25 Great Christian Books–An Introduction
A friend shared with me the news of an excellent new book called 25 Books Every Christian Should Read: A Guide to the Essential Spiritual Classics.
The 25 books on this list by Renovaré are awesome!
The book is edited by Julia L. Roller, and published by an intrachurch movement called Renovaré. It’s available from Amazon, at the iTunes Bookstore, and lots of other places.
How did Renovaré go about deciding which books to put on their list? I really like the way they did it.
- Solicited input from their community of thousands, and created a massive list together.
- That massive list went to their editorial board, which represents a diversity of denominational affiliations: Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant.
- Their goal was to select books that serve as the best guides for living life with God, rather than the “best” books or best “devotional” books or best “sellers.”
- Chose a wide variety of literary genres: devotional, poetry, fiction, biography and more.
- Exclude all books from living authors, as these works have not yet stood the test of centuries.
- Exclude the most obvious book: the Bible.
- Heart-oriented texts rather than information-oriented texts.
Here is the list of 25 by Renovaré . . .
- On the Incarnation, by Saint Athanasius
- Confessions, by Saint Augustine
- The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
- The Rule of Saint Benedict
- The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- Revelations of Divine Love (Showings), by Julian of Norwich
- The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis
- The Philokalia
- Institutes of Christian Religion, by John Calvin
- The Interior Castle, by Saint Teresa of Avila
- Dark Night of the Soul, by Saint John of the Cross
- Pensées, by Blaise Pascal
- The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
- The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence
- A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, by William Law
- The Way of a Pilgrim
- The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton
- The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins
- The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoffer
- A Testament of Devotion, by Thomas R. Kelly
- The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton
- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
- The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri J.M. Nouwen
(I found that list via the book preview function at Amazon.com.)
As I glance at my bookshelf, I see lots of those books there already. And I’ve heard some respectable theologians refer to them any number of times.
These 25 great books could be the beginnings of a superb reading plan for years or even decades into the future!