Reading Favorites
These are some of the books that have most influenced my understanding of Jesus Brand Spirituality. I’m taking my time loading these, as I want to select them carefully. I’ll have at least ten listed when I’m done, probably more.
The Shaping of a Life by Phyllis Tickle. This book opened my mind and my experience to the reality that prayer involves “going somewhere” as well as “doing something.” This is a prominent theme in the contemplative chapters of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I read this book as a brand new Jesus follower at the age of nineteen. It quietly shaped my whole understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Many decades later, I came to realize that much of American Christianity, including evangelicalism, tends to see the the Christian task as primarily defined as “going to heaven when you die” rather than “following Jesus here on earth.” The primary motif behind Jesus Brand Spirituality is the thing I first absorbed from this book (and the people who shaped my earliest faith who were shaped by this book–it was one of their favorites): the idea that we are pilgrims on a pilgrimage.
The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright. This New Testament scholar can grind things to a pretty fine dust, so this book of his is worth reading early on if you want to understand his thought. Because it provides the broad outlines of his understanding. I’ve read it about five times. There are a few sentences now which are not underlined in my copy. By now he has more important works that will probably end up on my list, but this is the one that got me going. Wright is the author who convinced me that the popular understanding of the gospel in American Christianity (including the movement named after the gospel, evangelicalism) is woefully inadequate. It means that there’s no way to be truly evangelical in the United States without making many evangelicals nervous. I am one, and I make me nervous. And I blame N.T. Wright for that.
Song for the Blue Ocean, by Carl Safina. This book had a big influence on me, not so much for the information contained therein, but as a revelation of the soul of an environmental scientist who describes himself as atheist, or more properly, secular in outlook. With the rise of the religious right, we’ve seen a new generation of atheist fundamentalists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, who are gladly engaging the culture war with faith, returning fire with fire. But Carl Safina has two heroes: Charles Darwin, for revealing the unity of all living things (the main insight of Origin of Species) and Jesus of Nazareth for teaching us to love our enemies, thus offering hope that humans can be united in spite of differences. Carl is part of a growing movement of pastors and secular scientists who are choosing to look for common ground. When I read his book, I was introduced to the mystical and profoundly spiritual sensibility of many environmental scientists who are secular in outlook. And I felt a kinship with Carl and his kind. This perspective has shaped much of the tone of the book Jesus Brand Spirituality, but also, I think the perspective of Jesus of Nazareth, who wasn’t afraid to go outside the camp to do his work.
Power Healing, by John Wimber and Kevin Springer. Kevin Springer, the book’s co-author was a friend from Michigan who introduced me to John Wimber. He became one of the biggest influences on my thinking regarding Jesus Brand Spirituality. For one thing, Wimber made the gospels come alive as teaching documents for the church. He had the audacity to take the healing ministry of Jesus seriously, and to understand that Christianity is about mediating an experience of God as Jesus knew God–as a dear Abba, father. Wimber insisted that a Christianity that didn’t care for the poor wasn’t worth being called by the name of it’s founder. John Wimber gave me a model for the active dimension of Jesus Brand Spirituality.