I’d like you to tell me what the most inspiring Christian books are that you have read.
I have friends who are reading spiritual books seeking answers and I’d like to factor Jesus into their decision making.
It seems that the key thing they appeciate in a book is its ability to inspire
.
So… tell me what books would you recommend for someone who is not a Christian to read and be inspired by?
I would really appreciate a few suggestions!
While away on the weekend I went to a second hand book shop and picked up a book called the Poisonwood Bible, the story of a southern Baptist missionary family who head out from segregated Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959 to take the Gospel to the ‘descendents of Ham’.
Dad is a raving fundy preacher and the story is told thru the eyes of his four daughters and his wife. So far its a great story of how not to do mission…
I also picked up Bonhoeffer’s No Rusty Swords
for 50c.
I have just started reading Hey Nostradamus, by Douglas Coupland (Generation X fame)
Here’s an excerpt from the review
The opening narrator, Cheryl Anway, is the 17-year-old victim of a Columbine-style high-school massacre. Just before she was murdered in 1988, Cheryl had secretly married her high-school sweetheart Jason Klaasen and was expecting their child. The couple were part of a zealously evangelical Christian group, Youth Alive! whose members, immediately after the slaying, falsely accused Jason of masterminding the incident.
Eleven years later, Jason is still coming to terms with Cheryl’s death. He is, as he admits to his faithful dog Joyce, a “social blank with a liver like the Hindenburg” embarrassed by how damaged he is and by how mediocre he turned out”. (He fits bathrooms for a living.) Jason is also scarred by his relationship with his father Reg, a religious pedant so unyielding that he drove his wife into alcoholism and who genuinely believes that one of his identical twin grandsons cannot possess a soul.
I’m enjoying the read but the portrayal of Christians is very scary… Looking forward to seeing where it all goes…
