No point reading anyone but Bonhoeffer ("Discipleship"; "Living Together"; "Sanctoum Communio")

This is a wonderfully provocative post!

I think we often trade substance for trite in most of our reading curriculum because its easy.

Just yesterday I went into a local "Christian" bookstore and was amazed at all the titles out there. We have absolutely inundated people with books. Unfortunately a lot of it isn't worth reading.

When any of my parishioners ask what they should be reading I will usually encourage them to start with five books from three to five generations ago. I like the illustration that if its lasted it is good. A lot of what we're publishing right isn't very good.

It is interesting to hear a pastor encourage people to just read books on leadership. I've found that I am a more fully formed follower (lol, I guess that is a thing right there) of Christ when I read more broadly. It's sort of like churches that only preach about topical stuff (my best wedding, surviving my career, etc) but never get into Bible book studies (balance is important here.) You can get more balanced life information through an exegetical study of Ephesians than a topical study after topical study on life needs. Just my observation.

Oh, just in case somebody is interested here are the top 5 I recommend:
1. They Found the Secret
2. In His Steps
3. The Training of the Twelve
4. Knowing God
5. The Complete Works of EM Bounds on Prayer

Thanks for this! I heartily agree. Reading books that are still influential after many years is a good way to be sure you're getting solid thinking, and it is a good way to avoid being swept along in the latest fads.

When I study scripture, I always check what the Church Fathers said (via the Ancient Commentary on Scripture series as a starting point), then I'll look for Aquinas (if I can find it), Calvin, and Wesley. Depending on the book I may look at other historical sources, and recent commentary at the end.

Basically, my opinion is that there is so much wisdom already out there in the historical sources, there's little need to look any further. I'll never have enough time to master the classics, let alone keep up with what's being published now!

Of course I make a few exceptions...

Favorite dead authors?:

C.S.Lewis, because he is enjoyable, precise and always though provoking.

Bonhoeffer, because he is challenging, thrilling and infuriating sometimes, all at the same time.

G.K. Chesterton, because he is creative in ways modern writers only pretend.

Anselm, because Cur Deus Homo (On the God man) changed my life and his ontological argument still befuddles.

I would have read this but you're not dead

Great names so far. Bonhoeffer is a must for everyone...and I suggest picking up the new biography on him by Eric Mataxes (not dead, but about someone who is). Wonderful and painful read!

Keep the names coming. This is going to help a lot of leaders seeking wise voices.

I recommend to anyone who will listen Eugene Peterson's list of recommended books: Take & Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List (Eerdmans, 1995). Read his "Basics," "Classics," and "Novelists."

Oh, I can't resist. I get what you're saying, but I just can't fully buy dead=what they have to say is more important. Many voices for years were marginalized and shut out. Women, minorities, etc.

But I will say I love a few dead authors...Shusaku Endo and Henri Nouwen to name a few. But I do really think You are what you read is dead on.

EXCELLENT post, the first I've ever read on this blog. There are many authors that could be noted but I'll limit myself to one, The Good Doctor - Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Very provocative and good. I agree there is too much to read nowadays. Sometimes my head is swimming and I'm swung from one point to another by whatever book is "hot. And I find a lot of what's good from not-dead authors is that they often rephrase what the dead authors said. A couple caveats/concerns, however. I disagree with the notion that pastors shouldn't read newspapers or stay up on the news. I believe D.L. Moody said a preacher should have the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the otehr. How can a preacher comment on and inform parishioners on how they're affected by the economy, terrorism, or international persecution, or have conversations on local sports teams if he's not reading the paper, online or otherwise. Also, one reason the dead authors' books are read today is that they've been deemed preferable by the powers that be in seminaries etc. So by merely repeating, in a sense, what others have read in the past is that we may doom ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past. After all, I don't think one can successfully argue that seminary-led Christianity is doing just fine today and doesn't need any correction, thank you very much. And I also agree that some very worthy writers were ignored in the past by mainstream church leaders. One dead author worth reading, for instance, that didn't get a lot of airpoly is Roland Allen's "The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It."

Skye,

Great post. Winston Churchill used to say “that when a new book appears, one should read an old one.”

I also really enjoyed Metaxas' biography on Bonhoeffer and have found that I learn a lot through that format. A few of my favorites: 1776 & John Adams by David McCullough, Franklin & Winston and American Gospel by Meacham, Lincoln's Melancholy by Shenk, Team of Rivals by Goodwin, The Story of Christianity by Gonzalez and The Rise of Christianity by Stark.

I also agree in the value of spending time with the "supertexts." However, if I was to speculate, I believe we will all be reading NT Wright, Tim Keller, Miroslav Volf and Dallas Willard for years to come.

Paul

Reading Henri Nouwen is always relevant and insightful. Chesterton, Mother Teresa, St. John of the Cross are great. Richard Foster's "Devotional Classics," is a wonderful place to start and get an overview of many dead reads. Dallas Willard is one who I believe will be read for a long time to come. Actually, I think people will be reading works and/or sermons of Billy Graham as well.

So here are my guesses of what books people will still be reading in 50 years, regardless of personal opinion of author or content.

1) Dallas Willard's "The Divine Conspiracy"
2) Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline"
3) NT Wright's "Surprised by Hope"
4) John Piper's "Desiring God"
5) Rob Bell's "Vevet Elvis" (ha! made you look!)
6) Something Tim Keller hasn't written yet
7) Rodney Stark's "Rise of Christianity"

I too love reading dead people. But...

It has to be balanced with the understnading that reading mostly dead people means you are not getting to hear from lots of kinds of people...women and non-whites.

Excellent point, Jennifer. Although there are some really great women particularly in among the church mystics...Evelyn Underhill, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, and Madame Guyon come to mind.

Among non-whites, there are a number of greats like Watchman Nee, Ajith Fernando (living), Martin Luther King Jr. (a favorite of mine).

Skye

I am all for dead authors. I read them and should read more. But I think we also need to read modern authors. Part of our faith has to be working it out in our culture. I think it is helpful to understand how dead authors worked it out in their culture. That can teach us much about how to work it out in our own culture. But without reading at least some modern authors we cut ourselves off from a lot of conversation that can be very useful.

I'm a massive, massive G.K. Chesterton reader. More Christians should be reading his insightful, poignant & often hilarious writings.

I would have to add:

C. René Padilla

Great thoughts in both the article and the comments.

I would add:
Jacques Ellul
Paul Hiebert (in particular, "Anthropological Insights for Missionaries")
André Trocmé (Jesus and the Non-violent Revolution)

In addition to some that have been mentioned above, here are a few more:

Gene Edwards (is he dead?) - "A Tale of Three Kings"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

Leo Tolstoy - "Confessions"

Sheldon Vanauken - "A Severe Mercy"

Thomas Merton - "Seven Story Mountain" & "Seeds of Contemplation"

Basil Pennington - several works on contemplative prayer & monastic life

Great post, Skye. Good stuff! C. S. Lewis is awesome. Pretty much everything I've read from him is great. He's probably my favorite dead author. Henri Nouwen's IN THE NAME OF JESUS blew my mind when I read it as a 21-year old theology student. A. W. Tozer's THE PURSUIT OF GOD has often led me to moments of repentance. I think we greatly limit ourselves when we aren't exposed to how Christians throughout twenty centuries have wrestled with how to express their faith.

Having said that, I do want to push back a little. A couple of female posters here have mentioned the relative dearth of women and minorities among dead authors, and Skye gave an adequate response; so I won't dwell too much on that issue.

But I do want to challenge the assumption that simply because certain books have lasted, they must be good and true. Remember, the Koran is quite old, too. Augustine no doubt can offer us some precious insights. But he was no less vulnerable to the blind spots and misconceptions of his day as we are to ours.
What we need to do is to follow the example of the Bereans, who would above all else examine the Scriptures for themselves in order to determine truth. I'm sure this is a given for most of us. But I think it is important in this context to make it clear.

I read a little Tozer every day. I also read Packer, and Charnock to encourage and uplift my view of God. I read Lewis, mainly his non-fiction but have read all his works, and I enjoy Bunyan especially his work on prayer. I also liked George Mac Donald's stories. I stretch my mind on Christian philosophers and Church fathers. I like the poetry of John Donne's later years. As to female authors I enjoyed Hannah Hunnard, Henrieta Mears, and Ruth Bell Graham, and one modern Christian woman has gained my recent respect: Mary Kassian for her stand on feminism.
I hold most best selling modern Christian books as highly suspect.

Simone Weil. Difficult, but in every paragraph is an amazing insight.

“In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.”

"It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good."

Thomas Merton of course. Tolstoy is grand. His "Kingdom of God" is wonderful. In a marked contrast to Bonhoeffer, Tolstoy's style is direct and accessible. Bonhoeffer I'm just beginning, but he seems to over-complicate things.

All Christian leaders should consider this, from Dorothy Day...'All the way to Heaven'.

http://www.amazon.com/All-Heaven-Selected-Letters-Dorothy/dp/0874620619/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296205097&sr=1-6

http://www.kingdomnow.org/withinyou.html

Skye, great post!

As an Eastern Orthodox representative, some of my picks:

1. The Sayings of the Desert Abbas (with some of its key representatives from the African continent from whence such monasticism originated) and, yes which includes Ammas. There are monastic "Fathers" and "Mothers" following in this same tradition down through the centuries and even today within the Eastern Orthodox Church who continue to guide with equally profound and simple gospel wisdom. Books of many of their lives and writings have been produced and even translated into English--check with an Orthodox friend or priest or go to www.eighthdaybooks.com to browse--it's a bibliophile's dream, especially for those seeking hard to find classics and dead authors.

2. The classic "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" by St. John Climacus.

3. The 19th century Orthodox classic, "The Way of the Pilgrim."

4. Dostoyevsky, yes.

5. Although this author is not Orthodox, the spiritual world view in his work definitely is. Everything by the prolific Charles Dickens.

Sometimes, Skye, it is good to read that of which there is no value other than the enlightment that comes from seeing the world from anothers viewpoint...no matter how vile, insipid, or just plain ignorant their viewpoint is...it is still their viewpoint and their worldview, and therefore, should be taken as seriously as they take it.

Limiting your reading to that which you agree with only places you in an intellectual echo chamber, and as you can see where that has gotten us today...I think we could all do with a little reading outside of our usual fare to see how others see the past, the present, the future, and of course, our world.

Anything from JC Ryle, but especially Holiness, ought to make your reading list!

Walker Percy

I've even got one church member to start reading him.

Most of the Church Fathers would not qualify as "white males"...only as males.

It seems to me that evangelicals in particular need to gain a robust appreciation for the discussions of the first 400 years of Christian life. Most of our assumption about God and Jesus come from that work.

My wife says

Hannah Whitall Smith

George Herbert

F F Bruce

Walker Percy, John Milton, George Herbert, John Bunyan, John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and C.S. Lewis are some of my favorite dead people. (OK, so I prefer literature to theology.)

I could go on, but I'll leave you with a couple of quotes from Lewis, which your post brought to mind:

"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books."

And: "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."

T. Austin-Sparks, Watchman Nee, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and F.F. Bruce. These titles especially: http://www.ptmin.org/library

(I'll be adding out-of-print titles to the list in March.)

Sheerakhan, you said:

"Sometimes, Skye, it is good to read that of which there is no value other than the enlightment that comes from seeing the world from anothers viewpoint...no matter how vile, insipid, or just plain ignorant their viewpoint is...it is still their viewpoint and their worldview, and therefore, should be taken as seriously as they take it."

Forgive me, but this seems to me to be contrary to biblical wisdom and just plain common sense! In my many times disordered attraction for so-called "knowledge", I've consumed a lot of spiritual, intellectual and moral rot that I know from bitter experience benefitted me or others through me not one bit (quite the reverse!), but a lot of people thought it was valid, true, important and/or spiritual stuff. I think what is key in this context is to become as intimately acquainted with what is true, right and beautiful, etc., as we are capable of.

I agree that we need to listen carefully and respectfully to those in our sphere of influence, no matter how much we may disagree with their perspective. This is part and parcel of loving others. Perhaps this is all you intended to imply with your comments. Your second paragraph makes more sense to me, though. I don't disagree with that.

Many thanks for sharing. Very simple to use and straightforward to comprehend. Well done!

great post. favorite dead authors/books:

mother teresa - come be my light
st. john of the cross - dark night of the soul
teresa of avila - interior castle
henri nouwen - life of the beloved
phoebe palmer - the way of holiness
julian of norwich - divine revelations of love
sundar singh - wisdom of the sadhu
r.a. torrey - baptism of the holy spirit
a book called 'the forgotten desert mothers'

i have found that i read a lot of Catholic authors because they have a depth that evangelical writers just don't even approach.

Totally agree, except for Peterson and Willard. Read less, read more deeply, put into practice before reading more. I've been so guilty of too much knowledge, too little love in action.
Old folks: Fenelon, DeSales, Chambers, Tozer, Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Lewis

I'll play devil's advocate here and mix the ideas of several posters. Old does not necessarily equal good or true. Books can last for lots of reasons. . . people still read De Sade, Nietzsche, etc. What I'm trying to say is that books last because they offer something appealing to enough people. Sometimes that is good stuff and sometimes not and we always need to be mindful of that.

Also, to ignore current authors is just as dangerous as the many of us who ignore the classics. Remember those "classic" authors were addressing the issues of their day just as the authors now are doing. If we ignore current authors we are missing unique thought and wisdom that only comes from being in a situation.

Anyway, I'm at all opposed to your thoughts here, but I think we always need the balance.

There is only one person who is head and shoulders above the rest:

Oswald Chambers

Augustine's Confessions, more than once. Slowly.

Also, to amplify Skye's point, C. S. Lewis's essay "On the Reading of Old Books" is excellent. It is his introduction to a translation of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo; you can find the essay easily by googling it.

Great post & responses. One dead female writer not mentioned so far, but who I've enjoyed reading is Flannery O'Connor.

Sometimes the Bible itself can help us make decisions about reading material. I like Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Dead Guys:
C.S. Lewis
Doestoevsky
Tozer
Chesterton
Nouwen

Living authors that people will still be reading after they're dead:
Willard
Foster
Packer
Wright
Peterson
Yancey

I would also recommend John Irving, Yann Martel, Anne Tyler and Walker Percy

"The democracy of the dead," eh?

I have no one new to add to all the above posts. I'll just echo some of my favorites.

Dostoyevsky
Paul Hiebert (super-biased on this one, since I majored in missions/anthropology @ Eastern U under the tutelage of Hiebert's daughter)
Flannery O'Connor
Lewis

And the people whom I know I ought to read but have not (yet):
Bonhoeffer (plenty read *about* him, but none of his actual publications)
Teresa of Avila

It's interesting that no one has yet mentioned Francis Schaeffer I just started re-reading "He is there and He is not silent" Whether you like him or not, he makes you think. I wonder why he has fallen out of favor.

I agree! And I disagree! I have read many of the suggested books and love the "old" stuff. But some of it is difficult to read especially for those who haven't attended seminary or grad school. I do agree that the plethora of books in the stores is outrageous but then I'll talk with someone whose life was changed by a book/author that I thought wasn't significant (ouch to my ego).
But I will be really honest and admit that there is one book that I make it a point to read annually, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. This is a novel based on the Hosea story. It was this book that helped me to receive God's love, not the systematic theology or hermenuetics or any other 50+ hours of Bible classes I took in Bible college. The author was a romance writer until her conversion. Did I expect her novel to change my life, absolutely not! But it did, more than most others. So now I try to let testimony books and novels be a part of my reading material.

Skye, I vote for Tozer, who is a go-to for inspiration for me. Also, I recently found Watchman Nee - saw you recommended him in a reply. He is awesome, the book Sit, Walk, Stand is a must read, in my opinion. I'd also add a dead woman, Corrie Ten Boom, who has a remarkable story and great spiritual depth.

Also another dead woman, Eugenia Price's, "The Burden Is Light".

To all the others here, I would add Lesslie Newbigin.