I was talking to a brother at church this morning, and we were describing to each other the paths we'd taken to arrive in the Anglican church. We talked especially about things we'd read. It got me thinking about the influences that have fashioned, for good or bad, how I look at the world today. I sat down with a pad and pencil and made a list of only those books whose exclusion would have meant a very different Phil. This isn’t my “You’ve got to read 'em list.” It’s not even my “Favorites” list. It’s the “It is what it is” List- although there are many favorite and precious friends there.
They're listed in chronological order. Some of the titles grew into the next step of my thinking; some made possible the next step, but like scaffolding were discarded when that level was reached.
They're listed in chronological order. Some of the titles grew into the next step of my thinking; some made possible the next step, but like scaffolding were discarded when that level was reached.
And yes, I do realize that some will think I’ve been climbing down into a hole.
Underneath it all is the faith Mom and Dad taught and modeled for me.
1. Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, Two Babylons by Hislop and Chick Tracks- I put these together because they reflect much of what I’ve grown out of. I was hugely fascinated by Dispensational Prophecy type issues and can remember driving home from church on Sunday evenings, seeing a large orange harvest moon out the rear window and being terrified that the moon was turning to blood. Pelaginism was the great enemy of the gospel (although I would have called it works righteousness then). Clearly, Rome had that all wrapped up. In addition I believed that they were Satanic in the most explicit sense. Yeah…I know. I read Loraine Boettner’s horrifically inaccurate Roman Catholicism when I was in Junior High. I gave out many copies through my early thirties. Christ have mercy.
2. War of the Worlds, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and The Old Man and the Sea. The smell that an old paper back book gives off when you quickly flip its pages takes me back to a small den I had fashioned in the center of a storage room full of boxes. Cave like, you had to crawl on your belly to reach the hidden opening in the center. I spent many hours hidden in that room, re-reading Jules Verne. Reading! I would wait until I met my wife before I'd discover anything better.
Underneath it all is the faith Mom and Dad taught and modeled for me.
1. Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, Two Babylons by Hislop and Chick Tracks- I put these together because they reflect much of what I’ve grown out of. I was hugely fascinated by Dispensational Prophecy type issues and can remember driving home from church on Sunday evenings, seeing a large orange harvest moon out the rear window and being terrified that the moon was turning to blood. Pelaginism was the great enemy of the gospel (although I would have called it works righteousness then). Clearly, Rome had that all wrapped up. In addition I believed that they were Satanic in the most explicit sense. Yeah…I know. I read Loraine Boettner’s horrifically inaccurate Roman Catholicism when I was in Junior High. I gave out many copies through my early thirties. Christ have mercy.
2. War of the Worlds, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and The Old Man and the Sea. The smell that an old paper back book gives off when you quickly flip its pages takes me back to a small den I had fashioned in the center of a storage room full of boxes. Cave like, you had to crawl on your belly to reach the hidden opening in the center. I spent many hours hidden in that room, re-reading Jules Verne. Reading! I would wait until I met my wife before I'd discover anything better.
3. Lord of the Rings had a double significance. I had never seen such a beautiful presentation of Christlikeness. Who wouldn't want a friend like Gandalf. Who wouldn't desire to be seen as Aragorn's true brother. Who couldn't see that sacrafical virtue was more important than personal survival. Beauty, not fear, is the great evangelistic tool. I was introduced to this trilogy by an older Cousin. I thought the world of Robby. He was viewed by many in my extended fundamentalist family as a radical. He read too much. Had strange ideas. He shared these three volumes with me- secretly, and like Gandalf told me to keep them secret and keep them safe. He wanted them back for his own children.
4. Francis Schaeffer Trilogy- First to open my eyes about the universal extent of Christ’s reign. Not very happy with some of the simplifications regarding various thinkers, but paradigm changing when I first read it as a teenager. I didn’t know it then, but I was getting Van Til’s Presupositionalism while very young.
5. Decision Making and the Will of God by Friesin and The Christian and Alcholic Beverages by Kenneth Gentry. I read Decision Making while Sandi and I were dating, and Gentry’s book shortly before we were married. Both were significant in that they shattered certain “givens” about the Christian life. The world was a larger place than I imagined.
6. Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul shook me up badly and made possible my slide into TR style Reformed Theology. Wonderfully important, but needs to be balanced with a fuller understanding of the truthfulness of the revelation of God in Christ- in my opinion.
7. Five Points of Calvinism by Duane Spencer, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray and Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul- three of the books that marked my first self conscious crusader stage. I had an axe to grind, and for the first time I knew what it looked like.
8. What Every Parent Should Know About Infant Baptism by James Sartell, Baptism: Its Mode and Method by Jay Adams and William the Baptist. I envisioned God’s people for the first time as being defined by Covenant. It was only a matter of time before the dispensationalism had to go
9. Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson introduced me to the truth that Covenants- not Dispensations- structure Scripture. Still very fond of this book.
10. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government and Liberty or Equality by Kunhelt Ledhn. Original sin made fear and skepticism of those in power necessary- especially the ubiquitous democratic sort of power.
11. Systematic Theology by Robert Dabney. I took to Dabney immediately because of his anti Jacobian emphasis in matters political. I also turned to the younger Hodge’s Outlines of Theology whenever I had a question of how it all worked.
12. An Eschatology of Victory by Marcellus Kik. This along with other similar works (Last Day Madness, Days of Vengeance, etc) was my introduction to Partial Preterism. The world has never looked the same.
13. Theonomy by Greg Bahnsen. This stage was passionate and lasted a while. N.T. Wright has cured me, though.
14. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neal Postman and various essays by Wendell Berry forced me to reconsider what real progress looked like.
15. I’ll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners and The Southern Tradition at Bay by Richard Weaver. Ditto.
16. Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis, The seven novels of Charles Williams and Orthodoxy by Chesterton. All the themes I’ve come to regard as most important in a rubber-meets-the-road sort of way are found in these books. Each acted as an intro to these men’s writing. I wouldn’t be the same person without their wisdom.
17. The Fire that Consumes by Edward Fudge. Although I’m not an annihilationist. This book began my current agnosticism in regards to how much we truly know about what God is finally up too. A more current read, The Evangelical Universalist would count in the same way.
18. Evangelical is Not Enough and Chance or the Dance? by Thomas Howard. I realized that I was Gnostic in my worship and a chronological snob in my convictions. The beginning of the end of my TR days and the conception of the world as two-storied.
19. Centrality of the Resurrection by Richard Gaffin. It’s been republished with another title. I began to understand Vos’s point that salvation is Eschatological and Christ’s resurrection was all about his receiving in this age what Israel believed would come to pass in the Age to Come. Later, Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas did a monumental job of showing why that mattered- although I think he’s unfair to Constantine.
20. Complete Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins and For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann. These brothers understood that the world had but one Storey. I wanted to be able to see that world- the one that needed no stairs.
5. Decision Making and the Will of God by Friesin and The Christian and Alcholic Beverages by Kenneth Gentry. I read Decision Making while Sandi and I were dating, and Gentry’s book shortly before we were married. Both were significant in that they shattered certain “givens” about the Christian life. The world was a larger place than I imagined.
6. Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul shook me up badly and made possible my slide into TR style Reformed Theology. Wonderfully important, but needs to be balanced with a fuller understanding of the truthfulness of the revelation of God in Christ- in my opinion.
7. Five Points of Calvinism by Duane Spencer, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray and Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul- three of the books that marked my first self conscious crusader stage. I had an axe to grind, and for the first time I knew what it looked like.
8. What Every Parent Should Know About Infant Baptism by James Sartell, Baptism: Its Mode and Method by Jay Adams and William the Baptist. I envisioned God’s people for the first time as being defined by Covenant. It was only a matter of time before the dispensationalism had to go
9. Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson introduced me to the truth that Covenants- not Dispensations- structure Scripture. Still very fond of this book.
10. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government and Liberty or Equality by Kunhelt Ledhn. Original sin made fear and skepticism of those in power necessary- especially the ubiquitous democratic sort of power.
11. Systematic Theology by Robert Dabney. I took to Dabney immediately because of his anti Jacobian emphasis in matters political. I also turned to the younger Hodge’s Outlines of Theology whenever I had a question of how it all worked.
12. An Eschatology of Victory by Marcellus Kik. This along with other similar works (Last Day Madness, Days of Vengeance, etc) was my introduction to Partial Preterism. The world has never looked the same.
13. Theonomy by Greg Bahnsen. This stage was passionate and lasted a while. N.T. Wright has cured me, though.
14. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neal Postman and various essays by Wendell Berry forced me to reconsider what real progress looked like.
15. I’ll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners and The Southern Tradition at Bay by Richard Weaver. Ditto.
16. Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis, The seven novels of Charles Williams and Orthodoxy by Chesterton. All the themes I’ve come to regard as most important in a rubber-meets-the-road sort of way are found in these books. Each acted as an intro to these men’s writing. I wouldn’t be the same person without their wisdom.
17. The Fire that Consumes by Edward Fudge. Although I’m not an annihilationist. This book began my current agnosticism in regards to how much we truly know about what God is finally up too. A more current read, The Evangelical Universalist would count in the same way.
18. Evangelical is Not Enough and Chance or the Dance? by Thomas Howard. I realized that I was Gnostic in my worship and a chronological snob in my convictions. The beginning of the end of my TR days and the conception of the world as two-storied.
19. Centrality of the Resurrection by Richard Gaffin. It’s been republished with another title. I began to understand Vos’s point that salvation is Eschatological and Christ’s resurrection was all about his receiving in this age what Israel believed would come to pass in the Age to Come. Later, Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas did a monumental job of showing why that mattered- although I think he’s unfair to Constantine.
20. Complete Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins and For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann. These brothers understood that the world had but one Storey. I wanted to be able to see that world- the one that needed no stairs.
21. What St. Paul Really Said and The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright. The most startling thing I’ve ever read. Single greatest paradigm shift of my life. Began a journey of reading everything I could find by this man and a realization that I’d never clearly understood the gospel before.
22. Crendenda/ Agenda- a monthly magazine that presented a vision of Christianity that was attractively medieval. It introduced me to Peter Leithart and others who have been hugely influential in my formation. Leithart’s Against Christianity summarizes much of my current axe grinding.
23. Theology of the Body Explained by Christopher West. My introduction to the most exciting theological reflections of the last century. Thank God for John Paul the Great!
22. Crendenda/ Agenda- a monthly magazine that presented a vision of Christianity that was attractively medieval. It introduced me to Peter Leithart and others who have been hugely influential in my formation. Leithart’s Against Christianity summarizes much of my current axe grinding.
23. Theology of the Body Explained by Christopher West. My introduction to the most exciting theological reflections of the last century. Thank God for John Paul the Great!
24. At the Corner of East and Now by Frederica Mathewes-Green and Every Earthly Blessing by Esther de Waal. Almost persuaded; time will tell...
