RECANTARE!
Lest I be tarred and feathered, I will make a clear statement in defense of my comments regarding Bruce's wonderful and educational book review on his blog.
I am not, and have never been, a hater of The Complete Timotheus Verinus. I love that book. I own it. I have taken it to church and shown it to people. To further prove my loyalty, I will even show you how to go buy one of your very own:
Go here. Search for "The Complete Timotheus Verinus". It is about $38.
Further, I am not, and have never been, a hater of reviews of The Complete Timotheus Verinus. Pietism is an important subject. It is something that we should discuss regularly.
Forgive me for suggesting that new Lutherans read a few other books before jumping into this difficult read. It is not that I think that you should ignore the dangers of Pietism. I just think that, since no one reads anymore, they should make the one or two books about the faith that they do bother to read really count. In my own personal opinion, I value several books above Loescher's great work against pietism. If I was a layman who had no Lutheran books and only $40, I would buy this, or this, or this.
Unfortunately, those three were in my infamous list of "Thirty Books". With regret I admit that there were 27 other books that I personally prefered to Loescher's book. I now reacant that list and will no longer rate books by my personal opinion. I will not rate their value or list them in any order of importance. If asked by new Lutherans, I will provide a general list of books that I recommend--to include the Timotheus Verinus of course--and let them pick which one they want to start with.
If my statements mean that I have trashed the good name of the Timotheus Verinus, then I apologize. That was not my intent. Thank you for pointing out my error, Brother Bruce.
[Note: Hehe... I know that there are humorless Lutherans out there. This is all a in harmless fun of course. :) Bruce makes some great points on his Blog. Go check him out. If this post sends one more person to his posts about pietism, then it will have achieved its purpose.]
1 comment:
Thanks for the referral.
Actually there are a few other books that may be more accessible to newcomers to Lutheranism. My friend Gene Edward Veith has written two which are quite good: THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE CROSS, which he wrote actually as an apology of Lutheranism for the multitudes of Reformed who read his books, and GOD AT WORK which is his rendering of Wingren's famous book LUTHER ON VOCATION. Both would be useful reading AFTER the Reader's version of the Confessions which you reference (and which he also worked on BTW).
As you point out, no one reads anymore (I had a Russian woman tell me that today, strangely!). Or they are reading more and more dumbed down literature which actually takes them out of the habit of reading the more dense stuff. So it is hard to recommend something that will appeal to the average reader.
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