Ok, its time for a bit of fun now. My request for tips on great contemporary books on theology got me thinking... Wouldn't it be great if we had a kind of canon on great new theology, that would reflect not the ideas of a single person, or a group of people, but the international community of theologians? I think this could be done without to much trouble and it could even be a bit of fun.
So here's what I thought we could do. I'll do the compiling here at God in a Shrinking Universe. The titles will be picked in two steps. First a nomination round; and then among these nominations, we will vote on which titles make it to the final list.
I think the best way to do the nominations is by creating a meme. I will do that in a separate post. The I will compile the results of that meme and among the titles that get a certain amounts of votes (I'll have to decide on the exact number when I see to what degree this picks up), I will compile the list of titles that participate in the final vote.
The reason I want to do it in two steps is that I think that it can be difficult to remember all books that are important when you chose from the top of your head, and with a list in front of you, you may chose somewhat differently. Also, it is more exciting. When I have the list of nominees that we will vote on, I will also ask for links to reviews on the various works (I'm sure many of you have such reviews in you blogs), and make it not only a list of good books, but also a list of more info on them.
So while spreading the meme, you can refer to this post for an explanation of what we are doing. By linking to this post, it will be easier for me to track the meme, but I should be able to find it also with search engines.
I won't be too strict when it comes what titles qualify, but let's focus on theology (not biblical exegesis, historical studies and so on - unless these are of special theological interest!). I'll let popular consensus decide. But the titles have to have been first published in the last 25 years, that is, from 1981 to 2006. (If it is published last week that will be ok too, but I doubt enough people will have had time to read it.)
If you do not have a blog of your own, you can give you nomination in a comment to this post.
So here's what I thought we could do. I'll do the compiling here at God in a Shrinking Universe. The titles will be picked in two steps. First a nomination round; and then among these nominations, we will vote on which titles make it to the final list.
I think the best way to do the nominations is by creating a meme. I will do that in a separate post. The I will compile the results of that meme and among the titles that get a certain amounts of votes (I'll have to decide on the exact number when I see to what degree this picks up), I will compile the list of titles that participate in the final vote.
The reason I want to do it in two steps is that I think that it can be difficult to remember all books that are important when you chose from the top of your head, and with a list in front of you, you may chose somewhat differently. Also, it is more exciting. When I have the list of nominees that we will vote on, I will also ask for links to reviews on the various works (I'm sure many of you have such reviews in you blogs), and make it not only a list of good books, but also a list of more info on them.
So while spreading the meme, you can refer to this post for an explanation of what we are doing. By linking to this post, it will be easier for me to track the meme, but I should be able to find it also with search engines.
I won't be too strict when it comes what titles qualify, but let's focus on theology (not biblical exegesis, historical studies and so on - unless these are of special theological interest!). I'll let popular consensus decide. But the titles have to have been first published in the last 25 years, that is, from 1981 to 2006. (If it is published last week that will be ok too, but I doubt enough people will have had time to read it.)
If you do not have a blog of your own, you can give you nomination in a comment to this post.
1 comment:
It seems like this will suffer from equating widely read and good.
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