5 Books That Changed Me

1. The Bible by God
   What if the creator of the universe had something to say to His creation and put it down in a book for us all to read? That would be some book. It would have to cover creation, explain man’s great problem with our nature, offer a solution via salvation and speak of the big ending where the universe is brought to a point of ultimate peace. The only book that can make that claim is The Bible. The more I read the Bible, the more I’m convinced of its high stature among all books. To read it is to witness an epic collection of wisdom that must have come from beyond the human hands that rendered it. No other book has changed western civilization like the Bible. I’ve read broadly on its defenders and its critics and it is the standard by which we argue theology today, as it would if it were divinely inspired. How controversial would an exhaustive book about the existence of unicorns be? Not very. But bring up the Bible and discussions erupt, rightly so.
2. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
   I read this book after becoming a fan of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and their arguments point back to this earlier source. Chesterton was simply the most influential Christian writer of the last century and nearly all of his 10,000 articles are more relevant today than the day he wrote them. That’s a sign of wisdom, when a thinker can transcend his times to reflect on what is eternally true. Chesterton has a wit that has garnered a generation of fans from Orson Welles to Ian Flemming. To read him is to be both charmed and blown away as Chesterton makes sure you are lost right up until the final sentence of the chapter where everything clicks into place. His primary goal is to re-ignite wonder in a world that is bored with the miraculous.
3. Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl
   Why did some survivors of the Holocaust choose to die while others chose to live? What can one do with one’s own suffering? These two questions are pondered by Frankl who survived the Holocaust. He faced starvation, betrayal and visited his fellow suffering inmates as each person made choices under the greatest stress a man can endure. His unique take on the ordeal flushes out Nazi guards who acted with compassion and fellow Jewish inmates who betrayed their fellow prisoners. His most important message is that while we can’t control when our freedom is stolen by others, they cannot dictate our response.
4. Planet Narnia by Dr. Michael Ward
   As an author, I’ve read most of C.S. Lewis’ works, but one lone man might just have solved the greatest mystery of modern western lit. Dr. Ward proposes that The Chronicles of Narnia was not a simple, formulaic allegory of the gospel story but a complex, medieval structure that pays tribute to the cosmos. He unpacks most of C.S. Lewis’ writings to reveal an author who gave a million mile view of life by using Jupiter, the moon, Mercury, the sun etc. to tell his simple children’s fable. Ward posits that if Narnia was a true allegory, then why would Father Christmas show up as winter turns to spring? There would be no “Christmas” in Narnia, as Christ is depicted as the lion known as Aslan. They would have Aslanmas, but not Christmas in Narnia. But if The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was using Jupiter as a template, then Father Christmas would be the perfect carrier of a jovial spirit, Jove being of the words used in medieval literature to describe Jupiter. This book changed me as a story-teller because I was made aware of building a universe using atmosphere, not allegory.
5. The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas
   Okay, it was between this or Moby Dick, but I assume most people already know about Melville’s masterpiece while few have tried cracking the Summa. Aquinas was a logician who became a man of faith and wondered if the two disciplines could be harmonized. Was the Bible also rational? He set out to write an exhaustive tome that covers a broad list of topics from animals to the beginning of the universe and asks questions, offers his answers then challenges his own arguments. The book is the toughest slog you’ll ever endure but it is a meticulous search for truth, and that is always to be admired.
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