Books I often recommend

Over at Faith and Theology Ben is encouraging one of those meme things. No-one has tagged me, and I don’t know how to tag people anyway (sounds like a web version of a playground game, which we used to call tig!). But it set me asking myself, so what books do I often recommend if people ask about this ‘n that. The list below shows some of the books I’ve recommended to people – though one person’s enthusiasm is another person’s ‘whit’s this a’ aboot’? Still for what it’s worth, each of the books below is one I’ve read a number of times, and still think they are worth anybody’s time.

Books I Often recommend

1. Pastoral Theology
W H Vanstone, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense. This is quite simply the ideal of pastoral experience rendered into theology, earthed in the Incarnation and embedded in the love of God.

2. Christian Doctrine

D Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding. This is an elegant, accessible mid range theology, written with a convictional edge but generous in its scope and sympathies.

3. The Cross

D J Hall, The Cross in our Context. This theology of the cross, by a too often overlooked theologian, condenses his systematic theology into a more manageable and accessible form. The result is theology from the standpoint of the cross, a reflection on the contemporary scene from the perspective of Calvary. And not a hint of sentimental pietism – a robust exploration of crucified love as it encounters a broken creation.

4. Poetry

R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems. This Welsh clergyman poet stands no nonsense. This is undiluted human search, discontent, praise and lament, about how hard it is to find God – and how compellingly essential to persevere in the search.

5. Novel.

Anne Tyler, The Patchwork Planet. Not because this is her best (that’s probably either Saint Maybe, or Morgan’s Passing). But because this novel builds around small incidents and observations, and shows how accidental moments can change lives. I also think the central figure who works for a firm called rent-a-back, is an interesting study of what it might mean to ‘by love serve one another’!

6. Biblical

Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder. I happen to think that a lot of Peterson’s more recent writing is good but not brilliant, and rehearses stuff he has written better elsewhere and earlier. This collection of theological reflections on worship (published in 1988), with the subtitle, The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination, represents some of the finest biblically literate pastoral writing I know. This is way beyond the pastor’s quick dose of pick-me-up devotional exhortation. This is searching spiritual theology, written with literary skill and a poet’s deep trust in the power of words to generate in the mind, alternative realities.

Anyway – these are some of my many times recommended books. I’ve bought Vanstone so often I think I keep it in print!! Another way into this would be to ask, which of your books have you lent most….and which ones did you get back!…or which ones wouldn’t you lend?……..MMHMM.