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"Take up Your Cross" | Prompt ▼ It's hardly an original choice, but my favorite Christian author is C.S. Lewis. The way he thinks about religion and faith is fascinating and still relevant today. And while I like a whole lot of his books, my favorite is probably The Screwtape Letters (followed closely by Mere Christianity). The Screwtape Letters is just such a disturbing, thought-provoking book... I still revisit it frequently and think about it frequently. If you're not familiar, it's an epistolary between a junior demon (Wormwood) and a senior demon (Screwtape) where the latter gives the younger demon advice on how to best corrupt humans and turn them away from God. And, um, it's pretty spot on. Fun fact... C.S. Lewis' original dedication in The Screwtape Letters is to J.R.R. Tolkien! They were contemporaries who often met up to discuss writing and religion. But C.S. Lewis is a pretty predictable choice, so I'm going to try to pick some other contemporary Christian authors as well just to round this blog entry out. John Mark Comer is probably one of my favorites because he tackles popular modern-day issues like depression, the pace of the world, finding peace, etc. I absolutely loved The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and really enjoyed Garden City. I actually have Live No Lies on my bookshelf as one of my next reads. Francis Chan is another great author who is on the forefront of the movement to get away from the idea of big, corporate church and go back to the roots of the faith. Crazy Love and Forgotten God were both great, and I also have his new Letters to the Church on my bookshelf. I haven't really read many of his books, but I love listening to N.T. Wright's podcast where he answers questions about the faith. He's one of the world's most preeminent living biblical scholars and his thoughts are always fascinating. The couple of books of his I've read have been pretty dry, but I'm actually thinking about getting some of his Bible commentaries to supplement my regular Bible reading. I've read several other Christian authors over the years, but these are the ones that I come back to over and over again. |