The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals

[Cat]

Cat-

I believe that the Catholic Church would benefit from setting up Sunday School in each parish just like you see in the mainline Protestant denominations. (For those of you who are cradle Catholics, Sunday School is for ADULTS and kids.)

What do you think?

Yes, but I think very few people would come. Too many Catholics (and Protestants) have sports and other events on Sunday, and tend to attend Mass on Saturday evening. I’m not criticizing that–I think it’s a good thing to be busy, and I honestly don’t know what else the sports leagues would do. They can’t hold their tournaments and competitions during the week when children are in school and parents working. So that leaves the weekends.

Sunday school is decreasing in attendance in Evangelical Protestant churches. As a result, the megachurches are holding “church” every evening during the week, and all the people are part of “cell groups” who meet in homes throughout the week. I’m not sure this is a good thing, because artificially-created groups tend to fall apart.

In the past, the method of teaching Catholic children the basics of their faith has been in the parish schools. I’m guessing that in most parishes, if they even have a parish school, a relatively small percentage of the children attend the parish school.

I have to admit, I am appalled by the lack of knowledge of Catholic AND Protestant children when it comes to the Bible stories!

I’m not talking about Bible characters like Jael and Sisera. I’m talking about the basic Bible characters–Daniel, David, Joshua, Moses–it’s dreadful!

So IMO, what would be really fun for Catholic parishes is to establish an all-parish BIBLE QUIZZING program.

Challenge ALL ages to study and learn the Bible stories, and then do fun competitions (with plenty of food!) during which the various groups go head-to-head. Winners get some little prize --probably just a mention in the church bulletin.

It’s so much fun.

A few years ago, I taught one of my original Bible songs to the parish children’s choir. The song was about Daniel, and I quickly realized that the kids didn’t know the story. So I challenged them. I gave them a list of a dozen questions to look up in the Bible and answer about Daniel. Then I told them that the following week, I would do a “quiz-off” with boys vs. girls.

Wow, did those kids study!

It was obvious to me in the quiz-off that most of the kids knew the answer backwards and forwards, and could even quote the chapter and verse!

I believe the boys won, but I gave a consolation prize to the girls (boys each got two pieces of candy, girls got one, and I gave really good candy!).

So I think this would work.

Another approach that I think would work is for the Catholic Church in the U.S. to work with Child Evangelism Fellowship so that the absolutely excellent Good News Club could be offered to Catholic children without the “proselytizing” that is part of CEF. Perhaps it wouldn’t work. But IMO, the very BEST Bible stories are done by CEF–the year that I taught the Life of David, I learned so much!

Finally, it would be best if the stories were taught to the children by their parents. But their parents don’t know the stories.

So SOMETHING needs to happen. I’m not sure what.

Our pastor challenged our parish to LEARN the Bible stories this year. I wish I knew what to do to help make it happen. I love the Bible stories, and I think quizzing would be a fun way to learn them. But I don’t know how others would take this.

 

[Cat]

I’ve proposed that in our parish.
Last year our parish met every Monday night to go through the Pope’s encyclical. I told our priest we need to do this more often. Part of me misses those Wednesday night Bible studies at our old Baptist church.

That’s a good idea.

Do you have good attendance?

In our parish, only about 12 people (out of 7000) attend the parish Bible study, and one of those is my father-in-law, a Protestant!

It’s very discouraging.

We’re trying an online-disciple-ing method called Symbolon. Anyone here had any experience with this (I should start another thread, shouldn’t I?)

 

[AbideWithMe]

I’m a subscriber to CT, so I’ll try its “share article” feature: www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/october/23.51.html?share=CRbXHBDvdYUIsSiLq7buL5XpEEuCgj6e

The article itself gives a short description of the book and why it’s considered influential.

 

[robwar]

The list covers the last 50 years and, while not all evangelicals are dispensationalists, many of them are and both Left Behind and the Late Great Planet Earth definitely were influential byproducts of “popular” evangelicalism. I remember about 10 years ago or so Left Behind was EVERYWHERE. Now, though, the rapture is not nearly such a hot topic anymore. (It’s still a topic, but not like it was 10 years ago.)

I’ll be dating myself here but Hal Lindsey’s books were big when I was a teenager and did read them all at that time. For an uninformed teenager, there were influential on me and thankfully I didn’t go to a Church that openly taught this so was able to move on and later learn the error of this teaching. I never read the Left Behind series because I knew by then how erroneous this stuff is. I would say that it paints a very bleak future and doesn’t encourage positive trust in God. The sad part is that cable channels do specials and shows on this which seems to promote dispensationalism as wide spread historic Christian teaching which it is not.

 

[a_priori]

Cat-

I believe that the Catholic Church would benefit from setting up Sunday School in each parish just like you see in the mainline Protestant denominations. (For those of you who are cradle Catholics, Sunday School is for ADULTS and kids.)

What do you think?

Go into the average Evangelical Church and ask the average “pew-sitter” to explain the doctrines and reasons for the practices of their faith. Then go into the average Catholic Church and ask the same question. There is no comparison. Yes, adult Sunday School would be a great thing for the people who would take the time to go. The most startling thing about leaving Evangelicalism is that you genuinely (naively) expect the people in the pews to be able to answer basic questions about Catholicism. They usually cannot. The sad fact is that Catholics are constantly criticized by Evangelicals through the use of strawmen that are easily be refuted. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

 

[spedteacherita]

Except maybe when I have to pay for it and already know of those great Catholic books.

I ordered a CD with all of the Ante-Nicean writers on it in PDF form. MUCH cheaper than paying for the volumes of books and the price that is being asked!!

 

[robwar]

I think it’s really interesting that Evangelical Protestants HAVE a list of 50 books that have been written in the last 50 years, and that many Evangelical Protestants, myself included, have read a sizeable number of those books.

Many of us who have not read all of those books have at least heard them taught in various seminars, conferences, Bible studies, etc. Evangelical Protestants are always attending seminars, conferences, Bible studies, etc.

Catholics (myself included) QUICK!—name 50 books written in the last 50 years that have shaped Catholics!

Duh…um–well, there’s all the books by Dr. Scott Hahn. A lot of Catholics have read them.

And a lot of Catholics HAVEN’T read them.

And…um…there’s um…a few books by David Currie. Not very many Catholics have read them, so they probably don’t count.

And…well…oh, Flannery O’Connor’s books, which most Catholics haven’t read because they’re kind of boring and hard to understand. So they probably really haven’t “shaped” Catholics.

And…!!!

My point is, Catholics have not been shaped by books.

When I was Evangelical Protestant, we were definitely “shaped” by books. So many of the books on that list started what I refer to as “bandwagons.” Evangelical Protestants all jumped on the latest best-selling bandwagon, whatever it was, and rode along cheering and trying to catch other Christians up onto the bandwagon until the bandwagon ran into a bumpy part of the road. Then we all started falling off that bandwagon, and had to wait until the next bandwagon came along.

Perhaps that sounds futile and silly. But many of those bandwagons were good. The Hiding Place was and still is a major force in my life, mainly because of the teaching that shines bright throughout that beautiful book–“We will love and honor God regardless of our circumstances.”

This is SUCH an important part of Christianity! We are not Christians because we have a wonderful set of circumstances–health, wealth, beauty, good laws, friends we can trust, etc.

We are Christians because it is the Truth, and we remain true to Christ even if we are betrayed, stripped of all our belonging, marched naked in front of our torturers, treated with capriciousness, and even killed.

I think it was probably this book’s truth that caused my husband and I to remain true to Jesus even after we were kicked out of our Evangelical Free Church in 2002. If we had not been permeated (shaped!) by The Hiding Place, we probably would have walked away from organized religion and possibly even away from Jesus Himself.

But we knew and believed what Betsie ten Boom said in The Hiding Place–“There is no pit so deep that Jesus isn’t deeper still.”

This is just one example of a book from that list that was a bandwagon at the time it came out, but still managed to “shape” the lives and thought-processes of Evangelical Protestants. I’ve mentioned another in this thread–Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. This book definitely has continued to shape my husband and me in regards to our practices when it comes to earning and spending money. We may not be giving 50% of our income to help the poor, but we are definitely giving more of it away than many other people give, and we definitely live way below our earnings.

Catholics don’t have this “shaping by books.” And I’m thinking it would be good if we DID have “shaping by books.”

Some might say that we are “shaped by the Mass” or “shaped by Jesus Christ Himself.”

Oh really? is that why so many Catholics are co-habiting? Or practicing homosexuals? Or never attending Mass except when parents beg? Or advocating women priests or “reproductive choce” or contraception? Or never read the Bible or pray? Or get drunk, and then try to tell Cat that this is good and fine for Christians since Jesus turned water into wine for His first miracle (Cat doesn’t agree with you).

Is that why so many Catholics have fallen away–because they were shaped by the Mass and Jesus? I don’t think so

I think that having good books helps us to take the Mass and Jesus seriously. Without the good books, I think many of us fail to understand or appreciate the Mass, Jesus, and all of the riches of Christianity.

I think it’s too bad that Catholics don’t read, and have very little to read, other than ancient classics of the faith. Those are good, but they’re often so dated that it’s hard to understand how their teaching applies to modern life. And honestly now, how many Catholics, really now–have actually read any of these ancient classics? I’m guessing not many, based on the behaviors of many baptized Catholics.

I also read that book in college and it is definitely outside the normal grain of evangelicalism. I think though I was discouraged from looking closely at a number of the things that were said in it because the Charismatic Church I was attending by then had a subtle influences with the prosperity gospel. While not openly WoF, Pat Robertson’s Secret Kingdom which has that prosperity message would have been promoted more. I think this book was a pre warning against WoF errors. I meant to reply to you comment about Rich Christians, my error.

 

[robwar]

I’ve read 14 or so of the books on the list. I think that the list left off a lot of widely read books, but that’s to be expected. It was an interesting selection: nothing by Bill Hybels or Brian McLaren, no charismatic/pentecostal books (including books about spiritual gifts), few of the classics on prayer in the evangelical tradition, no bible commentaries. More importantly, there was nothing from the Catholic tradition (pre-Reformation) or from the Reformers or other protestant leaders from centuries past (or even prior to WWII): Luther, Calvin, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, etc. – I guess Augustine and Luther aren’t as influential as they are said to be.

I think it shows that current Protestant Christianity does not reach back to reach even their own founders but follow what is current and or trendy. Many Protestants do talk about people like Luther but how many really have read his actual material except for a few Lutherans. That is also true of John Wesley, John Calvin. Likewise this is an “evangelical” lists so it isn’t going to include Catholic classics such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Liseux to name a few. So books like Left Behind etc can blow in and be gobbled up but is not even historic Protestant teaching.

 

[robwar]

One book “Battle for your mind” by the Left Behind author was heavily promoted in the Charismatic Church I attended at the time. Everyone read it and it was heavily pushed and discussed. It took direct aim at St. Thomas Aquinas and using one’s mind or intellect to understand your faith. This was before the Left Behind series. I would not recommend it but it was big, pushed and influential.

 

[AbideWithMe]

Yes, I just happened upon it and remembered how much many of those books meant to me years ago. It made me think about how it never occurred to me to read Augustine or Aquinas back then.

I’ve read 26 of the books listed. The editors said that they invite disagreements. I would, at the very least, most definitely put Lewis’ Narnia books on there, if they’re including L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

A priori—The editors also said they’re focusing only on books written since WWII, as Itwin noted, so yeah, Aquinas and Augustine won’t quite get on there. Before I was in my early 20’s, I had read, re-read, and owned Augustine’s Confessions and City of God, some of Aquinas’ Summa, Justin Martyr, some of the Desert Fathers, a Kempis, Julian of Norwich and the counter reformation Spanish mystics, among others. Some of those were read at Evangelical pastors’ recommendations, some I came through by reading Lewis, some were from reading other Evangelical writers’ works. I don’t mean any rudeness, please, but I really think that if a person is not a curious reader of older books as an Evangelical, well, it’s one’s own fault. They are easily available, and I was not at all unusual in reading older books among other Evangelicals I’ve known.

 

[spedteacherita]

Yes, but I think very few people would come. Too many Catholics (and Protestants) have sports and other events on Sunday, and tend to attend Mass on Saturday evening. I’m not criticizing that–I think it’s a good thing to be busy, and I honestly don’t know what else the sports leagues would do. They can’t hold their tournaments and competitions during the week when children are in school and parents working. So that leaves the weekends.

Sunday school is decreasing in attendance in Evangelical Protestant churches. As a result, the megachurches are holding “church” every evening during the week, and all the people are part of “cell groups” who meet in homes throughout the week. I’m not sure this is a good thing, because artificially-created groups tend to fall apart.

In the past, the method of teaching Catholic children the basics of their faith has been in the parish schools. I’m guessing that in most parishes, if they even have a parish school, a relatively small percentage of the children attend the parish school.

I have to admit, I am appalled by the lack of knowledge of Catholic AND Protestant children when it comes to the Bible stories!

I’m not talking about Bible characters like Jael and Sisera. I’m talking about the basic Bible characters–Daniel, David, Joshua, Moses–it’s dreadful!

So IMO, what would be really fun for Catholic parishes is to establish an all-parish BIBLE QUIZZING program.

Challenge ALL ages to study and learn the Bible stories, and then do fun competitions (with plenty of food!) during which the various groups go head-to-head. Winners get some little prize --probably just a mention in the church bulletin.

It’s so much fun.

A few years ago, I taught one of my original Bible songs to the parish children’s choir. The song was about Daniel, and I quickly realized that the kids didn’t know the story. So I challenged them. I gave them a list of a dozen questions to look up in the Bible and answer about Daniel. Then I told them that the following week, I would do a “quiz-off” with boys vs. girls.

Wow, did those kids study!

It was obvious to me in the quiz-off that most of the kids knew the answer backwards and forwards, and could even quote the chapter and verse!

I believe the boys won, but I gave a consolation prize to the girls (boys each got two pieces of candy, girls got one, and I gave really good candy!).

So I think this would work.

Another approach that I think would work is for the Catholic Church in the U.S. to work with Child Evangelism Fellowship so that the absolutely excellent Good News Club could be offered to Catholic children without the “proselytizing” that is part of CEF. Perhaps it wouldn’t work. But IMO, the very BEST Bible stories are done by CEF–the year that I taught the Life of David, I learned so much!

Finally, it would be best if the stories were taught to the children by their parents. But their parents don’t know the stories.

So SOMETHING needs to happen. I’m not sure what.

Our pastor challenged our parish to LEARN the Bible stories this year. I wish I knew what to do to help make it happen. I love the Bible stories, and I think quizzing would be a fun way to learn them. But I don’t know how others would take this.

I think Sunday School spends too MUCH time on Bible stories. While I think they’re important, more time should be spent teaching apologetics with age-appropriate discussions. Too many of our kids don’t understand early enough how to respond to the world’s emphasis on gay marriage, evolution, and atheism or relativism.

 

[a_priori]

I’ve read 26 of the books listed. The editors said that they invite disagreements. I would, at the very least, most definitely put Lewis’ Narnia books on there, if they’re including L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

A priori—The editors also said they’re focusing only on books written since WWII, as Itwin noted, so yeah, Aquinas and Augustine won’t quite get on there. Before I was in my early 20’s, I had read, re-read, and owned Augustine’s Confessions and City of God, some of Aquinas’ Summa, Justin Martyr, some of the Desert Fathers, a Kempis, Julian of Norwich and the counter reformation Spanish mystics, among others. Some of those were read at Evangelical pastors’ recommendations, some I came through by reading Lewis, some were from reading other Evangelical writers’ works. I don’t mean any rudeness, please, but I really think that if a person is not a curious reader of older books as an Evangelical, well, it’s one’s own fault. They are easily available, and I was not at all unusual in reading older books among other Evangelicals I’ve known.

Points well taken AbideWithMe. In my 25 years as an Evangelical being heavily involved in teaching, leadership, prison and adult ministries, it never occurred to me to read anything pre-16th century. In the heat of battle, few of these older works came across my radar. This is squarely my fault. My rationale here is basically to encourage people to get a less myopic view of Christendom than they might currently have. Had I taken these earlier works seriously and exerted some intellectual effort back then, my spiritual trajectory would have been very different. Thank you for your insights.

 

[AbideWithMe]

Points well taken AbideWithMe. In my 25 years as an Evangelical being heavily involved in teaching, leadership, prison and adult ministries, it never occurred to me to read anything pre-16th century. In the heat of battle, few of these older works came across my radar. This is squarely my fault. My rationale here is basically to encourage people to get a less myopic view of Christendom than they might currently have. Had I taken these earlier works seriously and exerted some intellectual effort back then, my spiritual trajectory would have been very different. Thank you for your insights.

Thank you, a priori, for taking my post graciously.

I think you’ve brought up why many Evangelicals don’t read older books as often. (I admit my reading habits are not the most common type found among Evangelicals, though they’re not rare either.) In saying, “In the heat of battle…”, I think that is how some Evangelicals might choose the bulk of what they read: “Is this book going to b relevant to today’s society, is it going to help me now with the ever-pressing problems I’m facing in my family, my church, my community, my country, my world?”

 

[Cat]

I think Sunday School spends too MUCH time on Bible stories. While I think they’re important, more time should be spent teaching apologetics with age-appropriate discussions. Too many of our kids don’t understand early enough how to respond to the world’s emphasis on gay marriage, evolution, and atheism or relativism.

I agree when it comes to older children (middle school and above).

But little children (and all the rest of us) need to know the Bible stories. Our priest made that clear in his New Year’s homily, and I agree. We all need heroes–people like Jacob who constantly tested God’s patience, and yet, was blessed by God for all time. People like David, who fell into sin so many times, but always stuck with God, and God always stuck with him.

Knowing our past history helps us to bear our present burdens and face our future unafraid.

Also, if our older children and adults do not know the stories of our faith, they won’t understand apologetics. It will be just an exercise in logic and debate, not connected with anything. We all need to know the entire sweeping magnificent story of salvation and God’s love for His humans!

One of the main reasons my husband and I became Catholic is that we could SEE Catholicism throughout the entire OLD Testament. All the stories made sense to us once we started studying Catholicism.

But if we hadn’t known the Old Testament stories, Catholicism would have made little sense to us.

 

[spedteacherita]

I agree when it comes to older children (middle school and above).

But little children (and all the rest of us) need to know the Bible stories. Our priest made that clear in his New Year’s homily, and I agree. We all need heroes–people like Jacob who constantly tested God’s patience, and yet, was blessed by God for all time. People like David, who fell into sin so many times, but always stuck with God, and God always stuck with him.

Knowing our past history helps us to bear our present burdens and face our future unafraid.

Also, if our older children and adults do not know the stories of our faith, they won’t understand apologetics. It will be just an exercise in logic and debate, not connected with anything. We all need to know the entire sweeping magnificent story of salvation and God’s love for His humans!

One of the main reasons my husband and I became Catholic is that we could SEE Catholicism throughout the entire OLD Testament. All the stories made sense to us once we started studying Catholicism.

But if we hadn’t known the Old Testament stories, Catholicism would have made little sense to us.

I agree with the older children but I would like to see it started earlier than middle school. Children, especially those who attend public schools, are being subjected to ideologies that parents and churches need to prepare them for. If presented in developmentally appropriate lessons and discussions, our children would be more ready to defend their faith. We definitely should teach about our Heroes of the Faith as well!!!

 

[spedteacherita]

Sorry, OP and Forum members…I sort of went off topic!

 

[ltwin]

I’ll be dating myself here but Hal Lindsey’s books were big when I was a teenager and did read them all at that time. For an uninformed teenager, there were influential on me and thankfully I didn’t go to a Church that openly taught this so was able to move on and later learn the error of this teaching. I never read the Left Behind series because I knew by then how erroneous this stuff is. I would say that it paints a very bleak future and doesn’t encourage positive trust in God. The sad part is that cable channels do specials and shows on this which seems to promote dispensationalism as wide spread historic Christian teaching which it is not.

Yeah, as a Pentecostal I was in an odd position. We’re generally dispensationalists but not like other dispensationalists (non-Pentecostal dispensationalists might not even consider Pentecostals real dispensationaists). The relationship between Pentecostals and dispensationalism has always been an odd one. We believe in the rapture and everything, but we always had the recovery of Apostolic power in the church to look forward to. So while other dispensationalists painted the future as one where the church is riddled with apostasy, smaller and besieged, we saw a “glorious church” that was missionally focused and more Spirit-filled than ever in history.

I’m not as committed to a pretribulation rapture as I was growing up. I believe Jesus is personally returning and, as Paul did, I expect it will be soon, but I think that a lot of the Bible prophecy teaching is speculation at best and distortion of the Bible at worse.

I never read the Left Behind novels, but I did see that horrible movie adaptation. And now Nicholas Cage is starring in a revamp of that franchise. Shaking my head.

 

[ltwin]

I’ve read 26 of the books listed. The editors said that they invite disagreements. I would, at the very least, most definitely put Lewis’ Narnia books on there, if they’re including L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

Me and my siblings loved Narnia growing up. We would hide in our wardrobe and pretend there was a whole world back there.

I remember reading Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan when I was like 11. That was a little too much for me at the time. I also vaguely remember reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs, and I definitely remember sitting in church hearing a sermon where that book was referenced a lot.

I’ve read, off and on and still haven’t finished yet, Charles Finney’s Power from on High. I’ve also started reading various works of John Wesley and even Thomas a Kempis, but I never have time to finish reading everything I want to. The Church Fathers are on my list eventually, and I really want to read the Theologia Deutsch. My brother has a copy of The City of God, and I’m borrowing that too eventually.

Thank God for Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

 

[robwar]

Yeah, as a Pentecostal I was in an odd position. We’re generally dispensationalists but not like other dispensationalists (non-Pentecostal dispensationalists might not even consider Pentecostals real dispensationaists). The relationship between Pentecostals and dispensationalism has always been an odd one. We believe in the rapture and everything, but we always had the recovery of Apostolic power in the church to look forward to. So while other dispensationalists painted the future as one where the church is riddled with apostasy, smaller and besieged, we saw a “glorious church” that was missionally focused and more Spirit-filled than ever in history.

I’m not as committed to a pretribulation rapture as I was growing up. I believe Jesus is personally returning and, as Paul did, I expect it will be soon, but I think that a lot of the Bible prophecy teaching is speculation at best and distortion of the Bible at worse.

I never read the Left Behind novels, but I did see that horrible movie adaptation. And now Nicholas Cage is starring in a revamp of that franchise. Shaking my head.

Usually when I think of dispensationalists, I think of hard core fundamentalists KJV only, Bob Jones university, pre-tribulation etc. They would certainly be at odd with pentacostals and Charismatics because they would deny that miracles, healings, tongues etc are for today. They believed that stuff ended with the last apostle and since we have the Bible, all that other stuff is no longer needed. Talk about goofed up thinking and theology. The Catholic Church does teach that Jesus will come again in person. I read two very good Catholic books 'Will Catholics be left behind" and “The Rapture Trap” which delve into all of this. Both books also list a very good Protestant bibliography in the back as well and may be useful to you in looking for Protestant resources.

 

[robwar]

Three of the books worth reading from the list are not about theology but are testimony books, “Cross and the Swtich Blade, Christy, and The Hiding Place”. I think even Catholics would get something out of these books because they are about how ordinary normal Christians responded to the needs and challenges around them. Dave Wilkerson felt called by God to go and minister to inner city gangs, Corrie Ten Boom hide Jews during WWII and Christy was about a young girl responding to a call to serve the poor in the Appalacia mountains. I think all of them have challenges and much to say about stepping out to serve and help others.