As I count it, this is year 25 that I have been reading theology.
I couldn't begin to name all the books represented in that statement -- not all of which, for theological reasons, have been "proper" theology books. But all of the books I have read have had theological import. I've read Plato as well as Aquinas. Shakespeare as well as Augustine. That's because the liberal arts -- I learned as a college student -- have as much to say theologically as theology books themselves. If I hadn't attended Carson-Newman I don't think I would think this way. And since it's homecoming at my alma mater this weekend and Kendra is accompanying me to return to campus (albeit briefly) on Saturday, I've been thinking over the past few days of all the books I've read in that intervening quarter century.
My best classes have been taught (by others and those I have "moderated" [taught?]) in a Socratic style around central texts. For the longest time, I resisted using textbooks, because I learned as a college student that textbooks only get in the way of reading the central texts themselves. So fortunately a lot of what I have done in that quarter century has been to read primary texts.
As a teacher, this hasn't brought me a lot of popularity. In teaching the college's speech class, for example, I had students read Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric. I'm still not sure what that did for them, but I hope it made them more critical readers and oral communicators. What I am sure about, though, is that classes of college students read Aristotle (or at least had the chance to read Aristotle) where lots of other college students probably heard a lecture or two about Aristotle's rhetorical theory.
Thinking of that made me wonder: What books would I say have made the most difference in how I think theologically?
Yes, I've already tried this list a few times. Here and here, for example. But if I had to make a list today -- a retrospective of sorts -- of those writers and books that have made the most difference in my own life as a Christian theologian, what would I choose?
The trouble, of course, is that any list like that would inevitably leave off so many books that have seeped into my unconscious that I don't even realize to include them. Any list like this would be limited by its very nature to a list I made today. Tomorrow's list would be very different. What are the primary texts that have mattered?
Some of my favorite memories are wrapped around these texts. In fact, to hold them in my hands again is a real joy. That joy is what I hope my "Friday's Finds" series this year has shared, even if just in snippets.
That said, here goes:
Athanasius' On the Incarnation and Calvin's Institutes have always surprised me. Each time I pick them up -- and the times I have shared them with students in class -- I realize just how alienating they are. You can't read these books without being transported into a very different world and transformed in the way you think about our own world. I've never met anyone who can read these books and, in the first days after beginning, feel they've found a kindred spirit. You don't simply pick up Athanasius or Calvin and appreciate them. But, by slow turns of the pages, you find yourself taking up the matters about which Athanasius and Calvin care. I've learned you don't leave behind your own understandings about those matters, but you slowly find yourself agreeing with them. There are ways of thinking and even words used that you slowly incorporate into your own way of looking at those matters. And suddenly -- really, at a ha! moment -- you discover that what Athanasius and Calvin are talking about is a shared faith. Once you have that epiphany, any disagreements you have (and there are probably several when it comes to Calvin) are disagreements based on shared commitments, not the disagreements of strangers. I always feel I've begun to think theologically -- that I've become a theologian -- when I read these two. Because those are the two who have taught me that meaningful disagreement is based on something other than difference.
But let's be honest here: Augustine's Confessions will always tower over every other theological book. I first read Augustine in college under the wise tutelage of Ross Brummett. And it was there that I learned to take an author's words to heart, and hear them out. Not to disagree, but to understand. To listen. So if you're looking to read theology, start with these three.
That said, there are plenty of other books that would make my list.
I couldn't begin to name all the books represented in that statement -- not all of which, for theological reasons, have been "proper" theology books. But all of the books I have read have had theological import. I've read Plato as well as Aquinas. Shakespeare as well as Augustine. That's because the liberal arts -- I learned as a college student -- have as much to say theologically as theology books themselves. If I hadn't attended Carson-Newman I don't think I would think this way. And since it's homecoming at my alma mater this weekend and Kendra is accompanying me to return to campus (albeit briefly) on Saturday, I've been thinking over the past few days of all the books I've read in that intervening quarter century.
My best classes have been taught (by others and those I have "moderated" [taught?]) in a Socratic style around central texts. For the longest time, I resisted using textbooks, because I learned as a college student that textbooks only get in the way of reading the central texts themselves. So fortunately a lot of what I have done in that quarter century has been to read primary texts.
As a teacher, this hasn't brought me a lot of popularity. In teaching the college's speech class, for example, I had students read Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric. I'm still not sure what that did for them, but I hope it made them more critical readers and oral communicators. What I am sure about, though, is that classes of college students read Aristotle (or at least had the chance to read Aristotle) where lots of other college students probably heard a lecture or two about Aristotle's rhetorical theory.
Thinking of that made me wonder: What books would I say have made the most difference in how I think theologically?
Yes, I've already tried this list a few times. Here and here, for example. But if I had to make a list today -- a retrospective of sorts -- of those writers and books that have made the most difference in my own life as a Christian theologian, what would I choose?
The trouble, of course, is that any list like that would inevitably leave off so many books that have seeped into my unconscious that I don't even realize to include them. Any list like this would be limited by its very nature to a list I made today. Tomorrow's list would be very different. What are the primary texts that have mattered?
Some of my favorite memories are wrapped around these texts. In fact, to hold them in my hands again is a real joy. That joy is what I hope my "Friday's Finds" series this year has shared, even if just in snippets.
That said, here goes:
Athanasius' On the Incarnation and Calvin's Institutes have always surprised me. Each time I pick them up -- and the times I have shared them with students in class -- I realize just how alienating they are. You can't read these books without being transported into a very different world and transformed in the way you think about our own world. I've never met anyone who can read these books and, in the first days after beginning, feel they've found a kindred spirit. You don't simply pick up Athanasius or Calvin and appreciate them. But, by slow turns of the pages, you find yourself taking up the matters about which Athanasius and Calvin care. I've learned you don't leave behind your own understandings about those matters, but you slowly find yourself agreeing with them. There are ways of thinking and even words used that you slowly incorporate into your own way of looking at those matters. And suddenly -- really, at a ha! moment -- you discover that what Athanasius and Calvin are talking about is a shared faith. Once you have that epiphany, any disagreements you have (and there are probably several when it comes to Calvin) are disagreements based on shared commitments, not the disagreements of strangers. I always feel I've begun to think theologically -- that I've become a theologian -- when I read these two. Because those are the two who have taught me that meaningful disagreement is based on something other than difference.
But let's be honest here: Augustine's Confessions will always tower over every other theological book. I first read Augustine in college under the wise tutelage of Ross Brummett. And it was there that I learned to take an author's words to heart, and hear them out. Not to disagree, but to understand. To listen. So if you're looking to read theology, start with these three.
That said, there are plenty of other books that would make my list.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, Ethics, Communio Sanctorum, Act and Being, Life Together
- Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans, Dogmatics in Outline, Church Dogmatics IV/1, §59.1, The Word of God and the Word of Man
- Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love
- Melito of Sardis' On Pascha
- Athanagoras' Resurrection of the Dead
- Irenaeus' Against the Heresies
- Origen's On Prayer, Exhortation to Martyrdom, On First Principles
- Basil's On Social Justice (a collection from SVS Press), On the Holy Spirit
- Gregory of Nazianzus' Theological Orations
- Gregory the Great's Pastoral Rule
- Augustine's On the Trinity, The City of God
- Cyril of Alexandria's On the Unity of Christ
- Thomas Aquinas' Summa theologiae
- H. Richard Niebuhr's Responsibility of the Church for Society
- James Cone's Black Theology and Black Power
- Jurgen Moltmann's Trinity and the Kingdom, Crucified God, Theology of Hope
- Catherine LaCugna's God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life
- Elizabeth Johnson's She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse
- James H. Evans' We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology
- Richard Hays' The Moral Vision of the New Testament
- Sarah Coakley's Powers and Submissions
- Simon Chan's Grassroots Asian Theology
- ...