If a student had a year to read just theological works, what would you tell them to read?
Criteria (necessarily artificial of course!):
Genre: “the treatise”, rather than imaginative or mystical or devotional works or commentary.
Orthodoxy: broadly defined by creeds
Perspective: 21st Century Protestant (evangelical) - so a Western bias probably...
‘Classic’ Author: some authors demand inclusion (a la epistles of Paul in the NT)
‘Classic’ Work: some works demand inclusion (a la Hebrews!).
'Classic-to-be': the books of the last 20-30 years that are must-reads in the sense that they will be read in years to come!
ERAS:
PATRISTIC
MEDIEVAL
REFORMATION (16th-17th C.)
18th - 19th C.
20th C.
CONTEMPORARY
9 comments:
Era; Patristic, Criteria; Authors-demanding-inclusion: Augustine... but what works would you suggest?
I can hardly lay claim to even adequate knowledge.
Are you compiling a canon (an interesting and amusing task)? I think I remember you writing a few times in kategoria on canons...
Yep: a 'canon'. Just thought it might be confusing to use that term!
you trying to write a curriculum or something?
-Seumas
Well not exactly. But this discussion is really firing up, isn't it?
How about people just offer their top five suggestions?
On the Incarnation (Athenasius)
City of God (Augustine)
Freedom of a Christian (Luther)
Institutes (Calvin)
The Pilgrims Progress (Bunyan)
Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce (Lewis)
The Cross of Christ (Stott)
Oh, and a modern classic - Desiring God (Piper)
I think the Lewis, Bunyan and the Piper do not fall into the genre of 'treatise' fine works though they are...
you could argue that criteria are mistaken of course!
Oh, I thought you just wanted "top 5"...
If we are talking treatise, I think a case can be made that "Mere Christianity" and "Desiring God" are treatises.
G'day Michael,
I think any 20th century writings would have to include Moltman, or Grenz, especially Grenz's work on "The community of God"
Perhaps also some of Stotts "Theology: A Multidimensional Discipline," I have only read one chapter of this book and thought it was good reading.
Blessings craig b
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