Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Top 10 Books

I just spent a few days with Dr. Ken Blue, and part of the conversation included us trying to narrow down our top ten favorite books. It wasn't easy, but here they are:
 C. Baxter Kruger

  1. The Trinitarian Faith (and The Mediation of Christ)— T.F. Torrance
  2. Unspoken Sermons— George MacDonald
  3. On the Incarnation of the Word of God (and Against the Arians)— Athanasius
  4. Church Dogmatics IV.1 (and IV.2)— Karl Barth
  5. The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel— Thomas Erskine
  6. The Weight of Glory (and The Great Divorce)— C.S. Lewis
  7. Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace— James Torrance
  8. The Shack— Wm. Paul Young
  9. On the Trinity— St. Hilary
  10. The Trinity and the Kingdom— Jurgen Moltmann
  11. The Forgotten Father— Thomas Smail (this is a little lagniappe, or if you are from the Big 10 it’s just adding!)

Ken Blue

  1. The Mediation of Christ— T.F. Torrance
  2. Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace— James Torrance
  3. The Denial of Death— Ernest Becker (or preface of book)
  4. Church Dogmatics IV.2— Karl Barth
  5. The Forgotten Father, the Giving Gift, Life Father, Like Son— Thomas Smail
  6. The Divine Conspiracy— Dallas Willard
  7. Ministry On the Fireline— Ray Anderson
  8. Freedom for Ministry— Richard John Neuhaus
  9. Subversion of Christianity and The Presence of the Kingdom— Jacques Elull
  10. The Presence of the Future— George Eldon Ladd 

6 comments:

Eric said...

Great lists! I too love Tom Smails book.

I notice Ken allows the preface of Becker's book. I don't know how widely this resonates, but I often find that the Preface does perfectly well, as so many books fail to live up to the rich promise of the Preface, merely reworking them in too many words!!

Btw thank you Baxter for 'the undoing of Adam' which has provided rich Lenten and Easter food for myself and my congregation

C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D. said...

You are welcome Eric.

Richard Harstone said...

"The Great Dance" is in my top 10!

Wonder if you've read "Movements of Grace: The Dynamic Christorealism of Barth, Bonhoeffer and the Torrance Brothers" by Jeff McSwain. An excellent bringing together of the Trinitarian, incarnational thoughts of these giants of theology.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for these lists...I will get started on some of the books I have not read. Also, I greatly appreciate all your books Baxter, the Shack Revisited is one of my favorites. Your clear, easy to read and understand style of writing is a wonderful gift to the church.
Thank You!
Tony Marra

Todd said...

THANX for these!!!
Chuckling--Dr. Blue lists 12; and you can't not mention 15.

Anonymous said...

I'm curious Dr. Kruger. I saw Moltmann on your list. How do you integrate his (kenotic) view of the Cross as involving the cessation of God's experienced triune beatitude (the disrupting of lived fellowship between Father and Son) with the Orthodox view (Athanasius, Cyril, etc.) on the incarnation? My thoughts have been here for some time.