Written by: host
12/22/2009 7:00 AM 

My top 10 reads of 2009

These are the books I most enjoyed in 2009. I've cheated a bit, as a few of them came out late in 2008 but I learned about them this year. The links take you to my previous reviews.

1. The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle. Worth it just for the charts in the last third of the book, but there are plenty of reasons to get a copy of this one!
2. The First Paul by Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan. I'll never read Paul's letters in the same way again.
3. A People's History of Christianity by Dorothy Butler Bass. You could call it a history of progressive Christianity, if you want to. A tremendously engaging book!
4. Saving Jesus from the Church by Robin Meyers. When I read this one, I wrote, "Every so often, a book comes into my life and acts like the hand that shakes a snow globe, disturbing all of the molecules of my existence and rearranging my internal landscape." OK, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it's definitely a superb reflection on moving beyond belief in Jesus to the actions that make us followers of him.
   
5. Jesus Was a Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All by Scotty McLennan. A more approachable introduction to progressive Christianity than some other similar books have been, making it great for book groups.
6. Loving Our Neighbor: A Thoughtful Approach to Helping People in Poverty by Beth Lindsay. A superb guide to educating your congregation about poverty, and developing a plan for addressing poverty in your town.
7. The Void and the Vision by Dr. Carl Krieg. In a Q&A format, Krieg presents a simple, personal account of the way he thinks about progressive faith. I liked it so much, we're now the exclusive provider for the ebook version.
8. The Green Bible by various authors. This is one of the first non-study Bibles I wholeheartedly recommend you get and use frequently. If we're going to fix the environmental mess we've gotten ourselves into, we need great resources like this one to literally help us visualize what a green faith could look like.
9. The Book of Genesis Illustrated illustrated by R. Crumb. An unprecenteded work which helps you to visualize every part of this biblical book. Podcast and transcript of an interview with Crumb here.
10. Conversations With Scripture: The Gospel of Mark by Marcus J. Borg. One of the few Christian education study guides out there with a progressive author for classes or small groups.

10 (make that 11) books I wished I'd read in 2009

1. The Real Messiah: The Throne of St. Mark and the True Origins of Christianity by Stephan Fuller. I'm currently deep into this one, and don't want to put it down! It's like a modern-day DaVinci Code mystery (and equally huge implications for biblical scholarship), only with serious research to back it up.
2. The Case for God by Karen Armstrong. Karen's books are always dense but engaging. A great interview with her discussing this book can be found here. Podcast and transcript of an interview with Karen here.
3. Reading Jesus by Mary Gordon was one of the best books I started this year, but didn't have a chance to finish. You'll simply savor her beautiful sentences and insights.
4. The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why by Nicholas Wade. I'm just twenty pages into this one, but I'm finding the application of evolutionary theory to communal and personal practices to be fascinating to contemplate.
5. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. This is another, longer book on the evolution of religion, with an intriguing premise that religion is getting better over time.
6. The Future of Faith by Harvey Cox. Practically every student of religion has likely read one of Cox's books at some point or another over the past 45 years. Here's his take on where Christian faith is going.
7. Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality by Barbara Bradley Hagerty. If you enjoy her commentary on NPR, you'll probably be interested in this one. Podcast and transcript of an interview available here.
8. An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. How does one "do church" or live a spiritual life all the time, wherever one is? That's what Taylor is interested in, now that she's no longer serving a church.
   
9. To Serve God and Wal-Mart by The Making of Christian Free Enterprise by Bethany Moreton. If you're concerned about social justice issues within our own country, this book explores the murky history behind Wal-Mart.
10. Christian Education Teaching Methods - From Modern to Postmodern: Teaching the faith to post-moderns by Carlos Roberts. This is a self-published book by the priest at St. Matthew's Anglican Church in Saskatchewan, and it should be interesting reading for anyone who works with anyone from children through young adults.
11. Nurturing Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives and Best Practices by Holly Catterton Allen. 400-page books on children's spirituality don't come along very often, after all. So if you're tired of the children's ministry stuff put out by "Big G," take a look at this one.

~ by Tim Gossett

Copyright ©2009 Different Voice

Trackback Print

Tags:

Categories:

Location: Blogs The Daily Voice Technology Today (Tuesdays)