Thought Quotient

I often wonder why our Christian culture gives the impression that only in the past 50 years or so have we really discovered the truth. We all rush out to buy and read the latest books from Max Lucado, Charles Stanley and Philip Yancey as though they have the “newest” truth available. I wonder if maybe we’ve bought a little too much into pop culture’s “new is better” mentality. I know, I know - we’re just trying to be relevant and “in tune” with the culture. That’s all well and good, I’m not criticizing… much. I’m certainly just as guilty.

But let’s remember that the truth of Christianity has been the truth of Christianity for a long time - it wasn’t just “discovered” in the past 50 - or even 100 - years. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “… there is nothing new under the sun…” and that is very true. The observations and ideas put forth by Lucado, Stanley and Yancey - not to be harsh - did not originate with them. Rather they were built on the observations and ideas of years of Christian history - Erasmus, Origen, Augustine, Bunyan, Spurgeon, and countless others…

In light of that, I thought I would pass along a link to a few wonderful sites that might provide you with some good reading material to put you in touch with the foundations of the faith and the foundations of literature… all for FREE!!! If you have a pda… you can even download and take them with you!

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Hundreds of works by Christian writers (and other historical writers) throughout history: Spurgeon, Bunyan, The Early Church Fathers, even Dostoevsky and Josephus.

Project Gutenberg

Thousands of Classic Books (Hawthorne, Dickens, Dostoevsky, and thousands more) available for free. Support the efforts of Project Gutenberg by volunteering or donating.

“Religious truth is captive in a small number of little manuscripts which guard the common treasures, instead of expanding them. Let us break the seal which binds these holy things; let us give wings to truth that it may fly with the Word, no longer prepared at vast expense, but multitudes everlastingly by a machine which never wearies to every soul which enters life.”
- Johann Gutenberg

This entry was posted by Scott on Thursday, November 18th, 2004 at 12:15 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.