Our Next Book
While we’re doing Caputo’s On Religion for our first book, we need to have the next lined up! So we’d like to ask you all what you’d like to read.
Right now, we’re thinking the criteria should be something like this:
- Around or under 200 pages (a little longer is okay if it isn’t particularly dense)
- Not too dense (something for an educated popular audience, not something for a grad student!)
- Oriented around theology or religion
- Accessible: Nothing out of print or very hard to find. It’s too much too expect our local libraries to have much we might cover (mine sure wouldn’t) but nothing too expensive (let’s say over $20) or requiring quite a bit of hoop jumping to get a hold of.
These are, of course, just our present criteria. We want to keep it a little low key as we start out and we feel our way around this. So, please make your suggestions in the comments and we’ll tally them up and vote later on for them!
Some suggestions to start you with:
- The Orthodox Heretic by Peter Rollins
- Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders
- Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate by Terry Eagleton
- The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses
- A.D. 381 by Charles Freeman
- The Religious Case Against Belief by James Carse
- Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton
- Flirting with Monasticism by Karen Sloan
- The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann
- The Resurrection of Jesus: Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright in Dialogue
These are just a few suggestions, and by no means something we have to pick from (in fact, nothing in that list that isn’t seconded in the comments won’t even be voted for) but I wanted to get things started.
i’d be interested in going through brueggemann’s “prophetic imagination”
a few more titles to add to an ongoing library of titles. some i read about 10 years ago, but would love to revisit:
robert soklokowski – the god of faith and reason
simone weil – waiting for god
mark lilla – the stillborn god
rodney stark – the rise of christianity
marcus borg – jesus
peter gomes – the scandalous gospel of jesus
david bentley hart – atheist delusions
david myers –
the american paradox: spiritual hunger in an age of plenty
robert wuthnow – boundless faith
jean-luc marion – god without being
diogenes allen – three outsiders
christian smith – soul searching
i read prophetic imagination a while ago, but that would be good to revisit as well.
actually god without being might be too dense.
All of those sound great. I’d be interested in the Eagleton book, but Brueggemann sounds good as well.
I’d also like to suggest Rubem Alves’ “The Poet, The Prophet, The Warrior.” It is beautifully written, rich prose and mixes imagination and art with theology. Alves is Brazilian liberation theologian and psychiatrist. I’m also fairly sure that he now writes children’s books.
My two cents,
-C
I just picked up a copy of THE PROPHETIC IMAGINATION and have been wanting to read it for some time. That one gets my vote for the next round.
I’m sorry I won’t be able to join all of you for the first gathering. I plan to join in for the second.