terms with a side of being human that most of us find a smidgen embarassing.
Changeling: the Dreaming
Reading about this game (which I could not play in good conscience, incidentally), was one of the things I did that most pierced me with a glimpse of Heaven, as did Pilgrim's Regress and other places. To quote from the web site:
We are changelings, the forgotten ones, neither fully fae nor wholly mortal. The last of our kind on Earth, we have built ourselves an invisible kingdom. We are everywhere, yet you have never seen us. We hide, not behind some fragile Masquerade, but in plain sight, with the power of our Glamour. We exist within a real world of make-believe where "imaginary" things can kill, and "pretend" monsters are real.
This is an exquisitely beautiful description of the spilled religion that is Romanticism, and someone who drinks those drops may well imbibe deeper from the Chalice than someone who is careful to have his lips touch the chalice, but makes no effort to take in the Drink inside. We are indeed members of an invisible kingdom, hidden in plain sight by the power of grace and prayer, and believe many things that the Kingdom of Darkness now calls imaginary. Reading this inspired a part of one of my writings:
On the web, I found a place set up by a woman who believed she was a fairy. At first, it weirded me out — but, the more and more I think about, the less it strikes me as strange. I don't mean that it's not wrong — I mean rather that it is far less wrong than many beliefs about which we've become blase'. The essential idea of a person who is really a fairy, and a world of wonder, a nature of beauty, and of magic, is in some ways very close to the truth of imago dei, of God's magnificent creation, and of prayer. It has its definite errors and omissions, but it is far closer to true than the idea of a person as only a material body, of nature as only a particular configuration of subatomic particles, of the supernatural as only a figment of human imagination and superstition. The beliefs around fairies would make the basis for an excellent parable, of which a crude rendition is as follows:
Once upon a time, there was a village of men, that was on the border of fairy-land. And some people saw faries, but some lived lives that were dull and dreary.
And the god of nature, who was the prince of the gods, entered this village and began to take men and women into his arms, embracing them and kissing them. And when he kissed them, he made them into fairies. And he took them, and taught them to dance, a wild, merry, pagan dance with the trees and stars and rivers and lakes and flowers.
And the god cut through what was dull and mundane, and the leaders whose interests were in all that was dull and mundane were enraged and killed him. And yet all of their rage and unbelief and violence, even death itself, could not keep him. Before he was killed, he gave the fairies to eat his flesh and drink his blood, that he might live in them and they in him, and after he was killed, he rose in a surge of the indestructible life that was within him.
And now, he has left that he might be everywhere — in men, in the stars, in the trees, and enchant them with his magic, that they might dance also, and he abides and is found inside each fairy, and empowers them to kiss others with his kiss and draw them into the circle of life, that they also might become fairies, living the life of the nature god, weaving his magic by which the entire universe pulses with life, carried about by song and wonder, and dancing the great dance.
And he has designs yet unveiled — to bring an even greater perfection to the nature, the fairies, the magic, the dance, the embrace.
And the story is unfolding even now.
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Jonathan's Canon
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