Name That Book

Thanks Barb. I like these games of tag.

1. One book that changed your life:

This is going to seem weird to some, because often the unspoken purpose of these kinds of questions is to interest others in reading the book that “changed your life.”

Well, I doubt if anyone is going to go out and read either of these books, but one or both of them changed the direction of my life. The books are Oswald T. Allis’s Prophecy and the Church (1945) and Clarence B. Bass, Backgrounds to Dispensationalism (1977). I don’t remember which one was more important because I can’t remember the order in which I read them. All I remember is that it took my just a few days to finish both. And when I had finished reading and marking up the last one (I believe it was Bass’s slim volume) I remember mumbling to myself, “Oh my, what will I do now?” Before reading these books I was a flaming dispensationalist. After reading them I was. . . well, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that the world had changed and I needed to find a new Christian community.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. Oh, I see you haven’t even read it once.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

What a no-brainer. It’s got to be FM 21-76, the US Army Survival Manual. Duh.

4. One book that made you laugh:

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

5. One book that made you cry:

Killer Angels by Jeff Shaara.

6. One book that you wish had been written:

A big fat book on the Trinity by me. There’s still time.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

The Koran.