Christian Literature

>>8708933
Dante's Divine Comedy I guess.

>>8708992
wat

Joseph and his Brothers by Thomas Mann

Barrabas by Par Lagerqwist (kinda)

My bible desu.

>>8708992
>>8709016
Catholic in particular.

>>8708933
On the modern end of things: anything G. K. Chesteron or C. S. Lewis.

I would also highly recommend finding a nice way into patristics. Find a Church Father or Doctor you really like and dwelve into their thought.

If this seems to intimidating, St. Augustine's Confessions is definitely a great place to begin.

>Tolstoy
>L.N. Tolstoy
>Leo Tolstoy
>Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
>Лeв Hикoлáeвич Toлcтóй
Great writers, I would specifically recommend their books Anna Karenina, Anna Karenin and Aннa Кapeнинa

It's all Christian after the Bible up until postmodernism

Protestant lit best christian lit
>http://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/1543_luther_jews.html

>>8708933
I love christian literature, the authors that are obvious and most appealing to all are Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and deservedly so, as I rate Crime and Punishment and Tolstoy's main big novels very, very highly.

I recommend to you Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, if you havent already. Beautiful, poetic, tragic, epic. True and from another world at the same time. Its about life of early christians.

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>>8708933
Blake is nice

>>8709719
I would hardly call Blake Christian. He was almost a Satanist.

Which is not to say that he wasn't a good poet.

>>8709724
No, not a Satanist. But more of a realist.

>>8709734
>more of a realist.
The guy who claims he saw a circle of angels around the sun was a realist?

>>8709724
>>8709734
Where d you get the idea he was either?

>>8709738
Well, maybe that was a poor choice of words. I mean to say in his Songs of Experience he talks more about the real world and real people.

>>8709742
But he nonetheless talks about it in a very spiritualized sense. I find him much less worldly than the other romantics

All of Dostoevsky. All of Kierkegaard.

>>8709663
>Fear and Trembling
>spirituality

A-am I misunderstanding something?

some stuff in spanish is really nice op

st john of the cross - spiritual canticle, dark night of the soul, and ascent of mount carmel are very interesting reads regarding spiritual torment

also, ignatius of loyola's spiritual exercises are very interesting

Although Tolkien's literature is not catholic literature per se, it is full of catholic ideas and imagery, though they are not so evident like in C.S. Lewis books

Silence by Shusaku Endo

>>8709204
shit comment

>>8709663
this is a nice list, but summa theologica is actually really readable
also isn't the shack like a shitty airport novel? what?

>>8708933
Mein Kampf

Hitler was the 2nd coming

Anything by Scott Cairns

>>8710106
Fuck off, scott

Besides the Bible and deuterocanonical books...

>The Divine Comedy
Biblically, trash. Not accurate at all, but very much influenced our pop culture ideas of hell and the devil. Very interesting, too

>The Pilgrim's Progress
Super influential. Never been out of print. Simple story, simple allegory, tremendously arduous delivery. Hard read. Great book, though.

>Mere Christianity
Tremendous theology. Great tone and pacing. CS Lewis was one of the most brilliant men to ever live, but you wont find Jesus lions or wardrobes in this one. Must read.

>Les Miserables
My favorite novel. A tear-jerking, awe-inspiring story of Christian faith, love, and redemption. Paints a stark contrast between well-intended, legalistic Christianity, and the dirty, not-always-perfect, but genuine and loving, Christianity. Jean Valjean is a hero of fiction.

>The Chronicles of Narnia
CS Lewis on this list again. All 7 books offer a different Biblical theme or re-telling.
(1) The Magician's Nephew - the Genesis story (with some cool multiverse ideas thrown in for good measure)
(2) The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - The Gospel
(3) The Horse and His Boy - The Exodus
(4) Prince Caspian - Redemption
(5) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Trials and Tribulations of the Faith
(6) The Silver Chair - The Influence of Sin
(7) The Last Battle - Revelation and Heaven

>Through Gates of Splendor
The true account of the massacring of young missionaries in uncontacted Ecuador. Beautiful, tear-jerking, and challenging.

There you have it. My list. Enjoy.

>>8708933
I've devoted this year to reading Christian fiction. Here's a list of fantastic authors.
Dante
Shusaku Endo
Walter M Miller
Gene Wolfe
Graham Greene
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Dostoevsky
Flannery O'Connor
Teresa of Avila
John of the Cross
Thomas Kempen
G. K. Chesterton
Hilaire Belloc
Tolkien
John Henry Newman
Thomas Merton
Nikolai Gogol

But you will have to be more specific in what you want to read about. Cheerful metaphors? The banality of evil? The power of faith? Failure? Conversion story? On the human soul? Existentialism? Faith in gulags?

>>8710112
C. S. Lewis is one of the worst, most banal theologians one could read. But, you can't expect taste in such things from a protestant who finds the Divine Comedy biblically inaccurate.

>>8710119
Ah, a Catholic with no biblical knowledge (or likely any history or experience) with scripture outside of what his Priests tell him.

Perhaps you should pray a rosary or two and ask your coredemptrix Mary to getcha a copy. It's worth a shot, despite being heresy.

>>8710119
Gene Wolfe?

>>8710121
Insufferable cunt detected

>>8710127
Yeah, he's in my opinion the greatest living Christian author.
He is often dense and subtle, but his ability to speak through symbols is incredible.
>>8710131
That's what is easily dealt with, calling his taste shit. It's the problem when he may get some people to take C. S. Lewis seriously. He is the Christian equivalent of a new atheist author, quality wise, in his non fiction.
Reading how massively he got BTFO by Elizabeth Anscombe was beautiful.

>>8710135
Sounds like a bunch of decadent bullshit
Kys Christ cuck faggot

>>8710100
>summa theologica is actually really readable

Yeah if you have a good background in Plato and Aristotle. It's one thing to read but an entirely different thing to understand. Most colleges won't even touch Aquinas until students get a few terms in

>>8710395
Aquinas is extremely complex, he is a synthesis of 1500 years of philosophy and religion, I will finally be prepared enough to tackle it in a few months after I reread Aristotle.

>>8708933
Paradise lost

how do i into christianity?

its not a meme religion right?

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I just ordered this. Did I do good?

>>8709663
Tolkien isn't fucking /christian/ literature

>>8711251

Nigger if I wrote the bible I could have sued him for plagiarism.

>>8711260
Some elements are indeed quite Biblical (Eru-Melkor etc.) but it draws far more from prechristian European mythology and spirit

>>8711251
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOQNGrUcK4c

By the way Ryan Reeves is really good for Theology, he has an interesting series of lectures about Tolkien and Lewis which is a good introduction.

>>8709758
Anon, the literal insanity coming from your words surprises me.

>>8711274
It draws more from Christian themes than from non-Christian ones.

It's just that Tolkien was more subtle with it than Lewis.

See:
>>8711276

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>>8710121
I've never met or known anyone who's as familiar wtih the Bible as the average Catholic is.

I'm sure there are Protestant Bible scholars, too, but that Catholic stereotype is unfounded.

>>8711317
Is it just me or is that flying Jesus in a pretty weird angle?

>>8711212
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Christianity

>>8711362
>you'll never have the opportunity to receive a degree in Ratzinger studies

>>8711317
I think that's mainly because Protestants don't venerate the saints or believe in intercession. Knowledge of saints requires a knowledge of church history and the hagiography of the saints in question, which sometimes means a knowledge of certain areas of theology. Protestants also don't have robust monastic culture--learning about the Jesuits and the Benedictines requires a less than trivial knowledge of the same areas mentioned above.

>>8710121

But the rosary is a bible study. Checkmate proddies.

>>8711449
>Protestants don't venerate the saints or believe in intercession

Anglicans? Lutherans?

>>8711276
>>8711283
>>8711260

These lectures were indeed interesting. However, I don't agree with everything he said, for example, Aragorn being Jesus and some other themes he was talking about are far too general to be uniquely Christian. Another point I would make is that most themes he talked about are from the Old Testament, which is basically prechristian mythology sharing many themes with European myths.

I'll admit most of my rejection of this notion stemmed from my dislike of what Christianity is and was in the real world (your usual christian people, the church etc). I must also say I don't really like and agree with the Christian/Judeochristian worldview many elements of which are indeed heavily entwined into Tolkien's work. But what makes Christianity Christianity (to my knowledge) is acceptance of Christ as the saviour and submission to him etc. and even after watching his lectures I don't think LOTR or the Silmarilion contain these themes.

However, I can't argue with Tolkien himself if he stated explicitly that LOTR was a self-consciously Catholic work.

The way I'd put it is that Tolkien's lore is built upon a very heavily Judeochristian-influenced theological framework (genesis, nature of evil and corruption) but the way it reads, the chacarters, their actions, their interactions and practically everything else about the whole thing feels like prechristian European mythology and (to me) conveys its essence and spirit moreso than that of Christianity.

>>8711317
I'm a devot Catholic. I'm seriously considering priesthood now.
The average Catholic, because of the failures of the Church, openly refuses large elements of the word of God, because it is unpleasant.

>>8711506

>I'll admit most of my rejection of this notion stemmed from my dislike of what Christianity

You don't like Christianity so you thought the Lord of the Rings shouldn't count as Christian literature? That may not even the most retard thing said either with your idea that the Old Testament doesn't really count as Christian. You don't just dislike Christianity, you're completely ignorant of it.

>>8711506
Old testament is in no way pre Christian in the sense you are talking about.
Old Testament is as vital as the New, but in a different way.

>>8711567
Yes, it's not very rational, that's why I started off with "I'll admit" and then proceeded to reform my standpoint. It's these things that bring any sort of discourse forward.

>>8711639
Technically the Old Testament is prechristian. Although for sure not in the very same sense I meant prechristian European mythology. Yes I phrased it totally wrong, it's late. And I never said the Old Testament was not vital to Christianity. It's just that it functions as a standalone mythology/religion/theology as well. My point is that if the Biblical themes found in Tolkien's work are almost exclusively from the Old Testament and contain little to no trace of the New and the whole main point of the religion that is Christ (this point may be argued or refuted of course) it might as well be labeled Judaic or whatever literature instead of Christian.

>>8711235
Yes. Excellent study bible.

>>8711764
I'm pretty late to this but basically
>the meekest creatures (Hobbits) defeated the greatest evil
>Gandalf's death and resurrection
>Aragorn descends into the realm of the dead and redeems a bunch people who betrayed his forefathers

Here's a bishop explaining it better than could
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSPbmWIPAN0

>>8712915

Well, I have accepted already the Tolkien lore does count as Christian literature, although not exclusively.
The meekest creatures being the truest heroes is a valid point, but the bold descent into the realm of the dead, which is usually a burrow (mountain) and interacting with the dead and returning with wisdom, gifts, whatever, is one of the very central points of ancient European paganism (forgiveness is not alien from prechristan myths, either). Death & resurrection in general is, too, a very common theme in most mythologies around the loose vicinity of the Mediterranean. Also, sacrifice of self for something greater/humanity is found in many mythologies/religions, all across the globe (Jesus, Wotan, Xipe Totec to name a few).

>>8711726
Shit is misleading. I hope no one accidentaly The meta(literally 'after')physics before reading Physics

>>8713997
Aristotelian Physics is completely irrelevant to his metaphysics.
They aren't even read in most courses on Aristotle and certainly unimportant for Aquinas.