Through Gates of Splendor

My first choice among many great books by Elisabeth Elliot.

Hmmm. This is a great list. But (as a christian who reads a lot) I just couldn't find the urgency anywhere on the list that said... "Oh yes, you've just got to read that one."

Also, we're almost 900 books short of 1000 here.

Did anyone vote for any Billy Graham books?

a couple of books (or more) are listed twice: screwtape letters, imitation of Christ

Sorry to be so slow in responding to these comments; I just now discovered that lists have comments sections! Freeman, I added Through Gates of Splendor to the list just now. Also, you (and anyone else who wants to) can add books yourself. Just type in the title/author you want to add in the "add books" blank at the right-hand side of the top of the list. When the system brings up all the books it finds in its search for those words, you vote for the one you want. Yes, Alice, there's one Billy Graham book on the list. I haven't read many of his books myself --I did read World Aflame over 30 years ago, but didn't add it to the list since I felt it might be somewhat dated now.

Antoine, yes, we're way short of 1,000 books here! But if I'd started the list off with 1,000 books (actually, I don't think I've even read that many books in my life --though I'd like to :-)), then no one else could ever have added any. My idea was that this way, it could gradually grow to 1,000 books, with many people adding their own suggestions over time --kind of a group project.

Agape, I think the duplication on The Imitation of Christ has been cleared up. But The Screwtape Letters is still duplicated, and thanks for reporting it! I'll try to do something about that ASAP!

Werner, let me know if you need help :)

some of these look like adult books!

Hunter, I'm the moderator for this list (only because I started it), but I don't usually spend much time with it due to all the other irons I have in the fire. But I'll try to check it ASAP for inappropriate inclusions.

Are you using "adult books" the way some people do, as a synonym for porn? (If so, those books don't have any place here.) Or did you just mean actual adult books, as opposed to childrens' books? In that case, this list is primarily aimed at adult Christians, though it may include some kids' books, too.

I meant it in a way that some of these covers look like the books that my dad reads. And like they are too old for me to read. Some day i might reads some of them though.

Thanks for the clarification, Hunter. And yes, I hope you do get a chance to read some of these as you get older!

Hunter-
Almost all of these books have adult literaure printed on their covers, but when I was a kid, that didn't rein me in. I loved the Screwtape letters and C.S. Lewis's imagination for adults. I think you might enjoy Ted Dekker, which is one author I didn't see on here. Maybe I just missed it.

Onward to what I clicked this box for in the first place:
I liked this list but there were a lot of books that didn't really strike me as great reads for Christians. And I am not a great Christian, a righteous woman of faith, but isn't Dorian gray a little much for this list? It revolves around homsexuality really, even if the book is beautiful, this would offend many Christians that I know. And I won't even go into the issue of the Book of Mormon. *Sigh*

K.l., thanks for sharing (and hope you voted on the list!) The scope of the list is defined by the description at the top, which notes that these books aren't necessarily written by Christians, and may only be recommended for Christian readers in order to help us understand the ways that (some) non-Christians think. Given that range, it's almost inevitable that the ideas and other content of some of the selections would offend many Christians. Being offended by something doesn't necessarily obviate the desirability of understanding it, if we're going to live in this world and try to impact it constructively.

I've read both of the books you mentioned, The Picture of Dorian Gray (in fact, I think I added that one to the list myself) and The Book of Mormon. Wilde was not a Christian when he wrote the Dorian Gray book (he converted to Catholicism near the end of his life), but he was spiritually searching, and sympathetic to Christian teaching even though he didn't personally practice it. The message of the book is ultimately a pro-moral one, which exposes the hollowness and futility of hedonism and points the reader to different goals. And although Wilde was personally homosexual (or, at least, bisexual), that doesn't automatically warrant reading a homosexual theme into all of his writings. Granted, I've been known to miss subtle homoerotic content in books because I wasn't looking for it; but I don't personally see any content of that sort here --and the conduct of Gray and Wotton towards women hardly suggests homosexuality on their part, whatever else it suggests.

Mormonism is a significant and growing spiritual force in our world, which Christians of all stripes are apt to encounter and need to understand and deal with; ignorance isn't a useful tool for this. The Book of Mormon is a good starting place for learning about Mormon beliefs --and a Christian who would be converted to Mormonism just by reading it is not very secure in his/her faith (or very knowledegable about history, archaeology, literature, etc.)

What the heck is the Book of Mormon doing on here?

D.C. wrote: "What the heck is the Book of Mormon doing on here?"

One ought to read even those things with which they do not agree, if for no other reason than to understand why they may disagree with you, assuming that is why you question it being on the list. Besides, it meets the criteria for the list--it is not the Bible. Many people, nonetheless, consider The Book of Mormon to be an important Christian text. I do not share this opinion, but one must furnish reasons, in spite of personal opinion, for any claim that the The Book of Mormon is or is not a Christian text.

Questioning the inclusion of a book is important insofar as a forum exists whereby one may provide reasons for inclusion or exclusion. Such a forum, however, exists only in the comments area, which strikes me as not the best place to debate. But questioning the inclusion of a book is not good when it is merely a tacit expression of one's desire to censor the list to some degree apart from providing objective reasons for so doing.

Some people have questioned the inclusion of certain books because (1) they consider the book personally offensive; (2) they consider the book to be offensive to all Christians; (3) they consider the book to be non-Christian; (4) they consider the book unimportant.

Allow me to comment briefly on the above enumeration. Regarding (1): This is a public list. As such one should expect that other people do not share one's personal views on what is offensive. For this reason, one ought not impose, in the form of exclusion, one's personal hang-ups, all or some of which may or may not be reasonable hang-ups. In short, this public list cannot cater to one's private wants, except accidentally. Besides, if there is one book that is capable of offense it's the Bible, yet I doubt you would advocate it's exclusion from a list on that basis. On (2), which can be taken descriptively or prescriptively: Descriptively, for this concern to be accetable the following must obtain: A public statement delineating the standards by which we judge the content of books such that their content is offensive to all Christians (and by "Christian" it is meant "anyone who consideres themself to be a Christian"). But such an expression cannot be realized in this forum for a number of reasons. First, we have no reason to think any one person's choice of standards is the correct one to adopt; there would not be univocal concensus on both the standard, the content, and who should make the decisions about that standard and content. Second, even if we did accept that person's standard as a good one, there is no reason to think that person has the authority to demand such a standard. Third, even if the standard and the person's authority were accepted by this forum, it's unclear that such an acceptance would concord with GoodReads policies in general. Fourth, I think it would be pretentious at best, arrogent at worst, for anyone here to think themselves qualified to know what presicely is offensive to all Christians. Lastly, I don't even know if it is epistemically possible for us to know what is objectively offensive to all Christians. On (3): Whether a book is non-Christian or not is irrelevant to its inclusion in the list. The parameters of the list include anything that an educated Christian ought to read, be it Christian work or not. It is confused to think that one can seriously call oneself educated if one has read only Christian works. This leads to a corollary problem: what counts as a "Christian" book? What counts a "non-Christian" book? This is just an instance of a problem found in (2); namely, a universal standard. On (4): If one votes for a book to be on the list, then that book is important enough to be on the list. There is no public constraint on voters to meet some arbitrary standard of importance. A list like this is going to have varying degrees of quality because those who vote have varying views on what it means to be educated, what it means for a book to be important to education, and what it means to be an educated Christian. Thus, I think, for instance, that The Chronicles of Narnia has virtually zero educational importance for the Christian, even though there are at least 70 people who think that it does have such importance.

I appreciate people's concerns regarding the content of the list, but I expect such concerns to be tempered with an understanding of their implications.

Thanks for sharing, IW. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into your comments.

This was designed to be a list of books that are useful in some way(s) for Christians to read, even if it's only so that we can understand challenges to our faith which are posed in the world in which we're called to live and witness to God's truth. Obviously, many of the books listed are by Christians, and others have ideas that are compatible with Christianity; some, like the books promoting atheism, do not, and probably would offend many Christian readers. But just because we disagree with or are offended by certain ideas isn't a good reason not to attempt to understand them; we can't very well ask others to read or listen to our ideas if we don't respect them enough to do the same. (Personally, I've read the Koran for that reason, though many of its ideas are, to put it mildly, not the same as mine.) So just because I, or someone else, lists a book here doesn't mean that we agree with everything --or anything--that it says. And my judgment of what "every Christian should read" may not be the same as that of other people who accept the open invitation to list books here (as IW said, it's a public list :-)), and vice versa, but as list moderator, I respect their right to exercise their own judgment about that. Anyone reading the list should take any of the cited items merely as suggestions, to evaluate as he/she feels led; but I think we benefit from having suggestions from a lot of different sources --for one thing, the others who vote on the list have read a great many books that I haven't. So I'm inclined to be much more inclusive than exclusive. Hope that explanation helps!

Hi Werner, I hope my post was not misleading. It was not directed at you specifically, nor was I soliciting a response from you personally; although I do appreciate your reply.

My post was merely intended to be a general comment related to concerns posted by other members.

Thanks

No, IW, your post wasn't misleading! I just wanted to supplement it with my thoughts, so that everybody knows where I'm coming from. :-)