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Survey of Christian Literature - resources needed


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Hello all,

 

I am in the process of planning a year-long jaunt into Christian Literature to do alongside my 10th and 9th graders this year. I am building my spreadsheet for resources and, while I have a few, I wondered if any of you had some suggestions that may compliment the following list. I have some Teaching Co. courses, including the Dante course, The Western Literary Canon in Context, and Augustine. I also have the following books: 25 Books Every Christian Should Read and Invitation to the Classics, which include notes on a few on my list.

 

Below are the works we hope to get through in the next 12 months. Do any of you have any suggestions for additional resources to flesh out any/all of them? Thanks!

 

Augustine: Confessions

Dante: The Divine Comedy

Thomas a Kempis: Imitation of Christ

Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion

Spencer: The Faerie Queen

Donne: Selected Poems

Pascal: Pensees

Bunyan: The Pilgrim’s Progress

Herbert: The Temple (Selected Poems)

Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God

Milton: Paradise Lost

Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Henry: Apologia pro vita sua

Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov

Spurgeon: The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon

Chesterton: Orthodoxy

Hopkins, G.M.: Selected Poems

Weil: Waiting for God

Lewis: The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity

Tozer: The Knowledge of the Holy

Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship

King, ML: Letters from a Birmingham Jail

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You list some works that strike me as more literary and some that are more theological in nature. You may wish to decide if you want one or the other or both. And you may wish to decide if you want to hit the major high lights of the theological course or not.

 

I say this because if you do want to hit theological high points you've missed some or chosen the wrong work. Augustine's Confessions, for instance, is popularly read in lit courses, but it's his City of God that people say influenced a 1000 years of Christian theology. You are also missing Aquinas and Luther both of whom have some big theological work to put on the table.

 

On the other hand maybe you want lit and work of personal reflection which means you keep Augustine's Confessions and jettison Calvin's Institutes.

 

Neither course is correct, they're just different.

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Thanks for all of your help/input! I definitely need to pare down, as my desire is to really sink our teeth into some of them. It is my desire to focus on the literature aspect, moreso than the theological. I've decided to drop Calvin, Spencer, and Pascal. I will probably add in some short readings of the Desert Fathers and perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin (I had not thought of that selection at all...thanks for the recommendation, Sebastion!)

 

Thanks for your help. I am trying to think outside the box here and cater to my kid's interests while helping them to grow spiritually.

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