Christian Theology Book Recommendations

Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on Christian Theology:

• Theology: The Basics, by Alister E. McGrath
• Christian Theology: An Introduction, by Alister E. McGrath
• Essentials of Evangelical Theology, by Donald G. Bloesch
• A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, edited by David Bercot
• Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, edited by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith
• Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, by Wayne Grudem
• Knowing God, by J.I. Packer

Michael Craven’s Philosophy Recommendations

Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on Philosophy for equipping the Church to engage the culture with the redemptive mission of Christ:

• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, by J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig
• How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith: Questioning Truth in Language, Philosophy And Art, by Crystal L. Downing
• The Right Darwin?: Evolution, Religion, and the Future of Democracy, by Carson Holloway
• True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World, by Art Lindsley
• Faith and Reason, by Ronald H. Nash
• Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship, by Lesslie Newbigin

Simplicity – A Reading List

I recently read Jack Trout’s book The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right and found its thesis and content to be very helpful. We make our lives, jobs, and ministries far too difficult – too complex. I recommend the book and offer for your benefit the following reading list which he shares in an appendix to the book.

The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions, by Scott Adams

Laugh out loud funny but dead on when it comes to management fads and other nonsense.

The Practice of Management, by Peter Drucker

The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker

Managing in a Time of Great Change, by Peter Drucker

[Drucker is] The fountainhead of common sense and sound advice. Read any one of his dozens of books and you’ll be the wiser for it. These are three of our favorites.

How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively, by Rudolph Flesch

The late Dr. Flesch staged a lifelong battle against muddy thinking and murky writing. This is one of his most significant books, packed with examples, exercises, and checklists.

The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodridge

Two staff editors of The Economist make sense of the management gurus and debunk a lot of loony thinking. Good sections on the prophets (Peter Drucker), the evangelists (Tom Peters), and the new age preachers (Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey).

Enterprise One to One, by Don Peppers

An overly complex but useful look at how to use technology to hang onto your customers.

Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, by Al Ries

Our ex-partner, Al Ries, lays out the case in great detail for doing what a company does best.

Fad Surfing In The Boardroom: Managing In The Age Of Instant Answers, by Eileen Shapiro

Ms. Shapiro takes deadly aim at the fads that sweep through business like waves in the ocean. Just the “fad dictionary” is worth the price.

Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, by David Shenk

We’re being smothered by information, and it’s dulling our minds. An intelligent look at how to cope with that glut.

Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits, by Robert Townsend

The late Robert Townsend wrote a classic about the foibles of corporations and how to avoid them.

Marketing Warfare: How to Use Military Principles to Develop Marketing Strategies, by Jack Trout and Al Ries

The bible on how to cope with competition. It will turn you into a killer.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, by Jack Trout and al Ries

As we say, violate them at your own risk.

The New Positioning: The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy, by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Important insights into differentiation and how to build perceptions in the ultimate battleground, the mind of your prospect.

Cultural Criticism and Apologetics

The 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life indicates that the United States is becoming less Protestant. American religious sentiment is becoming more diverse with a larger number than ever dropping any connection to a specific religious tradition.

In such an environment, Christians need to be prepared to engage the culture effectively. To that end Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on Culture and Apologetics:

Culture

• The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, by Christopher Lasch
• Culture Wars: The Struggle To Define America, by James Davison Hunter
• Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam
• Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman
• On Earth as It Is in Advertising?: Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope, by Sam Van Eman
• Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance, by Os Guinness
• The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art, by Roger Kimball
• Art And the Bible, by Francis A. Schaeffer
• Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents, by Guenter Lewy

Apologetics

• Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction, by John H. Frame
• Christian Apologetics, by Cornelius Van Til
• The Defense of the Faith, by Cornelius Van Til
• Tearing Down Strongholds: And Defending the Truth, by R. C. Sproul
• Christian Apologetics, by Norman Geisler
• Christian Ethics: Options and Issues, by Norman Geisler
• The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict Fully Updated To Answer The Questions Challenging Christians Today, by Josh McDowell
• Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, by Norman L. Geisler

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RELATED CONTENT

• Apologetics and Evangelism Bibliography of Kenneth Boa & Larry Moody
• C.S. Lewis – Select Quotes
• Asking Questions of Christianity

History of Evangelicalism

In a recent article in Christianity Today, Bruce Hindmarsh, professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver recommended the following books as some of the best to introduce the general reader to early evangelicalism. According to Hindmarsh, “All of these books are a pleasure to read, and all of the authors are experts in their fields.”

• The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys, by Mark A. Noll
• The Inextinguishable Blaze: Spiritual Renewal and Advance in the Eighteenth Century, by A. Skevington Wood
• Wesley and the People Called Methodists, by Richard P. Heitzenrater
• Jonathan Edwards: A Life, by George M. Marsden
• The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America, by Thomas S. Kidd

Christian History Book Recommendations

Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on Christian History;

• Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity, by S. Michael Craven
• Church History in Plain Language, by Bruce L. Shelley
• From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present, by Jacques Barzun
• Readings in Christian Thought, edited by Hugh T. Kerr
• The Confessions of Saint Augustine, a Translation for the 21st Century
• The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a’Kempis
• The Protestant Reformation: Major Documents, edited by Lewis W. Spitz
• Christianity Through the Centuries
• The First Christian Centuries: Perspectives on the Early Church, by Paul McKechnie
• How Christianity Changed the World, by Alvin J. Schmidt

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RELATED CONTENT

David Calhoun’s (Covenant Theological Seminary) Church History Book Recommendations

Church History Books recommended by 9Marks

Danny Akin’s (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) Church History Book Recommendations

Reading List for PhD Students in Church History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christian Worldview Recommendations of Michael Craven

Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on understanding and developing a Christian Worldview;

• Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity
• Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
• Christ and Culture
• The Opening of the Christian Mind: Taking Every Thought Captive to Christ
• Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture
• How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
• What Is Truth?: A Comparative Study of the Positions of Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Donald Bloesch, Millard Erickson
• Building a Christian Worldview
• Clash Of Orthodoxies: Law Religion & Morality In Crisis
• How Now Shall We Live?
• Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It
• Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth
• The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died

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RELATED CONTENT

• Tom Ascol’s book recommendations on Christianity & Culture
• Required reading in the course “Christian Worldview Studies” taught by Dr. Chris Leland at Focus on the Family Institute

Orthodoxy & Heresy In The Early Church

In his course on the “Ancient and Medieval Church” at Covenant Theological Seminary, David Calhoun recommended the following texts For Further Study on the topic of Orthodoxy & Heresy in the early church (the annotations are his):

Jones, Peter. The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age. 1992.
Shows how the gnostic heresy of self-deification has returned with a vengeance in the New Age
Movement.

McGrath, Alister E. The Genesis of Doctrine. 1990.
A useful study of how Christian doctrine came into existence, by the prolific British historian theologian.

Orr, James. The Progress of Dogma.
Famous work in which the 19th century Scottish theologian argues that “the history of
dogma…is simply the system of theology spread out through the centuries.” pp. 21

__________   Quotes of Interest   __________

“The age of the martyrs has a powerful attraction even to the casual reader; the age of the heresies leaves him bewildered and distressed. Yet the agents in both were discharging an equally necessary function. Both were upholding the truth of the gospel; the one against the power of the world, the other against the wisdom of the world. The martyrs had this advantage, that the force of their testimony was concentrated in one supreme moment, was expressed in one heroic act, which commands universal sympathy. The controversialists had to live through a protracted struggle and are judged by their utterances, and all their human weaknesses which the conflict remorselessly revealed.”
~ Mandell Creighton, quoted by B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2: 214

* * *

“The rejection of heretics brings into relief what your church holds and what sound doctrine maintains. ‘It was necessary for heresies to occur so that the approved may be made manifest’ (I Corinthians 11:19) among the weak.”
~ Augustine, Confessions, 7. 19

* * *

“Christianity is not something utterly formless and vague, but has an ascertainable, statable content, which it is the business of the church to find out, to declare, to defend.”
~ James Orr, The Progress of Dogma, pp. 8, 9

* * *

“The errors of heretics…force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground, compelling us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.”
~ Hilary of Poitiers, Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity , 2, 2

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RELATED

Christianity & Pagan Systems of Thought

The Pursuit of God

100 Most Important Events In Church History

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Christianity and Pagan Systems of Thought

In Ronald H. Nash’s book Christianity & The Hellenistic World, he has a section entitled For Further Reading which lists books that support his claims that Christianity did not borrow any of its essential beliefs from pagan systems of thought. They are shared below along with his annotations:

Armstrong, A. H. An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. Boston: Beacon, 1963
Armstrong’s book is the clearest and best-written introduction to ancient and Hellenistic philosophy available.

Clark, Gordon H.  Selections From Hellenistic Philosophy. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1940.
Clark not only supplies lengthy selections from major Hellenistic thinkers but also provides helpful introductions that often relate the subject to Christianity.

Cullmann, Oscar.  The Christology of the New Testament. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963.
Cullmann’s account includes important criticisms of Bousset and others who argued that early Christianity’s picture of Jesus was influenced by paganism.

Davies, W.D. and Dabue, D., eds.  The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
This collection of scholarly essays contains a number of chapters that deal with questions raised in this book [Christianity & The Hellenistic World].

Kim, Seyoon. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
A Korean scholar updates the argument of Machen’s Origin of Paul’s Religion.

Machen, J. Gresham. The Origin of Paul’s Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1925
Still a classic in spite of its age, Machen’s work is outdated for the most part only in its treatment of Gnosticism.

Marshall, I. Howard, ed. New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.
Another collection of essays, many of which are relevant to the concerns of this book [Christianity & The Hellenistic World].

Metzger, Bruce M. “Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity.” Chapter 1 in Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968.
Required reading on the relationship between Christianity and the mystery religions.

Nock, A. D. “Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background.” In Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, edited by A. E. J. Rawlinson. London: Longmans, Green, 1928
As old as it is, Nock’s essay is still relevant to the debate.

Rahner, Hugo. “The Christian Mystery and the Pagan Mysteries.” In Pagan and Christian Mysteries, edited by Joseph Campbell. New York: Harper & Row, 1955.
Another indispensable source, this time by a Roman Catholic scholar.

Wagner, Gunter.  Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967.
An extremely important book dealing with more than just baptism. It is full of much helpful material on Christianity’s alleged dependence on the mystery religions.

Wilson, Robert McL.  Gnosis and the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968.
One of many books and articles by a prominent British scholar on Christianity’s allege dependence on Gnosticism.

Yamauchi, Edwin.  Pre-Christian Gnosticism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973.
This is the first book anyone should read on the subject of Christianity and Gnosticism.

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Related

• Ronald Nash – Saying “Goodbye” To A Friend I Never Knew
• Index To Great Quotes

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The Study of Church History

“It is always essential for us to supplement our reading of theology with the reading of church history…
If we do not, we shall be in danger of becoming abstract, theoretical, and academic in our view of truth;
and, failing to relate it to the practicalities of life and daily living, we shall soon be in trouble.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Can We Learn from History?” Puritans, pp. 215-16

* * *

In his course on the Ancient and Medieval Church at Covenant Theological Seminary, David Calhoun used the textbook The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation by Justo Gonzalez. In his lecture on “The Study of Church History”, he recommended the following texts:

Clarke, Kenneth.  Civilisation: A Personal View.  1969.
An overview of western history with special emphasis on the arts and a humanistic interpretation of what it all means.

McGrath, Alister E.  Christian Theology: An Introduction.  1994.
Historical theology presented ably and as simply as possible.

Moffett, Samuel H.  A History of Christianity in Asia: Beginnings to 1500.  1992.
The first of two masterful volumes covering the neglected story of Asian Christianity, this history traces the spread of Christianity to Persia and India, and then overland to China, where evidence exists of Christian activity dating from the 7th century.

Pelikan, Jaroslav.  The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 vols.)
The magnum opus of a great scholar (a Lutheran who recently converted to Eastern Orthodoxy).

Potok, Chaim.  Wanderings: History of the Jews.  1978.
A wonderfully written story of the Jews by an acclaimed novelist.

Schaeffer, Francis A.  How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture.  1976.
Schaeffer’s influential study of the rise and (mainly) the decline of western thought.

Shaw, Mark R.  The Kingdom of God in Africa: A Short History of African Christianity.  1996.
Part 1 covers the church before the emergence of Islam; part 2, the medieval centuries of Islamic domination; part 3, the missions and colonial eras; and part 4, the remarkable story of twentieth-century African Christianity.

Williams, Charles.  The Descent of the Dove.  1939.
Idiosyncratic, brilliant, perplexing, and illuminating history. Eugene H. Peterson wrote in Take and Read, “When I started reading [Charles] Williams [The Descent of the Dove], I was a sectarian, ‘related’ only to a small coterie of people who lived and thought and prayed like me. When I finished, I was part of a congregation centuries deep and continents wide” (p. 1).

* * *

And in the subsequent lecture on “The Growth of the Church,” he recommends:

The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in Transmission of Faith.
One of the most important books of Christian history of the 1990s. By a Scottish mission
historian and missionary.

* * *

In lecture three on The Martyrs, he quotes from and/or recommends the following:

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis

F. F. Bruce, Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from Its First Beginnings to the Conversion of the English

Maier, Paul L. The Flames of Rome: A Documentary Novel

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