I've Been Tagged

I think this started with Benjamin Myers. Ted Gossard tagged me. Here is my book list

1. One book that changed your life: Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard. Pulled together many loose threads of things I have learned in life and helped me see connections.
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation, M. Robert Mulholland.
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: (besides the Bible, of course) Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I think there is more than a lifetime of reflection material in that book.
4. One book that made you laugh: When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, Dave Burchett.
5. One book that made you cry: Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, Henri Nouwen. Right book at the right time in my life.
6. One book you wish had been written: Revelation Decoded, John the Revelator.
7. One book you wish had never been written: Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx.
8. One book you’re currently reading: Laughter in Heaven: Understanding the parables of Jesus, Earl F. Palmer.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth. Not just the abridged stuff. The whole thing. (I can’t count the number of people over the years who after hearing my theological take on an issue say, “Oh Yeah. Karl Barth.” I guess I should read him through and find out if that is a good thing.)
10. Tag 5 others: Neil Craigan, Russell Smith, Jody Harrington, Sivin Kit, Denis Hancock. Ted Gossard sent this to me and says I am supposed to e-mail those I tagged.

Update:

Here is the lineage that brought this to me. Starts with Benjamin and Ted tagged me:

• Ted Gossard
• Scot McKnight
• Steve McCoy
• Garrett
• John Barach
• Steven Wedgeworth
• Barbara Harvey
• Alastair
• Benjamin Myers

(Russell Smith tried to tag me but I got him first.)

Comments

[Ted Gossard]

Michael,
Yeah, it's a shame that I don't believe I've even read any of that classic book of Bonhoeffer you bring up. Though that's about to change.

Interesting list. I like your #6. I doubt that I'll ever read that massive work of Barth. I wonder what might take the place of reading (some advanced form of it?) in the kingdom come ("consummation").

[Michael Kruse]

Cost of Discipleship is great but it is like sipping from a firehose. It always took me an eterinity to read it.

I am in a Bible study with some men that meets on Friday mornings and we are studying Revelation right now. (Did chapters 8 and 9 this morning.) I could sure use some decoding.

Barth is something I would like to read but I am not sure I will ever really get to it.

Thanks for tagging me!

[Russell]

No Fair. I had already been tagged and written my post and put it in my draft folder for posting today -- and I had you as one of my tags. Then I check my email and find that you tagged me. I've added a new twist to the meme -- a 6 degrees of separation feature so people can go back a few "generations" and see what has been written.
Russell

[Sivin]

wow I've been tagged twice does that mean I can out 2 books each? -)

[Dana Ames]

Divine Conspiracy- oh yes. Blew the roof off my personal theology. It would be my #1 too, prepared the way for me to become, as a close friend describes me, a "Wright junkie".

I'm going to have to get my hands on Bonhoeffer in German. I think there is difficulty not only in density, but in translation.

Dana

[Michael Kruse]

No big deal Russell it appears that several folks are getting it more than once. I did like your idea of tracing the lineage. I have updated the post with that info.

[Michael Kruse]

Sivin this just means you are a popular guy. As for two books, go for it! On some of these I think there are about ten books.

[Michael Kruse]

"I'm going to have to get my hands on Bonhoeffer in German."

Hey, if you figure out what it means be sure to let me know. Half of it is hard to fully grasp and the other half I like to play like I don't understand. (Otherwise I might have to live it!) :)

[Quotidian Grace]

Okay, I played, too!

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks QG. I think everyone has chimed in but Denis who I think is on vaction until this weekend. By the time he gets to it I expect he it will have circulated to somewhere between 1.2 and 1.3 billion people. :)

[Dana Ames]

Dang, I normally catch those misplaced modifiers- It was early, I hadn't had my morning tea yet...
D.

[Michael Kruse]

Misplaced Modifier? My blog is the king of misplaced modifiers, transposed letters, missing punctuation, dangling participles, confused verb tenses and a host of other grammatical gremlins. Your misplaced modifier will feel right at home here!

:)

[neil]

on revelation you have to read Craig Koester's book Revelation and the End of All Things. Craig was one of my seminary professors so I'm biased but he's a great read and helps make sense of the book.

[Bob Robinson]

Michael,

Nice selections. Scot McKnight tagged me, and now it's fun to go around the horn and see what everybody is writing!!

Just added Mulholland's Road Map for Spiritual Formation to my reading list!!

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks Bob. Mullholland's book is the only book I have seen that on this topic that seriously engages the issue of personal temperament. It has been very helpful for me and I have led to studies using it as a guide.

[Denis Hancock]

I'm a little late, but I have joined the game. It would have been done earlier if I had had wireless internet at the campground.

With regard to Russell's 6 degrees and your lineage, it might be interesting if there was a web crawler which could count the number of people who got touched by this. And how fast it spread throughout the world.

[Michael Kruse]

The web crawler thing would be cool. I don't know if such an animal exists or not.