The Canon Re-loaded: Part 3 (11-15):

A couple of month's ago we announced that we were proposing a top 40 collection of books that are essential in informing a missional perspective for the 21st century. Now comes the third installment of the small "c" canon.

This month's selections include books from Philip Yancey, Donald Miller and N.T. Wright (how's that for a diverse group?). Dallas Willard and C.S. Lewis make a second appearance in our "canonized collection". Lewis' The Great Divorce is a great example of how fiction can be just as, if not, even more powerful, than non-fiction when it comes to sharing the truth of the Gospel.

Postmodern Collection: (1-5) (6-10) (11-15) (16-20)



Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church - Phillip Yancey

Philip Yancey is the author of a host of great reads. This book, Soul Survivor, which has the catchy and telling subtitle, How My Faith Survived the Church, takes us on a journey through the lives of a variety of figures (both historical and contemporary) who served as influences on the life and faith of Yancey. The author steps outside the ranks of evangelicalism to name people such as Gandhi, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky as role models.







The Divine Conspiracy - Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard makes his second appearance in our "top 40" collection with the Divine Conspiracy. Here Willard speaks about Jesus as the master teacher who is ready, willing, and able to lead disciples in the course of Life 101. Willard writes that "...the message of and about (Jesus) is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentices in kingdom living, not just as consumers of his merits." This message, while central to the Kingdom, is often missed in western society.






The Great Divorce- C.S. Lewis

Many people might be surprised that we'd pick this book from amongst the many jewels available in the C.S. Lewis corpus. But considering that the question of Hell is an important one for the Emerging Church, Lewis' allegorical work, The Great Divorce seems to us to be a perfect fit. What makes Lewis' approach so compelling is that he takes the debate to a different level entirely. And as is often the case with Lewis, he leaves you feeling like you he just articulated what you've always believed- on some semi-conscious level.






Blue Like Jazz- Donald Miller

In a postmodern context, story-telling can be extremely effective because it makes personal what is can sometimes come across as purely academic and wholly abstract in other forms. And when it comes to combining story-telling and gospel-telling, Donald Miller is a compelling new voice. In Blue Like Jazz Miller offers a postmodern spin on key topics such as faith, grace, belief, confession, and church. This book has proven helpful both for those recovering from church, and for those unfamiliar or fearful of church.






The Resurrection of the Son of God - N.T. Wright

Clearly, you would do well to read all three books of Wright's comprehensive series "Christian Origins and the Question of God" - of which Resurrection is the 3rd. Wright is considered one of today's foremost New Testament scholars. What is just as compelling as his scholarship is his clear passion for Jesus and the message of the Kingdom. In that sense Wright is a welcome exception to the dichotomy that too often sees the academy and the church on different planets on these kinds of issues.