Tagged!

My good friend, brother, and fellow blogger, Xavier from RBA has tagged me. This is actually an interesting tag. What we read reveals the motions of our interiority. So, here is a little of my guts being spilled!

One book that changed your life: Oddly enough, Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson. I read it as an undergrad in college and it forced me to face squarely the implications of Sola Scriptura. Was I going to continue to follow fundamentalist TRADITION(you know...don't drink....don't chew...don't go with girls that do kinda stuff) or Biblical TRUTH (which I knew would lead me out of fundamentalist ecclesiastical circles)?

One book you've read more than once: The Scarlet Letter. I read it twice in high school and once afterward. Hawthorne's unusal insight into the psychology of guilt blew me away. His descriptions of Rev. Dimmesdale's heart motions, as he labors under the complex tyrrany of a guilty conscience, are unparraleled in the literature I've read.

One book you'd want on a desert island, besides the Bible: The Complete works of Shakespeare. For brilliance of story, depth of insight into the human condition, worldly wisdom, mastery of language, mix of tragedy and comedy, poetry and prose, and general world literacy, no set of works compares. Others have said this. I really know what they mean.

One book that made you laugh: A Thousand Resurrections: An Urban Spiritual Journey by Maria Garriott. It is a serious and incisive book. But at parts, it is just hilarious to see the evolution of a suburban white girl into an urban pastor's wife. Instances where her soft suburban sensibilities were grated on by the rough and tumble of inner city life cracked me up often.

One book that made you cry: The Confessions of Augustine. It wasn't so much the speculative metaphysical stuff but the scenes where he laments the loss of family and friends that made me cry. Also, his salutary humble deportment throughout the book repeatedly melted me. Objects of His Affection by Scotty Smith. I repeatedly had a difficult time finishing the second chapter of this book because of the deep places it touched in me. The beauty of Christ's pursuit of us was brought home to me in a way that it never had before. (I know that this was 2 books. Sorry)

One book you wish had been written: Being a Hard Idealist in a Pragmatist World: A Survival Guide. I'm such an egghead-in-the-clouds kind of guy that the cold, concrete practicalities of life just about do me in at every turn.

One book you wish had never been written: The Bell Curve - In my lifetime, this book did more to reinforce and perpetuate painful race ideology than any other to my knowledge.

One book that you are currently reading: The Second Adam and the New Birth by M.F. Sadler. I'm trying to think more deeply and biblically about the meaning of baptism.

One book that you've been meaning to read: The Autobiography of Miles Davis To know Miles is to know the shape and history of jazz in the 2oth century (& it was a graduation gift :-).


You're it!: Rod Denise Anthony