Since I don’t have any recent-ish completed books to write about, I thought I’d take the time to list a bunch of books that I started and haven’t finished. Some I consider ‘on hiatus’; others I probably will never come back to.
Joshua W. Jipp, Pauline Theology as a way of life: A vision of human flourishing
Honestly, this book has an engaging premise - reading Paul as a philosopher about ‘how to live well’, and putting that into conversation with (a) ancient philosophers, (b) contemporary positive psychology. It’s just, a long book with a lot of content and not incredibly engaging reading.
Sarah Ruden, The face of water: a translator on beauty and meaning in the Bible
Sarah is a translator of classical, and then more recently religious, texts. I have her version of Augustine’s Confessions right here. I thought I’d really enjoy hearing her talk about translation, but so far I have yet to be gripped.
George Kalantzis, Caesar and the Lamb
Kalantzis is mostly a patristic/early church scholar, and this book examines the overwhelming case for non-violence in the early church. I’m stuck on chapter two.
James K.A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom
Book 2 of his cultural liturgies trilogy. Book 1 is great, very engaging. Book 2 just opened like a slog. I want to read it!
Andy Crouch, Culture making: recovering our creative calling
I think a theme is emerging. These are all books I want to like, want to read, but they just aren’t engaging enough to carry me through. Crouch is like that too. Lot of people talked up this book, I wanted to get into it, and it’s just not cooking for me.
Jamieson and Wittman, Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian rules for exegesis
I’m pretty sure Jamieson wrote me an email about something when I was finishing off my PhD, as we have some overlap in research interests. I’m convinced this is a great book, showing profound patristic reading ‘rules’ that are grounded in Scripture. I just haven’t finished it.
Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory
So much fan-fare. But this is a very long book with one main idea - that you can ‘diagonalize’ everything by cutting across every dichotomy with a gospel solution that fufils both sides’ deepest desire, and critiques their greatest failing. Sounds a bit same-same after several chapters.
Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness
A heavy-weight discussion of theodicy and suffering through narrative theology.
Fanon Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth
A classic de-colonial, anti-colonial work. Haven’t finished it.
Christopher Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God
Another enjoyable read that I got stuck halfway through.
And so on…
It is nice to know you are mortal too, Seumas ! Prodigious as your reading powers are ! 🙃👍
Haven't read any Crouch yet, but he's an engaging speaker and his ideas are deep and super relevant. Maybe try a podcast or lecture first.
Same with Watkin - I only got through the first couple chapters of BCT as well, but he's a great thinker.