Spiritual Classics

The Brightest Lights of the Christian Tradition St. Augustine, Thomas Merton, Fredrick Buechner, Evelyn Underhill, A.W. Tozer, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas More, Martin Luther King, Jr., Amy Carmichael, Simone Weil, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hildegard of Bingen, John Milton, Dorothy Day, Leo Tolstoy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and more. . . From nearly two thousand years of Christian writing comes Spiritual Classcs,fifty–two selections complete with a profile of each author, guided meditations for group and individual use, and reflections containing questions and exercises. Editors Richard Foster and Emilie Griffith offer their expertise by selecting inspirational writings and including their own commentary and recommendations for further guided reading and exploration.

A kaleidoscope of inspiration that lets the reader delve into the ideas of many of our great spiritual thinkers.

From the creators of Devotional Classics and Spiritual Classics comes 25 Books Every Christian Should Read, the definitive guide to the most spiritually influential and important books for Christians to read. Renovaré, a community of Christians promoting personal and spiritual renewal, put together a prestigious editorial board including Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Phyllis Tickle, and Richard Rohr, resulting in this wonderful resource for exploring the richness of the Christian tradition.

2014 Best Book of Spirituality—Academic, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore Ever since Richard Foster wrote Celebration of Discipline in 1978, evangelicals have hungered for a deeper and more historic spirituality. Many have come to discover the wealth of spiritual insight available in the Desert Fathers, the medieval mystics, German Pietism and other traditions. While these classics have been a source of life-changing renewal for many, still others are wary of these texts and the foreign theological traditions from which they come. The essays in this volume provide a guide for evangelicals to read the Christian spiritual classics. The contributions fall into four sections. The first three answer the big questions: why should we read the spiritual classics, what are these classics and how should we read them? The last section brings these questions together into a brief reading guide for each of the major traditions. Each essay not only explores the historical and theological context, but also expounds the appropriate hermeneutical framework and the significance for the church today. Together these essays provide a comprehensive and charitable introduction to the spiritual classics, suitable for both those who already embrace them and those who remain concerned and cautious. Whether you are a newcomer to historic spirituality or a seasoned reader looking to go deeper, you will find this volume to be a reliable resource for years to come.

In inclusive and contemporary translations, this volume introduces the reader to the rich complex of issues that Luther contributes to the history of spirituality

Publisher description

This book presents introductions to classics of Christian spiritual literature. Written in a popular, lively style, each essay is based on up-to-date research and insights into the place of the classics in a contemporary spirituality.

"If you only ever read one spiritual book, let it be this one." - Susan Jeffers, author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway 50 Spiritual Classics captures the diversity of life journeys that span centuries, continents, spiritual traditions and secular beliefs: from the historical The Book of Chuang Tzu to modern insight from the Kabbalah, from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. The first and only bite-sized guide to the very best in spiritual writing, this one-of-a-kind collection includes personal memoirs and complelling biographies of such diverse figures as Gandhi, Malcolm X and Black Elk; Eastern philosophers and gurus including Krishnamurti, Yogananda, Chogyam Trungpa and Shunryu Suzuki; and Western saints and mystics such as St. Frances of Assisi, Hermann Hesse and Simone Weil. The last fifteen years have been a golden age in the genre of personal spitirual awakening, with names such as Eckhart Tolle, Neale Donald Walsch and James Redfield breathing new life into the literature. 50 Spiritual Classics showcases these newer works alongside traditional classics such as St Augustine's Confessions and Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, and conveys the great variety of spiritual experience. In its commentaries of both the conventional classics as well as new writings destined to endure, 50 Spiritual Classics makes universal the human spiritual experience and will inspire spiritual seekers everywhere to begin their own adventure.