A BEGINNER'S CHRISTIAN BOOKSHELF

compiled by Professor David Lyle Jeffrey

The following list is divided into three categories: (1) classic works of Christian spirituality and devotional theology; (2) post-enlightenment and modern works of Christian intellectual and cultural criticism; (3) great novels, poems and plays whose Christian content and/or asking of questions central in their importance to accountable Christian reflection make them a desirable part of the well-tempered, well-furbished apostolic mind.

I. CLASSIC FOUNDATIONS

Athanasius                              On the Incarnation of the Word             
Augustine                               Confessions                                
                                        The City of God                            
                                        Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love       
                                        Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount      
                                        The Teacher (De Magistro)                  
Boethius                                Consolation of Philosophy                  
Gregory the Great                       Pastoral Care                              
John Chrysostom                         Homilies on 1 and 2 Corinthians            
Anselm of Canterbury                    Truth, Freedom and Evil                    
                                        Cur Deus Homo?                             
                                        Proslogion                                 
Basil                                   On the Holy Spirit                         
Bernard of Clairvaux                    On Loving God                              
                                        Sermons on Charity                         
Thomas Aquinas                          Summa Theologica, 5 vols. (Christian Classics)                                  
                                        Theological Texts, ed. Thomas Gilby (Oxford)                                   
                                        Commentary on John's Gospel                
Bonaventure                             The Mind's Road to God                     
Walter Hilton                           Ladder of Perfection                       
Thomas à Kempis                         Imitation of Christ                        
Martin Luther                           On the Bondage of the Will                 
                                        Commentaries on Galatians, Romans          
John Calvin                             Institutes                                 
                                        Commentary on Deuteronomy                  
Thomas More                             The English Prayers of Sir Thomas More     
Blaise Pascal                           Pensées                                    
Thomas Browne                           Religio Medici                             
Richard Baxter                          Saints' Everlasting Rest                   
Ignaius of Loyola                       Spiritual Exercises                        
John of the Cross                       Dark Night of the Soul                     
Theresa of Avila                        The Way of Perfection                      
Lancelot Andrewes                       Private Prayers                             
Isaac Watts                             Guide to Prayer                            
William Law                             Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life     
Phillip Doddridge                       The Rise and Progress of the Soul          
John and Charles Wesley                 Spiritual Writings (Paulist Press)         
Charles Simeon                          Memoirs                                    
John Henry Newman                       Apologia Pro Vita Sua                      
Søren Kierkegaard                       Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Princeton)                                
                                        Fear and Trembling                         
                                        The Present Age:  The Difference Between   
                                        A Genius and an Apostle (Harper and Row)     
C.S. Lewis                              Mere Christianity                          
                                        Screwtape Letters                          
                                        God in the Dock and Other Essays           
Dietrich Bonhoeffer                     The Cost of Discipleship                   
Watchman Nee                            The Normal Christian Life                  
                                        Sit, Walk, Stand                           
                                        The Release of the Spirit                  
J.I. Packer                             Knowing God                                
A.W. Tozer                              The Knowledge of the Holy                  
Josemaria Escriva                       The Way                                    
                                        Christ is Passing By                       
Simone Weil                              Waiting for God                            
Hans Urs Von Balthassar                 On Prayer                                  
John Paul II                            Letter to Families                         
                                        The Splendor of Truth                      
                                        The Gospel of Life                         
                                        Crossing the Threshold of Hope             
                                        Ut Unum Sint                               
                                                                                  

II. CHRISTIAN INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL CRITICISM

A. Focusing on the Patristic Era

Jaroslav Pelikan                        The Christian Tradition:  A History of the                                        
                                        Development of Doctrine (Chicago)          
Bernard Lonergan                        The Road to Nicea                          
F.F. Bruce                              The Canon Of Scripture                     
                                        Tradition Old and New                      
                                        The Spreading Flame:  The Rise and Progress                                   
                                        of Christianity from First Beginnings to the                                        
                                        Conversion of the English (Eerdmans)       

B. Medieval through Reformation

Fredrick Coppleston                      A History of Philosophy (Penguin)          
C.S. Lewis                              The Discarded Image (Oxford)               
Gillian Evans                           The Language and Logic of the Bible, 2  vols. (Cambridge)                                
Beryl Smalley                           The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame)                                      
Etienne Gilson                          Thomas Aquinas                             
                                        The Christian Philosophy of St. Bonaventure                                
                                        A Christian Philosophy (PIMS)              
Alistair McGrath                        The Intellectual Origins of the European
                                        Reformation (Blackwells)                   
Heiko Oberman                           Luther (Image)                             
William J. Bowsma                       John Calvin (Oxford)                       
Dom David Knowles                       Saints and Scholars                        
E. Harris Harbison                      The Christian Scholar in the Age of Reformation                                
                                                                                   

C. Enlightenment and Early Modern

Donald Davie                            A Gathered Church                          
William Paley                           Evidences of Christianity                  
D.L. Jeffrey, ed.                       English Spirituality in the Age of Wesley   (Eerdmans)                                 

D. Modern

1. Arts and Humanities

Hannah Arendt                           Between Past and Future                    
                                        Men in Dark Times                          
Herbert Butterfield                     Christianity and History (Bell)            
Dorothy Sayers                          The Mind of the Maker (Methune)            
G.K. Chesterton                         The Everlasting Man (Doubleday Image)      
                                        Orthodoxy (Doubleday Image)                
Jacque Ellul                            The Technological Society (Seabury)        
                                        Propaganda                                 
                                        The Humiliation of the Word (Eerdmans)     
                                        Hope in a Time of Abandonment (Seabury)    
T.S. Eliot                              The Idea of a Christian Society            
W.H.V. Reade                            The Christian Challenge to Philosophy      
John A. MacMurray                       The Self as Agent (Faber)                  
                                        Persons in Relation (Faber)                
George Grant                            Technology and Justice                     
David L. Jeffrey                        People of the Book:  Christian Identity and Literary
                                        Culture (Eerdmans)                
Harry Blamires                          The Christian Mind (Seabury)               
Mark Noll                               The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans)                                 
Paul Ricoeur                            History and Truth (Northwestern)           
George Marsden                          The Soul of the American University (Oxford)                                   
J.I. Packer and Thomas Howard           Christianity:  The True Humanism (Word)    
Nicholas Wolterstorff                   Reason Within the Bounds of Religion       
Keith Yandell                           Christianity and Philosophy (Eerdmans)     

2. Science

Herbert Butterfield                     Christianity and Science                   
Paul Davies                             God and the New Physics                    
                                        The Mind of God                            
Jean Daujat                             Physique moderne et philosophie traditionelle (Desclée)                                  
                                        Le système du monde.  Histoire des doctrines                                  
                                        cosmologique de Platon a Copernic (Hermann)                                  
                                        Le théorie physique (Minerva)              
Phillip Johnson                         Reason in the Balance:  the Case against   
                                        Naturalism (IVP)                           
John Eccles and Daniel Robinson         The Wonder of being Human, Our Brain and our                                        
                                        Mind (Free Press)                          
R. Harre                                The Philosophies of Science (Oxford)       
                                        Theories and Things (Sheed & Ward)         
                                        Casual Powers (Rowman & Littlefield)       
W. Heisenberg                           Physics and Philosophy, The Revolution in  
                                        Modern Science (Harper)                    
Mary Midgley                            Science and Salvation (RKP)                
Stanley Jaki                            Cosmos and Creator (Scottish Academic Press)                                     
                                        The Relevance of Physics (Chicago)         
                                        The Origin of Science and the Science of   
                                        Origin (Scottish Academic Press)                  
                                        Angels, Apes, and Man (Sherwood)           
Jacques Maritain                        Science et Sagesse (Desclée)               
Roger Penrose                           The Emperor's New Mind                     
Emile Simard                            La Nature et la portée de la methode
                                        scientifique  (Laval)                                    
William Wallace                         Causality and Scientific Explanation (U. Mich.)                                     
                                        From a Realist Point of View:  Essays on the                                        
                                        Philosophy of Science (U. Press of America)                                   

3. Law

Huntington Cairns                       Legal Philosophy from Plato to Hegel (Johns Hopkins)                                   
Benjamin Cardozo                        The Nature of the Judicial Process (Yale)  
Oliver W. Holmes                        The Common Law (Yale)                      
Roscoe Pound                            Justice According to Law (Yale)            
Samuel Rutherford                       Lex Rex                                    

4. Social Sciences

Peter Berger                            A Rumor of Angels (Doubleday)              
C.S. Lewis                              The Abolition of Man (MacMillan)           
Jacques Ellul                           The Meaning of the City (Eerdmans)         
                                        The Politics of God and the Politics of Man (Eerdmans)                                 
William K. Kilpatrick                   Psychological Seduction (Nelson)           
Neil Postman                            Amusing Ourselves to Death                 
Paul Tournier                           The Meaning of Persons (SCM)                
Mary Stewart van Leeuwen                The Person in Psychology (Eerdmans)        
Paul Vitz                               Psychology as Religion: the Cult of 
                                        Self-Worship (Eerdmans)                                 

5. Philosophical Theology

Donald Bloesch                          Theology of Word and Spirit (IVP)          
                                        Holy Scripture (IVP)                       
                                        The Battle for the Trinity (Vine)          
O. O'Donovan                            Resurrection and Moral Order (Eerdmans)    
T.F. Torrance                           God and Rationality (Oxford)               
                                        The Trinitarian Faith (T & T Clark)        
Diogenes Allen                          Christian Belief in a Postmodern World(Westminster)                              
Carl Henry                              God, Revelation and Authority 6 vols. (Word)                                     
A. Plantinga                            God, Freedom, and Evil (Eerdmans)          
A. Plantinga and N. Wolterstorff        Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame)         
R. Swinburne                            The Coherence of Theism (Oxford)           
                                        The Existence of God (Oxford)              
                                        Faith and Reason (Oxford)                  
                                        Revelation (Oxford)                        
                                        Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford)      
Alasdair MacIntyre                      Three Rival Genealogies of Moral Inquiry (Notre Dame)                                      
Cardinal J. Ratzinger                   In the Beginning (Eerdmans)                
Bernard Lonergan                        Insight (Darton, Longman and Todd)         
Hans Urs Von Balthassar                 The Glory of the Lord:  A Theological Aesthetics,                                
                                        3 vols.; trans. E. Leiva-Merikakis (Ignatius)                                 

III. INDISPENSABLE WORKS OF LITERATURE

Donald Davie                            Christian Poetry:  An Anthology            
Dante                                   Divine Comedy                              
Christopher Marlowe                     The Tragicall Historie of Doctor Faustus   
William Roper                           The Life of Thomas More                    
George Herbert                          The Temple                                 
John Donne                              Holy Sonnets, etc.                         
                                        Devotions                                  
John Bunyan                             Pilgrim's Progress                         
                                        Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners    
John Milton                             Paradise Lost                              
                                        Paradise Regained                          
William Shakespeare                     A Winter's Tale                            
                                        Measure for Measure                        
                                        King Lear                                  
Charlotte Brontë                        Jane Eyre                                  
Fyodor Dostoevski                       Crime and Punishment                       
                                        Brothers Karamazov                         
Albert Camus                            La Peste                                   
Leo Tolstoy                             War and Peace                              
                                        Anna Karenina                              
                                        Resurrection                               
G.M. Hopkins                            Poems                                      
François Mauriac                        Viper's Tangle                             
                                        Woman of the Pharisees                      
                                        The Leper's Kiss                           
John Betjeman                           Summoned by Bells                          
C.S. Lewis                              That Hideous Strength                      
                                        Till We Have Faces                         
T.S. Eliot                              Poems                                      
                                        Murder in the Cathedral                    
                                        Cocktail Party                             
Charles Williams                        Descent into Hell                          
                                        All Hallows Eve                            
J.R.R. Tolkien                          The Lord of the Rings                      
Graham Green                            The Power and the Glory                    
                                        The Heart of the Matter                    
                                        The End of the Affair                      
Alexander Solzhenitsyn                  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich     
Walker Percy                            Lost in the Cosmos                         
                                        Second Coming                              
                                        Thanatos Syndrome                          
Flannery O'Connor                       Collected Stories                          
                                        The Habit of Being                         
                                        Mystery and Manners                        
Wendell Berry                           Fidelity (stories)                         
                                        Remembering (novel)                        
                                        Sabbaths (poems)                           
                                        The Country of Marriage (poems)            
Margaret Avison                         Collected Poems                            
                                        No Time                                    
George Bernanos                         Diary of a Country Priest                  
P.D. James                              Children of Men                            


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