Him We Proclaim

On Saturday we visited St Andrews Castle. It lays in ruins, with the occasional structure intact. A room in the tower gate where pedestrians would have entered still remains, as does the room housing the dungeon - a circular opening into which prisoners were lowered into a larger room underneath. Practically medieval. The ruins tell a story of the fall of the Roman Catholic church, the death of Cardinal Beaty (who fathered over 20 illegitimate children) at the hands of reformers, and the eventual capture of the castle by French Catholic reinforcements who captured and enslaved John Knox for two years before his eventual release. But it is not all that is in ruins. Nor is it all that tells a story. Before exiting the gift shop where tickets are sold, one has the chance to walk through a brief series of displays telling illustrating the castle's story. Towards the end, a statue of John Knox, the famous Scottish Reformer, leans over the pulpit in the middle of an earnest sermon. The r

 This is my final week studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I will walk May 14, but my last assignment gets turned in this Thursday. The end of this 5-year journey brings a nostalgic reflection of these formative years. I will probably write several posts about this in the coming month or two.  I thought I would kick it off with 15 books that were influential for my growth. Some were required reading (R) and some were not required reading (NR). I found that as I studied, I learned to choose better books to read on my own time. These often integrated quite well with other things I was learning over the semester. These are not all of the top books I read - for example, I chose to leave out books that did not deal with Christianty in some way. For example, I recently read a couple of books on economics that I found immensely useful and practical even for Christian ministry. But they are not included in this list. I provide the author, title, year publishes, whether it was requ