I’m participating in a secret santa this year. For those who don’t know what a secret santa is, we all put our names in a box, and we each pulled a name out of a box. We have to get a present for the person whose name we pulled. At the holiday party, all the presents are put in one place. As the person receives and opens the present, he/she has to guess who gave it to them. There are three guesses.
I pulled out Sarah’s name (there are enough Sarahs in the world that I don’t think her name is identifying information). I know that she is Christian, and she likes reading a lot of books about Christianity. I know she recently read the C.S. Lewis books. I am NOT going to give her Mounce’s Biblical Greek book, or any Greek book, because she knows that I know some Greek and it would be too easy for her to guess. However, I think it might be good to give her some book about Christianity because she knows I’m not Christian, so I don’t think she’d guess me in her guesses (especially since she’s sort of formed a Christian reading club with other people at this party, so she would probably guess those people first).
So, in a nutshell, what’s a really good book for a Christian to read? (besides the bible, since I think she already has a copy).
I’ve noticed that most of the Christian books she reads were written after 1950 (except the Bible, which is considerably older). So I think I have a better chance of getting something she hasn’t read if I get an older book. But I want it to be a REALLY GOOD BOOK. So if the best choice seems to be something which was written after 1950, I might consider it. Also, the organizer of the secret santa wants everybody to get presents of approximately equal monetary value, so he put a restriction of $5-15 on how valuable the gift can be (though hopefully all gifts will be priceless). So it has to be a book which is in print and available as a paperback.
I’ve got an alternate idea of what I would get her if I can’t find the right Christian book, but I think that, if I can get a really good Christian book, it would be the best thing I can get her.
I would suggest The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. Although written by a Catholic author, It is still enjoyable even for the Protestant and is considered great literature even by those who are not Christians.
Hmmm…well, I would wonder how heavy of reading she likes? Theological stuff?? Christian fiction? I haven’t run across a lot of Christian fiction that I am really fond of. However, Stephen Lawhead is a pretty decent Christian author. There is his Song of Albion series that is pretty good, as well as his Pendragon Cycle. He has one sci-fi series (only two boos that are now available as one volume) that I like called the Empyrion Series.
If it’s non-fiction she likes, Lewis is always a good bet. His Perelandria series is a lesser known sci-fi series, it is very Jules Verne-ish in nature, but it is a wonderful read. His Screwtape Letters are also delightful…it’s about a young lower level imp, writing to his Uncle Screwtape, who is a senior tempter in Hell. The book is all about how to best tempt man and keep them from a relationship with God…it’s a hoot! For non-fiction titles by Lewis, everyone has Mere Christianity, so don’t get that one. God in the Dock is a good, fairly recent compilation of letters by Lewis. His Surprised by Joy is also an excellent semi-biographical book. If she is more of a movie watcher Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis is moving, touching, and a fairly accurate portayal of the life and death of a woman he married out of convenience but was deeply in love with…it’s a tear jerker though…Anthony Hopkins is in exquisite form.
I hope that is enough for now…if you can give me a little more specific reading interests for her I can probably give you some more titles.
Perhaps a dumb idea, but how about Milton’ Paradise Lost, or something like Dante’s Divine Comedy? Certainly pre-1950, although perhaps not quite the genre you have in mind.
Well, I know she’s read Mere Christianity, and I’m pretty sure she’s at least heard of the other C.S. Lewis books, so I’m not going to get anything by him.
I’m looking towards non-fiction. For example, there’s a book which she reads a little from every day called “The Purpose Driven Life”. I don’t think she wants a scholarly deconstruction of the bible. I guess I’m looking for something which would be spiritual inspirational, whatever that means, but is more practical than theoretical.
On the other hand, it might be better to give her something a little different from what she would buy herself. Of all of the suggestions so far, “Orthodoxy” seems to be the closest to what I’m looking for. Could someone tell me more about this book?
My alternative gift would be giving a couple of books by some of my favorite fiction writers, and perhaps that would all and all be a better gift, since it’s something which I connect to personally. I would give her a book about theatre, something of mutual interest to both of us, but she sees me reading books about theater all the time, so like giving her something related to Greek it seems too obvious a gift (I think I’ve even discussed with her what theater books are my favorites - this was before the secret santa thing was determined). However, I haven’t been reading much fiction lately, so she doesn’t know what fiction I read, which is why I think I can get away with giving her some of that stuff.
Indeed! I would love to hear a theory in which Milton was not a Christian, and Paradise Lost is not a Christian poem. I think what vir litterarum means is that Milton was not a Catholic, and Paradise Lost is not a Catholic poem.
I know a lot of us here are sci-fi fans; it’s not pre-1950, but have you thought of A Case of Conscience by James Blish? It’s one of the only specifically Christian sci-fi novels I know of, and a Christian would probably leave it with a totally different feeling than the blind, foaming-mouthed anger that I did. (If you haven’t read it, a priest comes to the conclusion that a newly-discovered alien civilization must be a creation of the devil because they’ve managed to establish a perfectly just, harmonious society without the benefit of Christian revelation, so he performs an exorcism against them. At the very same time, the visiting human expedition manages to destroy the entire planet with a chain reaction fusion explosion. Cause and effect? You decide.)
Before I converted out of Christianity, I used to enjoy Uchimura Kanzo(内?鑑三)'s biographical essays like “How I became a Christian:out of my diary.” He was a Japanese who was one of the first converts to Christianity. He learned Theology and English from American missionary whose name I do not remember. His books are rather short and do not need a big brain to read.
His books are rare. But if you are lucky you might be able to find it at a used books dealer. Or you could just browse amazon by his name and pick one that looks fit.
Well… you are making it tough. Between $5-15. It has to be a REALLY GOOD BOOK. (This makes good sense. No squabbles there.) but now it should be a book she has not heard of before.
How about “The Gospel according to Jesus” by John F. MacArthur, Jr.
$10.19 at Amazon. It is between $5-15 and it is a REALLY GOOD BOOK but I don’t know if she has heard of it.
Neither did Isaac Newton, as far as that goes. I suppose if you belong to a Trinitarian denomination that defines them as not being Christian; and yet the Arians, the Monophysites, the Nestorians, and the Unitarians of today are all called Christian sects in every reference I’ve ever seen on the subject.
Now we must define the word “Christian.” Suffice it to say that there is considerable disagreement over the issue of Milton’s religion (See The Militant Miltonist; or, the Retreat from Humanism by M.K Starkman or Milton and the English Mind by F.E. Hutchinson).
I don’t really want to continue this thread-jacking any further, but seriously–there’s a Unitarian Church right down the block here. Should I walk in there and tell them they’re not Christians? Who shall I say has decreed this?
I’ve read a lot about all the different sects and “heresies” that have been murdering each other for the last 2000 years, and sure, they all anathematize each other as the Devil’s Spawn and minions of the Antichrist, but historians are only willing to admit that two of them, the Cathars and the Bogomils, might in fact not have been Christians, but survivals of some Persian dualist sect that had adopted some Christian terminology. As far as I’m concerned, as a devout atheist, anybody who calls themselves a Christian is a Christian.
I’ll go with the Sunday School answer and say…Jesus?
First off…Isn’t devout Atheist a bit of an oxymoron? Maybe not. I just enver thought of my Atheist friends as devout. As far as anathematizing and calling people Devil’s spawn and all that…I try and refrain from that unless I actually see horns and smell smoke!
On a more serious note. I think perhaps the best authorities as to what is truly Christian and what is not lies within the Church fathers, many of who could trace their spiritual genealogy directly to the apostles. If one is a good student of the Fathers two things become paramount in early orthodox theological formation 1) The Trinity and 2) The deity of Christ. These two things became the touchstones of orthodoxy in the early church. If we hold up those same benchmarks against groups like Unitarians, Arians (both ancient and modern), Nestorians, and Sabellianism (which is definitely alive and well today), they fall beyond the pale of what the fathers would call orthodox Christianity. I myself would concur with the Fathers. However, I refuse to throw rocks at Unitarians, or call their names, although I do have a funny joke or two about them (as well as about baptists, methodists, and others).
Oh yes…and back to the thread…I would suggest Francis Schaeffer’s True Spirituality. It is an outstanding read by a solid Christian philosopher (no oxymoron jabs please Arvid!) and it has been an instrumental devotional book in my spiritual development. It is moderately heavy reading, but not too bad. If she can read Lewis, she can read Schaeffer.
OK, I give up! Obviously I’m not going to win here. All I can tell you is that in any book I’ve ever read by a General Historian (i.e., not a religious tract,) I’ve never seen the Arians, Nestorians, Monopysites, etc., referred to as anything but “Christian.” Perhaps, as you say, they were not “Orthodox,” but “Christian” is used as a much more inclusive term. In my opinion, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and if you ask it: “Are you a duck?” and it says: “I’m a duck!” then it’s a duck.
The problem lies in the indistinguished way some use the term Christian. Historians call Arians Christians because they are closely affiliated with each other, and the Arians called themselves Christians. The only way to exclude Arians as Christians, even if they are heretical, is holding the a priori assumption that Christians are X. If you start with no assumptions and work only from evidence, you don’t get that. You group according to categories. And while what is commonly labeled “orthodox” and “proto-orthodox” (different enough as they are) are distinguished yet grouped with Arians, Marcionites, and other Christians, since they all focus on Christ. Likewise, if you go back early enough, those Christians are better off categorized with Jews. But this is from the historical-critical aspect. Other people hold on to their faith without evidence.
i think that is a debate for another thread.