I just started reading The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson. So far a very good, fast read.

My church just got done with "The 40 Days of Purpose" campaign with the book "The Purpose Driven Life" also a good read.

Shaun

I've been told to read "the purpose driven life" by many people, but haven't gotten around to it. I think I'll have more time after the semester's over (and after finals and everything).

Anything by C.S. Lewis. When I was a kid I read the Narnia Chronicles and didn't even know (until a later re-read) that I was being propagandized. As a young teen I read a scifi trilogy of his that was a bit more adult in its approach. I only remember two names of the three, "Out of the Silent Planet" and "That Hideous Strength". I also enjoyed "Screwtape Letters".

After a thirty-year pause, I recently decided to read another book by the same author. I read, "Surprise by Joy". A good apology. He's a very clear, deep, gentle writer. I could imagine sitting with him in conversation in a small living room, each of us with a good whisky in hand.

I'd read another book by him.

Botnst

My Two Mommies

Perlandra
I am always surprised ( and delighted) to find a fellow Lewis reader)
People who feel that God would not ordain what comes to pass should read Lewis accounts of his conversion ( to Chriatianity). He describes it as "being dragged, kicking and screaming"
An amazing intellect!

I've read several of Lewis' books and although its one of the more popular, I liked Mere Christianity the best. Our neighbor performed the lead role in 'Shadow Lands' at UCSB a few years ago, it was a great play. Pursuit of God by A W Tozer is very good, I read a few other books by Tozer but didn't get nearly so much out of them. A freind of mine wanted to name one of his kids 'Dietrich Bonhoeffer' after the christian matyr killed by the Nazis. He managed to get a couple books published but I thought it a bit dull, maybe a lack of depth on my part.

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92 300D
95 300D
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Yes, Bonheoffer was an intriguing person. It would be interesting for someone to make a detailed comparison between Bonheoffer's motivation and current Islamic terrorists. There is at least a surface similarity of political violence being carried out in the name of God.

The first book of Lewis' I read was the Problem of Pain, then Mere Christianity. I was never attracted to his fantasy literature. When I read those books I really liked him but I now tend to view him as a person unhappy with modern England, yearning for the bygone years of religion, king and country who should have been born in the 16th century.

Lewis trivia: He died the same day as JFK.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Ted, that picture is way too cool. Is the ham, you? Double entendre intended.


Kerry, I should think that anybody who professionaly pursued english lit and history would have a certain affection for the period. I suspect you'd not mind taking a "Bill & Ted" adventure to some periods, too. I know I'd love a shot a such a trip, Babblefish firmly implanted. There are even attributes of the past that I'd like to bring to ur time.

If Lewis were truly a Christian (a fair assumption) then I don't think he could have been aristocratic in the sense of European feudalism. I think his aristocracy is more one of spirit than of flesh. But I freely admit that I am not expert on CS Lewis.

I'm not sure what era in history or future I'd choose, if choice were possible. Maybe 10-thousand years hence? If one had a chance at skipping to some other time and place, future or past or even extraterrestrial, where would one choose to go? Not just to see, but to live.

I'll bet most of us would choose today, this moment.

Botnst

Darwin's The Origin of Species is a perennial Christian favorite...

Sure time travel would be fun. I guess what I mean is that a defense of Christianity in the British context is different than the same defense in a US context. I think Lewis probably has more readers in the US than in the UK. If he had been defending the NonConformists it may have been different but a defense of official Christianity from his social position looks a lot more like social conservatism than anything else. I'm not a Lewis scholar either, and I haven't read any studies of his social attitudes. It's just more of a gut level response.

It's been a very long time since I read them, and I definitely don't think the author knew much about recent NT studies, but Tolstoy's two religious essays, My Religion and The Kingdom of God is Within You seemed very insightful to me when I read them.

Z has a good point. There's no better book proving the ongoing creativity of God in nature than Darwin's. Without it, we'd all be deists.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Of Tolstoy, I've only read "War and Peace". After that horrid book, I dropped any desire to read more Tolstoy. The man seemed unable to write a single word when two paragraphs could be written as a substitute. Dostoyevski (sp) a wordy kind of guy in his own right, at least got to the point in a paragraph. In grad school I read some Russian botany (agronomy, genetics, evolution, systematics) and it seemed that they suffered from Tolstoy envy, too. My favorite plant evolutionist, ArmenTakhtajan (Soviet era, perhaps not Russian) is another wordy guy.

Does it take more words to translate Russian into English?

There's a difference between Christians who are biblical literalists and those who are not. A colleague, a biologist, is a literalist who knows perfectly well what the scientific dogma is and why. It puzzles me that he can dismiss it so completely with apparently not a second thought. To him the science is just a fun game to play but not a fruitful path for seekers of truth. There's only one way for that.

That guy is one extreme and of course, most scientists are along the opposite wall, atheism. In between the is a wide expanse occupied sparsely by scientists of varying religions and faiths. I'm sort of a wet agnostic--I reject absolute atheism, I totally reject biblical literalism of all religions, but I think there's more to reality than meets the eye and that religion seems to be a rational chosen path followed by an awful large number of good people. People of sound judgement.

The religious paradigm has shifted since the enlightenment. It hasn't arrived at a stable cusp yet, but its amazing that myths evolved to explain the existence of bedouins still serves as a guide for so many people today.

Botnst

Our current time and place are a bit different than Lewis' and I know he took a few jabs at the church he was familiar with. Bit of a shame that the less obvious comments are lost on me as I am ignorant of the specifics he was dealing with. I wonder what has become of the areas his concern 40-50 years ago.

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92 300D
95 300D
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2004 Wrangler

Did you see the movie "Shadowlands", starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis? Assuming it is a fairly accurate biographical film, I think he would have mutually enjoyed a good whiskey and good conversation with you. He is portrayed as defending his faith on a regular basis among his scholarly peers over whiskey and ale within a warm Oxford pub.

I have frequently done the same- explaining the essence of Christ's Gospel with friends in bars and taverns - up until closing time in some cases. Once I was shouting the gospel to one particular person to be heard above the Irish band, and in very little time, had him shouting the "sinner's prayer". To win sinners, you gotta go where they go, and to follow Jesus, you gotta go where He went- eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, and so being accused by the religious right of His day of being a glutton and a drunk. C.S. Lewis was one of the few Christian giants of tyhe 20th century who had a good grasp of this.

Ok.you read city of God,Ste.Agustins works,thomas 'a kempis,pascals pastoral lettres.bossuets sermons.lives of the saints by archbishop Fenelon. then you jump to 19th jahrhundert you have Rene de Chateaubriand g.K chesterton and hillaire belloc above them all.broaden your mind and learn lessons of the divine truth these men knew.

The Bible is my favorite: currently rereading the Book of Job.
Just finished a bio of Alexander Hamilton. amazing how quality books seem to reinforce the truths from the Bible: human behavior, etc. even though they aren't ostensibly religious. Lewis, et al are favs. We completed the Purpose-Driven Life last fall; great.