In the spring I recorded a devotion for the Nomad podcast entitled "Hope in a World on Fire."
As a part of that devotional, Tim and David, the hosts of Nomad, asked if I'd collect and take a picture of a stack of books that have been influential in my life, along with a few of my own titles. It was a fun and quick way to share some resources and title recommendations with the Nomad audience.
So, I walked around the house pulling titles that have been important to me and collected the following stack:
Longtime readers will see many authors who I used to blog about years ago: George MacDonald, Arthur McGill, William Stringfellow, Walter Wink, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Walter Brueggeman, Ernest Becker, Howard Thurman, James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and Oscar Romero. The themes of these books--liberation theology, universal reconciliation, the principalities and powers, and existentialism--remain with me to this day.
Beyond those longtime influences, the other titles here were critical to my journey of reconstruction: Dorothy Day, Karl Barth, Fleming Rutledge, Tom Holland, David Bentley Hart, Francis Spufford, Marilynne Robinson, St. Augustine, Flannery O'Connor, Herbert McCabe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dante, and Thomas Merton. The Liturgy of the Hours and Every Moment Holy represent recovering prayer in my life. And, of course, the Bible.
For my own titles, I picked Trains, Jesus and Murder because of the impact of prison ministry upon my life, and how it illustrates continuity with my past: solidarity with the oppressed, the prophetic imagination, and resisting the principalities and powers. Hunting Magic Eels represents my current "reconstructed" faith: My journey from a social justice-oriented but disenchanted faith, to an enchanted faith where God matters, every moment is holy, and love still wins.
