Andy Le Peau – Andy Unedited

My Funeral Plans

Nope. Not dying. At least not yet.

My adult children asked me recently if I had thoughts about what I’d like for my memorial service. Thankfully, I don’t think they are anxious to see me move on to my reward. Nonetheless, it’s a bit of a surprising question, especially since I have no significant health issues. Of course any of us can go at any time. And I am of an age where, statistically, it’s more likely to be sooner than later.

My initial reaction was, “Hey, a memorial service is for you. Not me. I won’t be around. Do whatever is good for you, whatever helps you.”

Then I thought more. When someone close dies, whether suddenly or after an extended illness, the shock and grief can make it hard to make decisions. The brain just doesn’t work as well. Having a bit of an outline of what to do ahead of time, especially when there are plenty of other details pressing in, can make it easier for those left behind. And a plan can help minimize disagreements.

In addition, I’ve come to realize that there is comfort in doing what our loved one wanted, of honoring his or her wishes. Some people want nothing after they die. No funeral. No party. Nothing. Sometimes they are just private people or aren’t uncomfortable with public attention, even positive attention. They’d rather family and friends move on with life with as little interruption as possible. That’s how they want to show their love and care for those left behind.

Others are comfortable giving loved ones a chance to show and share grief, to remember and tell stories of love and laughter. They are aware that deliberately taking time to process our emotions can be important and healthy in moving on.

In either case, knowing one is honoring the person we lost is healing in itself. As a result, I’ve decided to outline a few ideas, giving those I leave behind freedom to modify things as makes sense at the time. (After all, a lot can change in twenty-five years, right!?)

Here are some initial thoughts:

Music. I have always loved music. Classical or traditional is good with me. But anything you want will be fine.
Hope. Grief and loss, appropriately, are going to be there at such times, likely whether we want them or not. Make room for hope.
Love. Make sure everyone knows how much I loved my wife, my kids, and my grandkids. It is a lot. More than I can possibly say.
Remembrance. My two older children spoke at their mother’s memorial service. Maybe the two younger ones can have their turn speaking at mine.
Don’t fight. That may seem like odd advice, but it is what my parents told me and my siblings before they died, and it was incredibly wise. Grief is strong at such times. Emotions run high. It’s easy to get upset and say things in anger. It’s better to go along with what you think is wrong than to risk breaking relationships.

What else should I be thinking about? I’d love to hear your ideas.

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_{Image: Andrew Le Peau}

Concerns about The Unseen Realm

Part 5

Michael Heiser’s largely academic book, The Unseen Realm, has had a wide influence well beyond the scholarly world. I was sent a photo recently when the book was spotted for sale in the gift shop of a high-end resort in Mexico.

The fascination is not new. For millennia humans have sought to understand (and often sought to control) whatever powers may lie behind the physical world. This was not just a matter of curiosity but of survival in a wild and dangerous world.

C. S. Lewis saw two opposite errors in today’s “civilized” world–one is to not believe in the devil and the other is to have an excessive interest in the demonic. While I have given much praise to Heiser’s book over the course of this series of posts, in the spirit of balancing belief with caution, I offer a few concerns.

First, Heiser often seems too confident about his viewpoints. While I think he is largely on track, he would have been better to recognize the strengths of other perspectives and acknowledge that he may not be absolutely right at each point.

One particular example comes in chapter nine regarding predestination and free will. Though his distinction between what God foreknows and foreordains is helpful, I don’t think this solves these contentious issues as much as he thinks they do. Nor does he resolve the related topic of the problem of evil, an issue which probably can’t be answered this side of glory.

Second, Heiser says little or nothing about possible implications of rebellious spiritual beings influencing nations in our day. Might this lead us to categorically condemning all people from certain national or ethnic groups as evil and irredeemable, thus justifying violent, inhuman treatment of them?

The world is complex. Even the one nation in the Bible that was God’s inheritance (Israel) rebelled and did many evil things. At the same time, other nations besides Israel can turn to God (Ninevah). Likewise today, no nation is entirely pure nor purely evil.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said in The Gulag Archipelago:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

Finally, it is important to remember that while Heiser highlights an important biblical theme, a neglected one, and a misunderstood one, this is not the only theme nor necessarily the main one in the Bible. It is one piece of a multifaceted story.

We can, for example, view the whole Bible through the lens of the Temple. Though it is often said the Bible begins in a garden (Genesis) and ends in a city (Revelation), both images are ways of understanding all of creation as a Temple—a place where God dwells, a place where heaven meets earth.

The Exodus event is another theme threaded through the whole Bible. It is foreshadowed in Genesis, takes center stage in the book of Exodus, and then makes major reappearances in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Mark, and elsewhere. We can easily think of others such as: creation, de-creation, re-creation; or mercy and justice; or freedom and slavery; or faith, hope, and love.

The conflicts of the earthly and the unseen realms are, as Heiser says, found from Genesis to Revelation. This and the wealth of other such themes are worth a lifetime of meditation so that we may be more fully shaped by God and his Word.

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_{Image credit: Susan DeCostanza}

Letting the Bible Have Its Way

Part 4

The Bible is viewed in many different ways.

Some see it as a how-to book for life or an “owner’s manual” for the soul, if you will. Some see it as a collection of myths and tales from an unenlightened past. Some see it as a sacred object for use in the holiest of settings. Some see it as a foundation of Western culture.

One of the things I appreciate about Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm is the overall approach he uses with the Bible. Primarily, he tries to take the Bible on its own terms, in its own context.

He tries not to impose his own ideas, preconceptions, or needs on the text. He begins by wondering what the original writers thought, what kind of culture they lived in, what kind of assumptions they had about the world. As he puts it, “The realization that I needed to read the Bible like a pre-modern person who embraced the supernatural, unseen world has illumined its content more than anything else in my academic life” (385).

We are fortunate to live in a day of widely available access to ancient documents and archaeological research that have emerged in the last two hundred years. They give us greater understanding of the worldview and the mind of the original biblical writers. We are also more alert to how our own Enlightenment, scientific, or postmodern mindsets can lead both believers and skeptics to impose ideas on the Bible that just aren’t there.

One example: The biblical writers simply didn’t have a category for a how-to manual that allows one to take individual verses out of context for instant answers. They did however have a category for wisdom literature that requires slow, lifelong meditation on texts that may at times seem to be at odds with each other.

Another example: The biblical writers did not employ modern historical methods or criteria. They couldn’t. They employed their own customs and used genres common to their day to tell stories for their own purposes. To label these as “inaccurate” or “in error” by today’s standards is an exercise in missing the point.

In particular Heiser takes aim at the misguided assumption that a literal reading is the truest approach to Scripture, that such a method is the primary way God intends us to read the Bible. When we do, we fail to understand how much scientific and materialistic ways of thinking (which are foreign to the Bible) have come to dominate our own perspective. As he writes:

Metaphorical meaning isn’t “less real” than literal meaning (however, that’s defined). Whether we like it or not, the biblical writers weren’t obsessed with literalism the way we seem to be…. Biblical writers regularly employ conceptual metaphor in their writing and thinking. That’s because they were human. Conceptual metaphor refers to the way we use a concrete term or idea to communicate abstract ideas. If we marry ourselves to the concrete (“literal”) we’re going to miss the point the writer was angling for in many cases.

He gives this example, “If I use the word ‘Vegas’ and all you think of is latitude and longitude, you’re not following my meaning. Biblical words can carry a lot of freight that transcends their concrete sense. Inspiration didn’t immunize language from doing what it does.” (387)

We can’t completely get out of our own skin and crawl into the framework of those who lived two or three thousand years ago in a very different culture. But the journey into the world of the Bible and then back into our world is so worth it.

Note: If you would like a video summary of the book, The Unseen Realm documentary can be found here on YouTube. At just over an hour, this presentation features Michael Heiser and several other respected biblical scholars who offer a clear, succinct overview of the key points from the influential book.

Next Installment: Concerns about the Unseen Realm (Part 5)

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_{Image by StockSnap from Pixabay}

The Surprising Difference the Unseen Realm Makes

Part 3

So what if the biblical worldview is permeated with ongoing warfare waged by rebellious spiritual beings against God’s followers? How should that affect me?

That’s the question I left us with after my two previous posts here and here on Michael Heiser’s thorough biblical study, The Unseen Realm. Surprisingly, perhaps, Heiser doesn’t highlight exorcism. What he does address is far more amazing and profound.

It starts by appreciating the different but related ways “son of God” or “sons of God” is used in the Bible. “The sons of God” can refer to spiritual members of the divine council (see previous posts) who God appointed to work with him in ordering creation (Job 38:7; Ps 82:6). The phrase can also mean the king of Israel (Ps 2:7) or Israel as a whole (Ex 4:2; Hos 11:1). It can also refer to all believers (John 1:13; Rom 8:14; Gal 3:26; 4:5), and of course to Jesus’ unique sonship (Matt 14:33).

What they all have in common, whether natural or supernatural, is the special status God assigns to them to work with him in bringing about his will, on earth as it is in heaven. When the Bible says we are sons and daughters of God, this is more than just a warm, sweet way of talking about how we are a cozy part of God’s family. It means we have a role in ruling. As God first commanded the man and woman: “Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule . . .” (Gen 1:28).

Our destiny is not just one of salvation in God’s presence eternally, as astounding as that is. We, his people, play a more profound, more mind-boggling role than we may have ever imagined. As Heiser puts it, “We are the children of God, destined to displace the defeated, disloyal sons of God who now rule the nations. Believing followers of Jesus Christ are the fulfillment of God’s plan to have humanity join the divine family-council and restore Eden” (p. 314). This is the context for Paul’s comment that we will one day rule angels (1 Cor 6:3).

In our everyday lives, Paul reminds us that we live this out as temples where heaven and earth meet in our bodies (1 Cor 3:16). Even the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as Heiser explains, are reminders to those in the unseen realm of our ultimate loyalty. We are not theirs. We are his (1 Cor 10:14-17).

When we seek to live out God’s will to unite all in Christ, we have a profound effect on the rebellious unseen realm. As N. T. Wright says regarding Ephesians 3:6, 10:

It is when the Christian community comes together across barriers which divide us from one another that the principalities and powers know that Jesus Christ is Lord. And that as long as we are divided whether black and white, male and female, rich and poor or whatever, the principalities and powers smile and say, “We are still in charge here!”*

How do we get through a day? Both the hundreds of petty annoyances, and the deep doubts, losses, and hardships of life can weigh us down, confuse us, and strike hard blows. By the Spirit, however, we can also remember who we are and who we will be.

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_{*N. T. Wright, in a question-and-answer session after a joint lecture with Paul Barnett, “Fresh Perspectives on Paul,” MacQuarie University (Sydney, Australia), March 16, 2006 (Vancouver: Regent Bookstore/Regent Audio).}

_{Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay}.

The Bible’s Grand Story in the Unseen Realm

Part 2

I love books that offer a grand sweep of the Bible that ties the whole together through a theme like the Exodus or the Temple. Seeing how all of Scripture unites in multiple ways is enlightening and energizing for me.

In that regard, Heiser’s The Unseen Realm does not disappoint. As I noted here, his book is not just a catalog of spiritual beings. Rather he tells a remarkable story of God’s plan for creation from Genesis to Revelation through this clarifying lens.

And what is that story? “The Old Testament is basically a record of the long war between Yahweh and the gods, and between Yahweh’s children and the nations, to re-establish the original Edenic design” (p. 376). And the two wars are actually one, with rebellious spiritual beings using the nations in their battle.

Here’s how it unfolds. While initial conflicts emerge in Genesis 3 and 6, a turn comes, unexpectedly, in Genesis 10 which offers an apparently boring list of seventy nations descended from Noah and his sons. But these are the nations split up in Genesis 11 after the fiasco at the Tower of Babel. God doesn’t completely forsake them, however. In Genesis 12 he promises to bless them through Abraham and his family.

What is going on here? Moses offers a striking explanation of the episode at Babel: “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind [at Babel], he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage” (Deut 32:8-9 ESV).

God, says Moses, gave up the corrupt nations to their rebellion at Babel, turning them over to “the sons of God,” which is a reference to the divine council (a group of spiritual beings often referenced in places like Gen 6:2; Ex 15:11; Job 1:6; 2:1; Ps 82:1, 6; 89:6-7; etc.). The nations are disinherited from God at Babel and given over to the control of these equally rebellious “sons of God.” But God chooses one nation for his inheritance—through whom all the nations will eventually be brought back into the fold. That is, Israel.

As we know, that is ultimately fulfilled by God in the person of Jesus Christ, the unique Son, who accomplishes the task Israel failed to complete. When the New Testament then refers (as it does frequently) to the nations (e.g., Matt 28:19; Mk 13:10; Acts 1:8; Rom 16:26; etc.), this is more than a statement about a worldwide mission. It is a reclamation project which involves God’s plan to dethrone the rebellious spiritual beings who led the nations astray, and bring all peoples back to himself.

Many years ago I heard the phrase “territorial spirits” to describe how nations were guided by evil beings who had a certain geographic or ethnic domain. I was skeptical, thinking it derived from isolated and contested texts like Daniel 10:12-21. Heiser doesn’t employ that terminology, but he does use the phrase “the divine council cosmic-geographical worldview,” to describe what he sees as permeating Scripture (p. 349).

What difference does all this make? How does it affect our life in Christ?

Those are the questions I’ll address in my next post.

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_{Image: Ziggurat at Ur, modern Tall al-Muqayyar, Iraq. Such temple towers were characteristic of Mesopotamia, 2200 to 550 BC, and was likely the pattern followed at Babel (see John Walton and Tremper Longman III, The Lost World of the Flood, pp. 129-42). Image by Abdulmomn Kadhim from Pixabay.}

The Unseen Realm of the Supernatural

Part 1

We aren’t comfortable talking about spiritual beings. For those of us, even Christians, who grew up in a world dominated by science and a material mindset, talk of angels and demons just feels weird.

Even when we read the Bible, we tend to downplay such topics. In The Unseen Realm, however, Michael Heiser opens our eyes to what is hiding in plain sight.

We know about the angels in the Christmas story and the demons Jesus challenged. Paul also offers a rich vocabulary for such beings which includes “the rulers . . . the authorities . . . the powers of this dark world and . . . the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).

Heiser, however, focuses on the divine counsel that appears in Job 1–2. You remember—in the midst of this assembly comes The Accuser (aka Satan) who casts doubts on Job’s character and loyalty to God.

While God doesn’t need spirit helpers (as he doesn’t need human ones either), he has chosen to use them, to let them participate in his work—and they are much more involved than we might think.

As Heiser puts it, “Though the kingdom story of the Bible is rarely taught with it in mind, the divine council plays an important role throughout that story’s unfolding. The scriptural pattern is that, when God prepares to act in strategic ways that propel his kingdom forward, the divine council is part of that decision making. The council is the vehicle through which God issues his decrees” (p. 349).

Is he overstating things? There’s more than we might think. Consider the “let us” language of Genesis 1:26 and 11:7. Or the “myriads of holy ones” who came with God when he gave the law on Sinai (Deut 33:1-2; Acts 7:52-53; Gal 3:19). Or those who participated when Isaiah was commissioned (6:1-7). Or another scene much like the one in Job (1 Kings 22:13- 28). Or those who will occupy the multiple thrones of Daniel 7:9 and Revelation 4:1-8.

Yet some rebelled, turned their back on God. The Bible doesn’t exactly tell us why or how. Our ideas on this backstory owe more to Milton’s Paradise Lost than Scripture. But rebel they did.

In Psalm 82:1-7 God judges these beings for supporting the wicked and oppressing the weak. Sometimes they are referred to as gods (Ex 15:11; 1 Kgs 8:23; Ps 97:9), gods who are completely inferior to Yahweh, the true God. We see their ultimate fate in the book of Revelation.

While The Unseen Realm is massively researched, Heiser is a Scripture nerd who writes so nonexperts can follow along. In plain language he answers questions like:

Are these beings “gods”?
Why are they called “sons,” and how does Jesus as the only Son fit in?
How did ancient people think about spiritual beings?
Who are the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1-4 anyway?
What in the world is Paul talking about when he says we will judge angels (1 Cor 6:3)?
Why wasn’t the Old Testament more explicit about a Divine Messiah dying and rising again?
And where is Armaggedon . . . really?

But The Unseen Realm is more than a collection of questions and answers about oddities in the Bible. Heiser sees the whole sweep of God’s plan for creation tied up in these issues. The main purpose of his book is, in fact, to unveil for us this grand narrative.

That is the topic of my next installment.

Our Surprising and Profound Mission

The center of Paul’s monumental letter to the Romans has some of the most beloved lines in the Bible:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (8:1)

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31)

“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:39)

These are wonderful assurances. Could it be, however, that we have somehow missed the point? In his book Into the Heart of Romans, Tom Wright suggests we have.

These assurances are not, as is commonly thought, about going to heaven. Heaven is never mentioned in the chapter. Rather they concern our current state here on earth—where we have a God-given mission to undertake.

Wright is at pains to say repeatedly, “Assurance of salvation is indeed based, throughout Romans, on the sovereign love of God poured out in the death of his son. But this passage, Romans 8:18-30,” as he explains in persuasive fashion, “is speaking about the vocation of the saved community, the calling to implement the already-accomplished work of Jesus, the Messiah within, and for the benefit of the wider world of all creation . . . . Salvation is not simply God’s gift to his people, it is God’s gift through his people—to the wider world” (pp. 161, 163).

Much of the traditional interpretation is based on misunderstanding glory as meaning heaven (as in “gone to glory”). “The primary meanings of ‘glory’ in this passage are simultaneously, the glorious presence of God himself dwelling within us by the spirit and the wise, healing, reconciling rule of God’s people over the whole creation. . . . In the Hebrew scriptures, ‘glory’ regularly comes to refer specifically to rule and power” (pp. 110, 120; emphasis original).

If we are to engage in the task that God delegated to us in Genesis 1:28 of being stewards of the earth, how are we to do that? That is what the “strange” verses in Romans 8:26-27 are about.

Paul’s comment about the Spirit helping us in our weakness and interceding “for us through wordless groans” is not some odd tangent. This is our vocation as Christians that we can carry out with full assurance that none can prevent. For when we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit takes up our groans into the Triune God.

I find it boggling that when we groan for the sins and suffering and troubles of the world, it is not only an expression of sorrow. God is joining us, right there, as part of his own redeeming work.

I think of when my prayers seemed to be intense expressions of agony, and even anger at God. Does God hear? Does he care? Astonishingly, Paul is saying that these moments when I am at my lowest are in fact transformed by the Spirit into moments of grace for the sake of others.

“God is working,” as Wright says about God’s loved ones, “with these praying-in-the-dark people for the wider good of this world. . . precisely at the point where they are at the end of their mental, emotional and spiritual tether, [where they] find within themselves the deep sorrow of all the world, as it were concentrated into one place, and find at that moment that they are part of the dialogue of love between the father and the spirit. This, [Paul] says, is what we are called to do and be. . . . These verses, I suggest, explain and contextualize the present work of lament which anticipates the future promised work of the redemption of all creation” (pp. 135, 137).

I find that profoundly reassuring.

Taming Dragons

We don’t find dragons just in myths or in movies. We find them in the Bible more often than we might think. The dragon in Revelation 12 is just the last of many times we find sea monsters or twisting serpents (see Gen 3), all part of a larger category of chaos creatures like those mentioned in Daniel.

As Andy Angel summarizes in Playing with Dragons, the Old Testament associates them with disorder and evil which God ultimately controls. Sometimes they are equated with the seas and rivers from which they arise, seas which God rebukes, setting their limits, trampling them (Gen 1:7-10; Job 7:12; 38:8-11; Ps 65:7; 89:9-10; Jer 5:22; Da 7:2-3; and for portraits of Jesus as ruler, like God, over the chaos of the sea, see Mark 4:35-42; 5:11-13; 6:45-52).

Surrounding cultures had long used such images to explain their world, the forces of nature, the fates of humans. Why would the biblical writers do so as well? Moses, the psalmists, and prophets borrowed from these well-known tales but changed them significantly to distinguish Yahweh from the gods in those tales. For them there is no contest between God and these other forces (as there is in other cultures). Yahweh is clearly superior, in a class by himself (Ex 15:11; Ps 86:8; Jer 10:6).

Andy Angel, however, emphasizes another dimension in all this, a very human dimension. We often find these creatures mentioned when the authors are struggling with suffering and the triumphs of God’s enemies. If God has already defeated these chaos creatures, they ask, why do his people still suffer? We find these questions most prominently in Psalms of lament (Ps 74, 77, 89, 144) and the book of Job (Leviathan and Behemoth in Job 38–41).

Matthew, as Angel points out, also takes up these themes especially in the stories of Jesus and the disciples on the waters. The gospel writer gives his own spin to the topics of chaos, fear, and faith in the midst of suffering.

All these stories are more than stories. The forces of darkness are all too clearly at work in our world. Nor does the Bible whitewash this reality. Rather in our sorrow it invites us to struggle with God, to cling to God like Jacob did in the wilderness.

We might wish for clearer answers. What God instead offers is himself, his presence, and hope—hope based on the even more solid reality of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. He offers “a hope that one day this God will finally conquer all chaos and evil, and that we can be a part of that new creation.”*

_{*Andy Angel, Playing with Angels (Cascade Books, 2014), p. 103.}

Hope for the Pope?

People in the Chicago area where I live are amazed that the new pope, Leo XIV, grew up right here. Not only is he the first American pope—even better, he is a White Sox fan!

Yet a friend had quite a different reaction. He asked me, “Why are Protestants often enamored with the pope, sometimes it seems even more so than with the Reformers?” What about the scandals of recent history, he wondered, not to mention the power-hungry, money-hungry corruption of the Middle Ages? Shouldn’t we think again about all this?

I appreciated his appeal to history. Too often we form opinions with complete disregard for how we as individuals and as a society have been profoundly shaped by the centuries. Yet I think there are good reasons for Protestants to not have such a negative view toward Catholicism. (Full disclosure: Though Presbyterian, I grew up Catholic and still have many Catholics in my family.)

First, in keeping with my friend’s concern for history and culture, Catholicism in America is a very different animal than in the rest of the world. My friend grew up in Protestant Europe where there has been religious persecution over the centuries. Sadly the violence has gone both ways. You also don’t have to go back too far in Latin American history to find instances of persecution of Protestants by Catholics. The recent troubles in Ireland have been more political and social than religious.

In the U. S., however, Catholicism has always been a minority. It never had the opportunity to dominate other religions as it did elsewhere. If there has been persecution and violence, it has gone the other way.

Also Catholicism has tended to accommodate itself to the largely Protestant culture of the U.S. One example: While Protestant and Catholic church buildings were very different from each other a century ago (both inside and out), today you can hardly tell the difference architecturally between new structures.

Even theologically, American Catholicism has over the decades reduced its emphasis on venerating Mary and the saints, softening the hard edges of differences with Protestants. Since the middle of the twentieth century especially, Catholicism also deliberately sought to make itself acceptable to the social and political American mainstream.

By this I do not mean to paper over differences that still exist regarding doctrine and ecclesiology. I’ve also written here about other hidden but important differences which often separate Catholics and Protestants. I am merely suggesting we aim for perspective and balance.

Second, when it comes to recent scandals, sadly Protestants and Catholics both share guilt. News of Southern Baptist sexual abuse and its coverup may be the most recent and widespread example within Protestantism, but it is not the only one. We have all failed to live up to our own standards and those of Scripture. We both need to confess and to reform dramatically.

Third, when considering the forces arrayed in the world against the moral and spiritual ethos of Scripture, Catholicism is just not very high on the list, if on the list at all. Materialism, consumerism, nationalism, racism, changes in attitudes toward sexuality—these have had a dramatic effect on Christians and the church.

In this regard, the Catholic Church is an ally or at least a cobelligerent. We should likewise welcome atheists or Hindus, politicians or corporate leaders who advocate as Jesus and the prophets did for the value of each human life, for the poor, for the politically oppressed, for peace and justice, and for the value and significance of spiritual realities in our world.

Differences between Catholics and Protestants? A difficult past? Much to forgive? Certainly. But we also have much in common to build on.

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_{Photo Credit: Pope Lei XIV, Vatican News}

Ten Key Books

What books influenced me most? Here is an updated list of ten that have formed my thought life, my spiritual life, my sense of aesthetics, and how I view and interact with the world.

After making the list I noticed that I read most of them before I was twenty-five. And I suppose that’s to be expected. In mid-life and beyond, I’ve largely been shaped (though hopefully not set in stone). I present these books here roughly in the order in which I read them.

Hamlet—I had a stellar high school English teacher who spent weeks taking us line by line through what he called the greatest play by the greatest author in history. Mr. Ryan opened our eyes to a feast so we could partake of a whole new world of life, ideas, emotion, and drama. Though I didn’t quite grasp it at the time, Hamlet grounded me in notions of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Escape from Reason—Francis Schaeffer’s book taught me that ideas had consequences and that Christians could engage the world of philosophy and learning with confidence.

Mere Christianity—Lewis’s classic still stands as a landmark of clear thinking. Just the other day I was talking with someone who said we can only know for certain what is objective. Lewis’s thoughts on self-contradiction modeled for me how to respond: “But isn’t your statement about objectivity itself a subjective judgment?”

How to Read a Book—Mortimer Adler’s and Charles Van Doren’s essential guide shows us a wide variety of ways to understand and appreciate what we read. More than that, this still widely used volume taught me much about how to think.

The Lord of the Rings—Tolkien’s trilogy showed me the power of imagination. In creating a fictional world of orcs, wizards, Hobbits and Ents, he made courage, honor, faith, friendship, goodness, truth, and love believable in our world too.

Knowing God—Early in my adulthood J. I. Packer focused me on the centrality of what we were made for, of what brings true wisdom, and on what the essence of eternal life is—to know God. And there my attention remains.

Watership Down—The structure, characters, action, setting, themes and tone of this near perfect novel are so skillfully and compellingly presented that we forget we are reading a 400-page book about rabbits.

The Cross and the Prodigal—I read this in the mid-1970s, in its original Concordia edition. Kenneth Bailey so revolutionized the way I read the New Testament that I was delighted to bring it back into print at InterVarsity Press in 2005.

The Sparrow—Mary Doria Russell’s novel, set in the near future, is a thoroughly profound, readable, and gripping meditation on ultimate questions and on walking with those who suffer. The characters on this multi-year journey are not only supremely believable but are so fascinating, intelligent, mature, and likeable that I wished I could have joined them. And I did.

Jesus and the Victory of God—This tour de force by N. T. Wright still astonishes in its ability to challenge academic conventional wisdom on the one hand and the church on the other. Here is a book that unveils the cosmic, multi-dimensional achievement of Jesus.