What's your favorite Christian book? Is there a a chart for Christian literature?

Just stopping by to say that Leon Bloy is criminally underrated.

>>24495666
Any particular works you'd recommend?

>>24495666
>666

>>24495666

>>24495667
Sweating blood is one of two books I've read from him and he's terrific.

>>24495667
Sweating Blood, Pilgrim of the Absolute, The Woman who was Poor, the Desperate Man, there’s a few. Not all are available in English.

>>24495762
I skimmed over his biography on Wikipedia. Did he write that book when he was a Catholic or before he found back to his faith? Or is there a specific reason you mentioned him in a Christian literature thread?

>>24495768
Bloy is interesting in part because he is kind of like France’s Dostoevsky but also in part because he was so scathingly passionate about his view that there is really nobody like him. Some of his books are dripping with Catholic conviction, but not all. Christian literature is filled with C.S. Lewises writing comfy fairytales and Tolkien-esque tales of humble heroism, but Bloy stands out because he was so unafraid to deal with the horrific, the brutal, the shocking, the perverted, all of it. And as a man, he was unafraid to standout as a lone voice of reason (at least in so far as he saw himself) and live by his convictions. Nobody really was safe from his wrath as a writer and he felt no shame about being a loser for his principles. All that aside, the guy was just talented.

He’s not everybody’s cup of tea but he’s so different that some people will really appreciate his books. His evolution is particularly interesting imo.

Honestly, Bloy was almost like a character in a Dostoevsky novel come to life.

>>24495663 (OP)
the Bible
>>24495666
SATAN GET YE GONE

>>24495800
Obviously I mean besides the Bible.

>>24495809
the didache

>>24495814
You only say that because of its age and origin, not because you actually enjoy what is written there, don’t you?

>>24495873
Well I said it because the Bible wasnt allowed and I was trying to still dodge the question for comedic effect. But I honestly do appreciate it - the Didache truly is something great.
It's like an ancient handbook for the church - some takes one might disagree with, but with much applied wisdom. "How should people be baptized? Water dunk and Trinitarian formula, but if there's not enough water then sprinkle'. 'How to receive travelling Christians who decide to stick around?' Well if they have a trade they should work, but if they don't, give them something useful to do. 'How much should you give to your pastor?'' Give them the best of everything, and judge the amount by feeling. 'The Bible doesnt specify how often we should break bread; how often should we?' Every week, idiot, and make sure everyone's holy enough to receive.
Read the following bangers and judge for yourself.

"You shall not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall pray, and some you shall love more than your own life."

"For if you are able to bear all the yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able, what you are able that do."

"and every prophet who teaches the truth, if he do not what he teaches, is a false prophet. And every prophet, proved true, working unto the mystery of the Church in the world, yet not teaching others to do what he himself does, shall not be judged among you, for with God he has his judgment; for so did also the ancient prophets."

can this be considered christian lit? i think its teachings are very christian, even though it makes god himself look differently

>>24495895
I don’t know it, whas it about and who is the guy who wrote it?

>>24495663 (OP)

>>24495663 (OP)
Paradife Loft

>>24495937
Thank you, but it seems kind of random in some places. Why is the Imitation of Christ intermediate for example?

>>24495945
Truthfully I don't pay attention to any of that stuff, I just use the charts for general recs

>>24495964
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

>>24495895
This book is pure pride. The worst sin of all, the sin that made Lucipher fall from heaven. This book says thay we, humans, should forgive God because he doesn't know the suffering he is causing to us.

>>24495937
This isn't a good chart.

>>24495663 (OP)
The Bible, but if that's too easy an answer, then it would have to be the Abingdon Press collection of John Wesley's sermons.

For me it's the Puritans, and the Reformers, and the early fathers. I like C.S Lewis, too, but that's about as modern as I get aside from Van Til, though I do have a soft spot for R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner, and they were sucking air not too long ago.

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

— "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards

>>24495663 (OP)
That's one's my favorite too. Changed my life.
『Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner』
A constant humming of harmony between the Grace of God and our Fallen Nature; like a tranquil spiritual oscillation of our bodily tuning fork...
Anywho, my brother who's an Orthodox priest also recommended this book called Christ The Eternal Tao (Way) by Hieromonk Damascene out in St. Herman's. Also great read and helps with Eastern Theological Phenomenology (how chinese people see & understand metaphysics). Had a good talk with him over how while Lao Tzu predated Christ's Resurrection and the Evangel, he's spirit was toward the Holy Spirit; he sought The Way and you get that sense from his works/energy.
Vladimir Lossky is also really good and better than Baudrillard at the hyperreal/real distinction stuff by using the Palamite's Energy/Essence distinction as an analogous map.

>>24496290
these are great too.
and a really good gift.
you can just crack open a section and take a reading. there's a bunch of volumes of just straight and plain question/answer stuff; very socratic and old school refreshing.

>>>24496290
these are great too.
and a really good gift.
you can just crack open a section and take a reading. there's a bunch of volumes of just straight and plain question/answer stuff; very socratic and old school refreshing.

>>24496290
Kek an Eastern Orthodox reprobate would suggest something like that wouldn't they.. you guys are almost as bad as Catholics

>>24496675
fuck off you fucken faggot

I’ve heard that Huston smith’s “the soul of Christianity” is very good and I have it on my reading list. What do you guys think of it?

>>24496148
That sounds like Gnostic bullshit

>>24495663 (OP)
Confessions is my favorite.
Leaf by Niggle is great.
The Hideous Strength is great.
The Divine Names is probably my favorite theological work.

And out of left field I would characterize The Devil and Tom Walker as Christian literature and shoehorn it being as big of a fan of Washington Irving as I am.

Silence by Shusaku Endo, I suppose. I think someone who's Christian may find it a much more powerful book than I did.

>>24497091
Have you read his book about Jesus Christ?

>>24497193
A Life of Jesus? No. Maybe I will.

>>24497197
Yes, that one.

A Canticle for Leibowitz?
jaja, ima pleb

>>24497080
LMAO at accusing Jonathan Edwards of being a gnostic

>>24497308
here's a contrasting quote form him, that isn't fire and brimstone directed at the unrepentant:
God's love is so great, that it is incomprehensible to the human heart. It is the greatest and most beautiful thing that can be conceived. It is so vast and full that when the soul is brought into a true sense of it, it seems to be swallowed up in the ocean of divine goodness and mercy. There is no beauty in the world that can compare with the excellency of His love; it is the very source of all that is good and lovely. The soul that truly sees God’s beauty and grace is forever captivated, as the most exquisite love fills and satisfies all its desires."

>>24497310
That is more in line with God than the former, the first quote you posted sounds like he hates us and wants us to suffer for no reason.

>>24497316
This was a 17th century Puritan delivering a fire and brimstone sermon to the unrepentant.

What do you think it means to fear God, anon?

>>24497321
Yeah, if you talk to the unrepentant I understand it, but when I first read that post that wasn’t clear, I thought it sounded like as that statement was directed at all people.

>>24495663 (OP)
>What's your favorite Christian book
It's a basic choice but I can't begin to tell you how much I love The Pilgrim's Progress. Even aside from the Christian content, Bunyan walks the line between fairytale and 'serious' storytelling so deftly. Every imitator has either undermined the theology with tweeness or rendered the storybook nature pointless with weighty excurses into theology.

>>24497334
I think it's good to contrast such things with modern Christianity, since we focus so much on his love and seemingly ignore the possibility of encountering his wrath.

What do you think about Romano Guardini's books?

>>24497334
>>24497321
Some people really hold to this sort of theology. The redeemed do not attain to theosis and Divine Sonship, they are rather "snow covered piles of dung," still disgusting in God's eyes. Man is completely incapable of any good and is only ever saved by God's will alone, who creates to torture most for eternity and spare the few elect "for his own good pleasure."

To be fair, the person I know most into this was also sort of insane and kicked out of even the Calvinist churches he attended and called all Orthodox and Catholic churches "pagan temples."

This and an extremely "cheap grace," Evangelicalism that was totally focused on conversion, and presented it like a multilevel marketing scheme was my first exposure to Christianity in any depth. If I hadn't found Dante and Holy Orthodoxy I think I'd still be lost.

>>24497560
Fuck off gnostic

>>24497321

>>24497560
>gnostic makes up a story about some guy being kicked out of a reformed church because he was too into Jonathan Edwards' theology

lol. made up, just like gnostic "doctrine"

>>24495663 (OP)
I'm reading through the Divine Comedy at the moment (halfway through Paradiso) and it's one of the best things I've ever read, so I highly recommend it.
Mere Christianity is a good beginner level book if you already believe Christianity is true and want to dig a bit deeper into the faith; I just wish Lewis included a "further reading" list, since most of what he presents are simplified versions of ideas you'd get deeper into reading Dante, Aristotle, or Aquinas.

>>24497589
not an argument

20th century catholic lit extremely good
Shusaku Endo, Chesterton, Robert Hugh Benson, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene, Gene Wolfe, RA Lafferty

for older stuff i've only read more spiritual works by St. Alphonsus Ligouri is one of my favorite authors as well is St. Frances De Sales and Lorenzo Scupoli
here's a taste of St. Alphonsus
https://alphonsianum.blogspot.com/2009/10/01-description-of-one-who-has-departed.html (meant to be used for mental prayer but still good at reading)
he also has an excellent book on prayer in general, the great means of salvation nad perfection.

Also historically I think the lives of saints was really the foundation of popular literature for Christianity, it was usually the #1 recommended thing for spiritual reading. Lots of good biographies, autobiographies or other things about them.

Tolkien comes in pretty high. You could say The Silmarillion is my favorite Christian book, and you wouldn't be wrong, but I know it isn't quite what people expect or are looking for with the question.

I've been seeing A Canticle for Leibowitz mentioned more recently! It's one of my favorite books. I love A Canticle for Leibowitz and think it's a great read for everyone.

Honorable mention to The Divine Comedy. Excellent work. I truly enjoyed reading it, and it's the most classically Christian work out of these three.

>>24498039
Have you read Jacobus de Voragine‘s Legenda Aurea?

'Till We Have Faces.

I like Canticle for Leibowitz and Book of the New Sun more, but I don't really consider them christian literature.

>>24498206
read this for the first time this summer and it blew me away. I like Lewis's other stuff but TWHF is solidly his best and most complex work.

Meditations on the Tarot was the book I needed when I needed it. Not solidly Christian throughout but really helped me along the way (took a pretty scenic route back to church).
Father Brown mysteries are my favorite Chesterton, I read them with my kid.
Athanasius On the Incarnation and Basil On the Holy Spirit for laying a foundation.
Interior Castle is really good but I needed to read Way of Perfection first and build up my prayer life, got filtered a few times. Reading Julian of Norwich now but I’m like 2/3 through and getting distracted (by City of God among other things). Hello to the Suso fan itt whenever you show up.
Liguori is great, unpretentious but insightful.

>>24495663 (OP)
Gargantua and Pantagruel

>>24500598
How is that book Christian?

>>24495663 (OP)
sisters in christ ... i .. i'll just leave it there..

>>24501314
>Fellow Girard appreciator
Hell yeah, although my personal favorite is Deceit Desire and the Novel

>>24495663 (OP)
The Bible

Is this any good?

>>24496290
>Baudrillard at the hyperreal/real distinction stuff by using the Palamite's Energy/Essence distinction as an analogous map.
Can you elaborate?

Pilgrim's Progress

>>24502805
Sure.
The heavy stuff:
[/spoiler]The Essence-Energy distinction is analogous to Territory-Map distinction along with that which is Phenomenal (Empirically understood) and that which is Noumenal (Noetically understood).
Just like for instance, the nature of something, the essence, the "Ding-an-Sich", can't be measured or sensed physically but it can be experienced & understood metaphysically say through a priori/posteriori reasoning/revelation; they are essentially things/truths (logoi)[/spoiler].
Simply: the maps are the energetic windows into the essence of things. Rather than the maps being a less accurate depiction of the thing it's describing (Hyporeality), it's possible to have maps that describe the thing-in-itself better (Hyperreality). Imagine if our current "hyperreal" maps weren't fake & gay.
If we follow these correct hyperreal maps of being, then we will become more real (i.e. like-God). This is what hyper-being refers to ontologically and this process is simply Theosis.

>>24502805
Sure.
The heavy stuff:
The Essence-Energy distinction is analogous to Territory-Map distinction along with that which is Phenomenal (Empirically understood) and that which is Noumenal (Noetically understood).
Just like for instance, the nature of something, the essence, the "Ding-an-Sich", can't be measured or sensed physically but it can be experienced & understood metaphysically say through a priori/posteriori reasoning/revelation; they are essentially things/truths (logoi).
Simply: the maps are the energetic windows into the essence of things. Rather than the maps being a less accurate depiction of the thing it's describing (Hyporeality), it's possible to have maps that describe the thing-in-itself better (Hyperreality). Imagine if our current "hyperreal" maps weren't fake & gay.
If we follow these correct hyperreal maps of being, then we will become more real (i.e. like-God). This is what hyper-being refers to ontologically and this process is simply Theosis.

>>24503295
>This is what hyper-being refers to ontologically and this process is simply Theosis.
Call this synergy between our personal nature and God's a Hyperstatic Union: where God's map for us allows us to be more than the territory we actually are.

>>24503306
and the more we follow God's map/will the better we can read the map recursively/regeneratively; "Seeing through God's Eyes".

>>24503313
Eventually you normalize this relationship so much you become a saint.

Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, Advent Sermons
Pascal, Pensees
The Book of Common Prayer
Racine, Phedre

>>24503441
>Pascal, Pensees
How did you find your way through this? It's aphoristic nature is a bit confusing to me.

>>24503448
It requires closer study but once you read it key themes/issues will become apparent (e.g. Pascal's paradoxical view of man's greatness and wretchedness, or the absurdity of human society, or the soul's restless search for amusement). Having read John's gospel and a little bit about Jansenism would also help.

>>24495663 (OP)

>>24503441
Shoot, forgot to mention Martin Thornton, Michael Ramsey, Hall's Dogmatic Theology, Taylor's Holy Living, and the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Christian Prayer.

https://archive.org/details/centuriesofmedit00trahuoft

>>24495663 (OP)
Paradise Lost

>>24503295
I'm too much of a brainlet to really get this but thanks for the explanation

>>24504548
I'll work on making it make more sense.

>>24503295
>maps that describe the thing-in-itself better (Hyperreality).
Isn't this what symbols are?

>>24505564
Depends on the symbol. I'd say that a Cross is a higher resolution sign than hyporesolution of the McDonald's logo (the sandwitches are not as good as advertised on TV).
I I go to church today, I will become a better person; I will be more.
If I go to McDonald's instead, I will become a fatter, lazier, and poorer Last Man person; I will be less.

>>24505564
Depends on the symbol. I'd say that a Cross is a higher resolution sign than hyporesolution of the McDonald's logo (the sandwitches are not as good as advertised on TV).
If I go to church today, I will become a better person; I will become more.
If I go to McDonald's instead, I will become a fatter, lazier, and poorer Last Man person; I will become less.

>>24505564
Depends on the symbol. I'd say that a Cross is a higher resolution sign than the hypo-resolution of the McDonald's logo (the sandwitches are not as good as advertised on TV).
If I go to church today, I will become a better person: I will become more.
If I go to McDonald's instead, I will become a fatter, lazier, and poorer Last Man person: I will become less.

>>24505980
only someone living in le collapsing society could think that going to a building at designated times amidst one's fellow sheep, to listen to the shepard preach about the virtues of the jew politician is superior to eating food, especially when the critique of said food is as abstract as "it doesn't contain the right molecules!!!" can you imagine socrates worrying about how many double bonds the fatty acids he is consuming has, or if the plastic bottle is "leeching microplastics" into his beverage of choice

>>24505991
Symbols are only true if they are archetypically significant
Company logos are not archetypes, they're meaningless

Does anyone know other books that deal with the basics and foundational beliefs of Christianity? I have been reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and am looking for more books like that that focus on basic principles instead of special theological problems.

>>24506948
At its core, Christianity is pretty much summed up by the Nicene creed

>>24506954
I also need explanations of certain concepts. Does the Creed just state things or does it try to explain them? What I liked about Lewis is that he always used examples to illustrate the points he was making.

>>24506964
The creed states the beliefs but doesn't go in depth. Which concepts do you want to understand better?

>>24506948
Alister McGrath

>>24506965
Multiple: the Holy Trinity, the theodicy of Christianity, the character and purpose of sin (for example how do we know what is sinful and what not?), the immanence and transcendence of God among others.

>>24507990
>theodicy
The Doors of the Sea by DBH

>>24508038
Thank you, will look into it. Is C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain a good book on the topic?

>>24508057
Can't say, I'm not familiar with it
As for your other topics
>On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil the Great and on the Trinity by St. Gregory of Nyssa
>On the Human Condition by St. Basil the Great and The Sin of Adam and Our Redemption by St. Theophan the Recluse
>On the Divine Names by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

>>24507990
>the Holy Trinity
It's not exactly beginner friendly, but Person and Eros by Yannaras is excellent

>>24506610
So what are the Signs of Substance†?