Fans pick 100 books like Theology of Culture

This is a book that rocked me and a whole generation back in the 1960s and is now considered a classic in radical theology.

John Robinson was a radical Anglican bishop who managed to pack an explosive theological punch into a feisty and fairly short book, its brevity being one of its merits. He threw theism into doubt by drawing upon the revolutionary theologies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (religionless Christianity), Rudolf Bultmann (demythologizing Christianity), and Paul Tillich (God is the ground of being, not the Supreme Being).

The book became a sensation, a best seller, and set the stage for a radical post-theistic theology today and helped shape my work.

This book contains a magisterial rendering of the mystical poet Angelus Silesius’s verse, “The Rose Is Without Why” as part of a critical analysis of the emergence of the modern idea of “reason.”

This book has never left me since I first encountered it in my doctoral dissertation on Heidegger back in the 1960s. It landed like a bombshell on a young Catholic like me, opening a poetic and mystical sense of life free from the creeds and authoritarianism of religion as well as from the doctrinaire dismissiveness of Enlightenment rationalism.

Written at the end of his career, it encapsulates everything Heidegger was getting at. We must never forget the horrible stain of Heidegger’s National Socialism, which I have analyzed (Demythologizing Heidegger), but there is more to Heidegger than that, and you can find it here.

The evidence is staring us in the face that religion is shaming itself out of existence and God along with it.

Robin Meyers is one of those people who can save, if not religion, which may have done itself irreparable damage, but God and Jesus and faith. Meyers is a United Church of Christ pastor, a university professor, and a peace activist, so he brings a special combination of the pastor’s touch for telling stories to make a point and for changing lives and the professor’s depth of learning.

I could just as easily have recommended his companion book Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus but I chose this book because it is more recent. His question is, is religion even worth saving?

For me, Ilia Delio represents a new breed of theologian.

She started out as a scientist (Ph.D. in pharmacology, specializing in brain science), then tried being a contemplative nun, then joined an active order of Franciscans as a theology professor (PhD in process theology). She brings this marvelous mix to the problem of AI, which is proving to be as much a poison as a cure, something that will save us unless it kills us first.

But AI is not the problem and religion is not the solution, she says. It is the misuse of AI and religion as it presently exists which puts them at odds. This is what theology will look like in the future if it expects to survive, indeed if we expect to survive.

Post #metoo there’s a lot more awareness around sexual abuse and assault, but still few books to help readers to understand why it impacts them the way it does. 

In The Courage to Be Me, cartooning psychologist Nina Burrowes presents what we know from the science of sexual trauma, and tells the stories of a group who support each other around their experiences. 

Having several different stories, all illustrated by different comic artists, emphasises the diverse forms that assault and abuse can take, and the ways in which they hit us all differently. Despite the tough topics covered, this is an uplifting book which helps the reader to see their experiences reflected, and to learn some skills for how to look after themselves around what happened with the kindness they deserve.

I stumbled upon this one because Trump had it on his desk—go figure. Tillich, a Christian philosopher, explains how fear and anxiety drive people to irrationality. It’s wild because the very ideas he discusses were twisted for Trump’s campaign.

But Tillich’s insights on how fear pushes us to lose our mind—and how to stay courageous when the world seems to have lost its grip—are pure gold. This book is as relevant as ever.

Tillich’s work is foundational for any “mystery-based” religiosity, or to put it another way, “awe-based” spirituality, and The Courage to Be is one of his most accessible and popular works. The Courage to Be, which influenced generations of humanistic and existential-oriented thinkers and therapists is about the willingness to face the anxieties of existence in the service of maximal participation in the life-space we are granted. It is all about boldness and risk-taking, with full awareness of limitation and fragility, to meet the demands of creative participation in love and work. 

Robertson Work's latest work is a collection of essays and writings that perfectly capture his worldwide service to humanity and our Earth. Written across a span of more than fifty years of service in fifty countries, his essays address societal, spiritual, and self transformations. This book is beautifully organized and clearly expresses a profound understanding of the connection of all things—and how we might save ourselves and our planet.

Rob has spent a lifetime trying to help people improve their communities, organizations, cities, and nations. He has tried to help people become more aware, understanding, empathic, and compassionate. With this book, he desires to "be of help in reinventing society, touching truth, and empowering compassionate action for self and others." This book has the power to do that.

Douglas Cowan was one of the first scholars I stumbled on who was diving into this area.

He’s been hugely influential on my own thinking – particularly in the way he asks us to stop thinking about “religious questions” and instead start thinking of “properly human questions.” Cowan’s walk through Stephen King’s oeuvre is all kinds of fun.

You’ll be particularly struck by how he finds religious rituals of initiation in Pet Semetary.

If you are a parent and your children are over the age of eighteen, you know that your relationship with them shifts radically as they become adults. If you’ve raised your children to be independent thinkers, guess what? They will think and act independently, sometimes making choices that cause pain and confusion. Mary does a terrific job of helping parents remain grounded in their faith as they figure out how to love and support their sons and daughters in this new season. Her love for and knowledge of Scripture is very evident throughout. (Note: I would not have included the word “Wayward” in the title. Mary does not focus on adult kids who have made poor choices, but rather ones whose lives look different than what we might have imagined.)