So, you wanna be a theologian...(Part 1)

Here's my first list. I thought of doing this when my aunt was very interested in a great book (The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton) that I got for Christmas, and I thought about the other books that I had read that lead me to want that book in the first place.
A great many of the books that have been very enjoyable to read and helpful in forming my understanding of the world through a Christian lens were written by C.S. Lewis. In this first book review (the first of many, I'm sure), I'll list some of Lewis' books that I think are a good place to start if you're interested in reading about Christianity.

If you'd like to just read an entry level treatise on what Christianity is and how it makes sense of the world, read Mere Christianity. For a more personal story from Lewis, read Surprised by Joy, Lewis' account of how he came to be a Christian. It gives some great biographical info as well as a peek into the way that brilliant mind works. Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress is a fictional tale of a young man who wades through the dominant philosophies of western civilizations and arrives at Christianity at last, and mirrors Lewis' own journey.

Another good story, and probably Lewis' most popular work, is the Chronicles of Narnia series. Its presentation of a lion named Aslan reclaiming a magical land corrupted by evil is a great allegorical (although Lewis himself resisted that word) picture of our own history and plight. There are 7 books in the series, and Lewis wrote them in a particular order, even though the events in books 5 and 6 do not follow the chronology of the story. Unfortunately, recent publications have reordered the books to follow a linear chronology, and I think that this does a lot of damage to the way that Lewis wanted the story to be read. If you do read a recent edition, read them in the original order (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; The Last Battle) and you'll enjoy it much more!

Less well known but every bit as good are the three books that make up what has come to be known as Lewis' Space Trilogy. The first book is Out of the Silent Planet, and imagines a journey to another world with a very old history where the inhabitants never rebelled against God, and the struggle to keep evil (from earth) from corrupting their civilization. The second book, Perelandra, presents a world that is just beginning, and the first couple are presented with the same temptation as Adam and Eve were... will they succumb? The last book, That Hideous Strength, depicts secular academia leading a revolt against humanity, ostensibly in its service, and the resistance that seems doomed to failure. These books are in some way Lewis' response to the unquestioned assumptions that plague secular science-fiction: "progress" is inevitable (no racism in Star Trek!) and unquestionably good, "religion" and "tradition" as the enemies of "science," and the hope put into the intelligentsia for the future of mankind.

Lewis takes on some of the big questions that everybody asks in Miracles and The Problem of Pain. Miracles tackles the assumption that although people in Biblical times could believe in miracles, it is a bit absurd to ask modern humanity to believe in them anymore now that we are so scientifically advanced and know better. The Problem of Pain addresses the age-old question: How can a good God allow such terrible things to happen to good (or at least, not totally evil) people? I heartily recommend both of these great books.

For bite-size Lewis, try God in the Dock or Christian Reflections. These two books are collections of letters, essays, or other correspondence by Lewis on a variety of topics Many of the topics he writes on in these books are explored more fully in his longer works, but some of them are unique and give some interesting dimension to a picture of the world as Lewis understands it from unexpected angles.

The Four Loves is a fantastic book that explores the human experience of love, and tries to find a way to understand what God reveals to us when he claims that word as a name for himself.

The two most dangerous attitudes we can have about devils, according to Lewis, is to harbor an unhealthy fascination with them or to assume that they don't exist. The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful book which Lewis writes in the form of correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his underling (and nephew) Wormwood. Screwtape counsels Wormwood to use some techniques when discouraging his human charge away from a Christian life that are unexpected and often uncomfortably close to home. Lewis said this was his least favorite book to write, since it was tiring and emotionally discouraging to have to keep putting himself in a mindset violently oppossed to everything he holds true.

Finally, Till We Have Faces is an amazing work of fiction, where Lewis reworks the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche into an exposition of how our pride and merely human love can lead us to hurt the one's we claim to love the most, and reject the love we so desperately need.

So there you have it. Start reading!

- "Safe?.... Of course he's not safe. But he's good..." (I'm cheating; this one's from a book, soon to be released as a movie!)