In an essay on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, [Marilynne] Robinson declared that “great theology is always a kind of giant and intricate poetry, like epic or saga. It is written for those who know the tale already, the urgent messages and the dying words, and who attend to its retelling with a special alertness, because the story has a claim on them and they on it. Theology is also close to the spoken voice.” In Gilead we are indeed listening, or rather overhearing, the dying words of the venerable, ailing, seventy-six-year-old Congregational minister John Ames writing a letter intended as a bequest to his beloved seven-year-old son. As I listened, I was drawn in, captivated by the voice of John Ames.
Bonhoeffer also refers to theology as “a word of recognition among friends.” In reading, or listening to, Gilead, John Ames became a friend. . . .
In 1555, [John] Calvin looked back on his transition from humanist scholar to Protestant pastor and described it this way: “By a sudden conversion, God turned and brought my heart to teachableness.” . . .
Robinson began to read Calvin deeply and seriously, first the Institutes, but then also the commentaries and sermons. And although she does not use the language of “sudden conversion” to describe this intellectual and theological awakening, she comes pretty close when she confesses: “I was astonished to realize how utterly different Calvin is from anything I had ever heard or read about him. It was really moving to discover such a vast and lucid and gracious spirit. It was as if I had just happened upon Beethoven. Much better.” This discovery of Calvin happened for her at midlife, almost like Dante: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark.” Karl Barth, a theologian who appears a number of times in Robinson’s works, once described Calvin as “a waterfall, a primeval forest, something strange, mythological, something straight down from the Himalayas.” Robinson, like Barth, would make her own pathway through the brambles and brush of the primeval forest that is John Calvin. Her project would be one of retrieval, reclamation, and “resourcement.” — Timothy George, “Marilynne Robinson and John Calvin,” 45, 47, 52.
John Calvin
Best Christian Book: What Have You Added to Your Reading List?
Thank you, Andy, for your amazing breakdown of the advanced metrics of the Best Christian Book of All Time Tournament. One of Andy’s findings was that the Tournament seedings came much closer to an ideal seeding than the most recent NCAA Men’s Basketball tournaments. (However, I do note as a proud UofL alumnus that this year, at least, the #1 overall seed justified its ranking. Go Cards! #L1C4) Perhaps this represents my in-depth understanding of ESN members’ voting tendencies — or, more likely, I was simply quite lucky.
One of the few books that well outperformed its seeding was Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich, the #11 seed in the Memoirs, Devotionals, & Spirituality bracket. I confess that I seeded Revelations where I did based on its reputation, not on a direct comparison between it and all of the other books in the bracket. Obviously, it’s held in much higher esteem by ESN members than I expected. To see what I’m missing, I plan on downloading it from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and adding it to my reading list.Â
Confession time: I have not read all 64 books included in the field. As best I can figure, I have read 28 of the selections, as well as portions of an additional 13, which means I’ve read (in part) around 64% of the 64 books under consideration. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s not, and maybe it confirms all of your suspicions about the tournament. For the ones I’ve not read, I relied on the nominations from ESN members and outside resources.
In addition to Revelations of Divine Love, I’m adding these to my reading list as well:
- The novels Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Silence by Shusaku Endo (not “Shusako” as I erroneously wrote earlier)
- Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
- Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, though these will likely be volumes I dip into occasionally rather than attempt to read straight through
I’d love to hear from you. How many of the books from the tournament have you read? What books have you added to your reading list as a result of the tournament? Leave your additions in the comments.
Best Christian Book of All Time: First Round Update
The first round has closed in the Theology & Apologetics and Christian Life & Discipleship brackets of our Best Christian Book of All Time tournament. Download the updated bracket for your office pools, and head to Facebook to vote for your choices for the Sweet Sixteen.
First Round Results
Theology & Apologetics
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (1) defeated On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux (16) by a score of 99-11. [Read more…] about Best Christian Book of All Time: First Round Update
Best Christian Book of All Time: Early Nominations
The nominations are coming in for our Best Christian Book of All Time Tournament (BCBATT for short). So far, more than 140 different books have been nominated, ranging from the 2nd to the 21st centuries.
Here are a few of the books receiving multiple nominations:
- Augustine, Confessions
- Augustine, City of God
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Cost of Discipleship
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
- Dante, The Divine Comedy
- Thomas á Kempis, Imitation of Christ
- Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
- C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
- J.I. Packer, Knowing God
- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker
- John Stott, The Cross of Christ
We also have one nomination in the running for longest title: William Wilburforce’s A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. (No one has yet put forth William Carey’s An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, In Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, Are Considered. There must be something about long titles and 18th century British Christians named “William.â€)
It’s not too late to nominate your favorite book. We’ll continue taking nominations until Saturday, March 9. The tournament bracket will be announced on March 17, and the voting will begin that week.
The Brackets
I’m currently thinking of dividing the books into 4 categories:
- Classical and Medieval
- Reformation Era (including pre-Reformation)
- Modern
- Poetry and Fiction
If you have other suggestions for ways to divide the books, I’d love to hear them.
Interested in Helping?
Once we’re down the final books, there will also be a special series of posts with capsule summaries of the remaining books. If you’re interested in helping write those or helping to seed the tournament brackets, let me know.
Insights from works by people from other worldviews?
James W. Sire addresses another excellent question from Micheal Hickerson, ESN Blog Contributor:
Should Christians worry if they find themselves enjoying or gaining insight from artistic, literary or academic works by people from other worldviews?
I know that this has been a question within the Christian world from the ancients to the present. Didn’t Tertullian (c. 160-230) ask, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?†But, though I was brought up in a modestly fundamentalist community, the question has always seemed strange to me. Why not? I respond. All truth is God’s truth.
But let’s say that we find ourselves falling in love with the works of Virginia Woolf or Albert Camus — which, by the way, I have. What then? What truth could there be in their explicit rejection of orthodox Christianity? Well, for one thing, no writer can reject all truth. It takes quite a bit of truth just to continue living. For another, all people have something true to contribute to our understanding of the world and its wonders. If nothing else, they contribute the knowledge and wisdom they’ve accumulated by living out the image of God in which they were created.
[Read more…] about Insights from works by people from other worldviews?