Thread: Worst book you've read? (Grenz, for me!)

Speaking of boring, what about the Koran. Man that just about killed me trying to get through it! Perhaps that's what some want: dead infidels from reading the Koran.

Originally Posted by Grymir

The absolute worst is Barth, anything by Barth. John Hagee is more interesting than Barth. Probably more biblical too!

Every time I read your posts I hear Rush screaming at me, it is hard to seperate it in my mind, it is like, "Rush, your a ranting calvinist". His inflection is in every post, makes for interesting threads.

Originally Posted by danmpem

Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian

I almost forgot about Brennan Manning. I thought I had repressed the memory of reading this book, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Manning has been recommended to be by some of my Reformed friends. Is he really that bad?

From what I've read of him, yes, yes, and ... yes. He's a Catholic mystical priest, for one thing - that ought to set you on your guard before you hear anything about what he actually writes. He teaches that man is basically good (but flawed), that a key (if not THE) way to reach God is through essentially an Eastern, mystical meditative prayer complete with mantras, and rejects any semblance of an orthodox view concerning the necessity of Christ's shed blood on the cross. He has some shocking views concerning what he would term "liberty" but which is no less than license.

Don't touch him with a ten-foot pole. He seems to me to be just another "cool" cat that emergent and new agey-mystical folks like. I am surprised to hear that you have "Reformed" people suggesting him to you... I'd talk with them about what they find so attractive, and warn them about picking up "the next new thing."

I remembered another one - The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. My mother made me read it when I was about 15 - apparently my attitude was too negative. While she may have had a point about my attitude, reading that book certainly didn't help. I wasn't a believer at that stage, and wasn't converted until I was 19, but I could already see that the nonsense Peale was peddling wasn't the Gospel, nor did it make any logical sense. Unfortunately the book turned me into more of a cynic than I already was.

The Coup de Grace for me.


Gotta love the cover! Boo!

Here comes the Boogey Man!

Originally Posted by Blue Tick

The Coup de Grace for me.


Gotta love the cover! Boo!

Here comes the Boogey Man!

Makes you think Sproul is hiding under your bed at night or something.

Books that I should not have read, just not healthy for me at the time, were imposed on me in high school: Flowers for Algernon and Catcher in the Rye.

I recently had to read some weird books at seminary in my Ethics course, one of which was Nickel and Dimed (Not getting by in America) and Wendell Berry's Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays

Neither were believers and I spent good hard cash for theology and had to read this tripe. One was on being broke in the US and the other was (I guess) Christians have to be communal.

John, I like the five ominous figures on the cover. One for each point I take it?

Originally Posted by Stephen

Late Great Planet Earth by that greatest scholar of all time, Hal Lindsey.

He needs to keep writing - he's got all those alimony checks to write. He's been married - what? 5 times (at last count)?

Every time Lindsey sets pen to paper he sets the serious study of eschatology back ten years!

Originally Posted by Timothy William

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes.

I saw the movie version - National Lampoon's Summer Vacation.

Makes you think Sproul is hiding under your bed at night or something.

Yes, indeed.

I recollect my mom checking out a copy of "Everybody Poops" when I was three and I found it quite patronizing.

Originally Posted by Devin

Makes you think Sproul is hiding under your bed at night or something.

I would be so ecstatic to wake up and Sproul was hiding under my bed (alive)!

I am close to finishing up Letter to A Christian Nation by Sam Harris. So far it is has seemed pretty shallow to me. I am wanting to read Wilson's response to Harris to see if Wilson's response is any good.

Originally Posted by Devin

Originally Posted by Blue Tick

The Coup de Grace for me.


Gotta love the cover! Boo!

Here comes the Boogey Man!

Makes you think Sproul is hiding under your bed at night or something.

Originally Posted by Devin

Originally Posted by Blue Tick

The Coup de Grace for me.


Gotta love the cover! Boo!

Here comes the Boogey Man!

Makes you think Sproul is hiding under your bed at night or something.

I agree with Davidius, that the Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee could be the worse book ever written.

One that is worse, is ANYTHING by Andrew Murray.

The worse book I read by a Reformed author would have to be John MacArthur's Saved Without a Doubt. It was really compact, and because of that it gave some very weak, packaged answers to the hard passages that Conditional Security people use. I just couldn't get interested in this book, not sure if it was the writing style.

At the public library by my house I read some pretty bad books in the Christianity section. As a new convert I didn't understand that there were such things as liberal Christians. So I ended up reading a lot of books and coming away confused. One was an attack on the Bible, in the Christianity section. The other was about Aliens, Mexico and Christianity(odd book).

Thankfully now I have a good website to poke around on and pick up on who are the good authors.

Originally Posted by bookslover

Originally Posted by Timothy William

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes.

I saw the movie version - National Lampoon's Summer Vacation.

Originally Posted by danmpem

Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian

I almost forgot about Brennan Manning. I thought I had repressed the memory of reading this book, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Manning has been recommended to be by some of my Reformed friends. Is he really that bad?

Yes, he is. I have met Manning, been to several of his conferences, and have read several of his books. He is a former papist priest, who is now married, but is still Roman Catholic. He speaks at papist conferences and is well received by liberals and some evangelicals. He denies justification by faith alone and is a very liberal Roman Catholic in advocating tolerance toward homosexuality. He has neo-orthodox leanings and is associated with many left-winged "evangelicals" like Tony Campolo and Ron Sider. I wonder how reformed someone is who would recommend Manning. I would caution people to stay clear of his teachings.

Originally Posted by bookslover

Originally Posted by Stephen

Late Great Planet Earth by that greatest scholar of all time, Hal Lindsey.

He needs to keep writing - he's got all those alimony checks to write. He's been married - what? 5 times (at last count)?

Every time Lindsey sets pen to paper he sets the serious study of eschatology back ten years!

I believe, if he is still married, he is currently living with his third wife. He is trice an adulterer and has no connection to a church.

Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian

I almost forgot about Brennan Manning. I thought I had repressed the memory of reading this book, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Keep repressing that memory. It will do your soul good.

What is the worst book I have ever read? There were so many.
Does Anyone remember the Joshua books by Joseph Girzone?
Bad, very bad.
But the worst book I tried to get through is When God was taken captive by Willard Aldritch. Totally Arminian, he says we are able to obey the Gospel; he has never heard of Total Depravity, Orgininal Sin and quite possibly the book of Romans.

Originally Posted by Timothy William

I remembered another one - The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. My mother made me read it when I was about 15 - apparently my attitude was too negative. While she may have had a point about my attitude, reading that book certainly didn't help. I wasn't a believer at that stage, and wasn't converted until I was 19, but I could already see that the nonsense Peale was peddling wasn't the Gospel, nor did it make any logical sense. Unfortunately the book turned me into more of a cynic than I already was.

Him and Schuller were great buddies. Peale was an RCA minister, who had influence on many of the RCA ministers of his generation, and was a regular speaker at conferences for the Unity cult in Kansas City. If you read his material (if you don't vomit) he is heavily into Religious Science and some of the teaching that effected the Fillmores who founded Unity School of "Christianiy" headquarted in Lee's Summitt, Missouri. Now we know why the RCA has fallen into apostacy.

Lincoln Money Martyred. A conspiracy buff had me read it to open my eyes to the truth. Authored by R.E. Search (I'm serious). Some guy delves into the National Archives and discovers our money system is secretly run by a hand full of Jews, and when Lincoln found out they killed him. His main proof was a ghost that appeared in the last chapter to fill in the blanks of his research.

The second was The Trail of Blood by JM Caroll. The Landmark Baptist account of history.

The third is The New Testament Church by Bill Downing, a Reformed Baptist pastor in the San Jose CA area. It's also a Landmark Baptist type historical account of how the Baptists have survived pure through out the ages in the form of the Paulatians, Bogomils, etc...

The fourth was Hal Lindsay's The Road To Holocaust which blames Christianity and Christian Reconstruction specifically for the killing and future killing of innocent Jews.

Then there are the works of Bonhoeffer, which I don't like because I don't understand them and I've tried to.

Originally Posted by InevitablyReformed

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

What St. Paul Really Said, by N.T. Wright

The last two volumes of Westermann's Genesis commentary

The Call of Grace, by Norman Shepherd

The Covenantal Gospel, by Cornelis van der Waal

A Faith That Is Never Alone, edited by Andrew Sandlin

Women in the Church, by Grenz and Kjesbo

The Federal Vision, by Wilkins and Garner

Rev,

I think I know why you put these in here, but worse than [I]Purpose Driven Life[I]or something by Osteen? Given the mass circulation of the Warren, Osteen, Hinn garbage--aren't they far more misleading? I guess what I'm asking is: Are widely circulated Osteen books worse than books by Norman Shepherd that 98 % of people in the world have never and would never pick up? Just curious. Thanks.

I am sure that, in terms of impact, you are quite right. I was only referring to books I had actually read. I haven't read (and will not read!) the ones you have mentioned. As Martin Snyder said, I don't even have enough time to read all the good books.

Originally Posted by Ivan

Anybody ever hear of C.S. Lovett?

Hew boy....those were stinkers.

Yeah, Dealing with the Devil. That was my first clue that all is not well with Christian bookstores. In the mid-70's mind you. I don't think I read more than 20 or 30 pages before I tore it up. Yeah, I know, that many???

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

I am sure that, in terms of impact, you are quite right. I was only referring to books I had actually read. I haven't read (and will not read!) the ones you have mentioned. As Martin Snyder said, I don't even have enough time to read all the good books.

Amen to that, and I can't read with the intensity that I once did. I must be getting old.

I saw a couple people list Desiring God by Piper as the worst, or near worst, book they ever read. Could you guys explain that? Thanks!

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

Chosen but Free has to be up there somewhere.

Also ANY "book" by Osteen.

I would agree...but there are some useful quotes of the church father's in Chosen but Free ! Alas, my dog chewed it up. God's providence I imagine.

Also anything by John Eldredge. I could barely stomach "Wild at Heart."

Originally Posted by No Longer A Libertine

I recollect my mom checking out a copy of "Everybody Poops" when I was three and I found it quite patronizing.

LOL

Originally Posted by Timothy William

I remembered another one - The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. My mother made me read it when I was about 15 - apparently my attitude was too negative. While she may have had a point about my attitude, reading that book certainly didn't help. I wasn't a believer at that stage, and wasn't converted until I was 19, but I could already see that the nonsense Peale was peddling wasn't the Gospel, nor did it make any logical sense. Unfortunately the book turned me into more of a cynic than I already was.

I think Peale's book blazed a trail in the Christian Self Help Genre.

*** Which reminds me of a scene from blazing saddles **** ( can of beans, not worms )

Originally Posted by caddy

Originally Posted by Timothy William

I remembered another one - The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. My mother made me read it when I was about 15 - apparently my attitude was too negative. While she may have had a point about my attitude, reading that book certainly didn't help. I wasn't a believer at that stage, and wasn't converted until I was 19, but I could already see that the nonsense Peale was peddling wasn't the Gospel, nor did it make any logical sense. Unfortunately the book turned me into more of a cynic than I already was.

I think Peale's book blazed a trail in the Christian Self Help Genre.

*** Which reminds me of a scene from blazing saddles **** ( can of beans, not worms )

They have a clip on You tube, type in Blazing Saddles, top of the list

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

Originally Posted by Contra Marcion

New Age Bible Versions, by Gail Riplinger. Even my KJV-only friends were embarrassed at this one. Her arguments are silly at best, and shamefully dishonest at worst. Why, one wonders, would anyone seriously read a book on textual issues written by someone with a home economics degree, and who knows neither of the Biblical languages? ( I had to for a class).

I totally forgot this book! Great example! I went through the first fifty pages, and documented all the factual errors in her quotations of the modern versions. Constantly, she misrepresented the facts, by saying that "the modern versions say x," when only one of them did, and the rest agreed with the KJV! She made the differences far greater than they actually are. Furthermore, she has no hermeneutical training, and so she misrepresents other differences as well. I had a 13 page document when I was done, ripping her book to shreds. James White has quite adequately answered her as well.

Remember Peter Ruckman...... I have a commentary that was given to me by someone on the book of Exodus. It isn't a commentary on the book per se. It is a critique of everyone else's views on the book. LOL

This guy has to know he is a liar concerning manuscript history.

Originally Posted by jaybird0827

Originally Posted by Ivan

Anybody ever hear of C.S. Lovett?

Hew boy....those were stinkers.

Yeah, Dealing with the Devil. That was my first clue that all is not well with Christian bookstores. In the mid-70's mind you. I don't think I read more than 20 or 30 pages before I tore it up. Yeah, I know, that many???

Remember His book... Help Lord, The Devil wants me fat!


Dealing with the Devil and that one were big when I was in the Navy many moons ago.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Originally Posted by bookslover

Originally Posted by Stephen

Late Great Planet Earth by that greatest scholar of all time, Hal Lindsey.

He needs to keep writing - he's got all those alimony checks to write. He's been married - what? 5 times (at last count)?

Every time Lindsey sets pen to paper he sets the serious study of eschatology back ten years!

I believe, if he is still married, he is currently living with his third wife. He is trice an adulterer and has no connection to a church.

???

Is it three? I came across part of his bio on the internet. Is it inaccurate?

Jan - Second wife, worked together in Campus Crusade (mother of his three grown children).

Kim - Third wife (on back cover of Planet Earth - 2000; sister of author Johanna Michaelsen)

JoLyn, Fourth wife????, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Originally Posted by bookslover

Originally Posted by Stephen

Late Great Planet Earth by that greatest scholar of all time, Hal Lindsey.

He needs to keep writing - he's got all those alimony checks to write. He's been married - what? 5 times (at last count)?

Every time Lindsey sets pen to paper he sets the serious study of eschatology back ten years!

I believe, if he is still married, he is currently living with his third wife. He is trice an adulterer and has no connection to a church.

???

Is it three? I came across this bio on the internet.

Converted after first marriage broke up.

Jan - Second wife, worked together in Campus Crusade (mother of his three grown children).

Kim - Third wife (on back cover of Planet Earth - 2000; sister of author Johanna Michaelsen)

JoLyn, Fourth wife????, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

Originally Posted by Stephen

Originally Posted by bookslover

He needs to keep writing - he's got all those alimony checks to write. He's been married - what? 5 times (at last count)?

Every time Lindsey sets pen to paper he sets the serious study of eschatology back ten years!

I believe, if he is still married, he is currently living with his third wife. He is trice an adulterer and has no connection to a church.

???

Is it three? I came across part of his bio on the internet. Is it inaccurate?

Jan - Second wife, worked together in Campus Crusade (mother of his three grown children).

Kim - Third wife (on back cover of Planet Earth - 2000; sister of author Johanna Michaelsen)

JoLyn, Fourth wife????, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

Really? I was not aware that he was married a fourth time. So much for church discipline.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

Originally Posted by Stephen

I believe, if he is still married, he is currently living with his third wife. He is trice an adulterer and has no connection to a church.

???

Is it three? I came across part of his bio on the internet. Is it inaccurate?

Jan - Second wife, worked together in Campus Crusade (mother of his three grown children).

Kim - Third wife (on back cover of Planet Earth - 2000; sister of author Johanna Michaelsen)

JoLyn, Fourth wife????, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

Really? I was not aware that he was married a fourth time. So much for church discipline.

You only need to be a "one woman" man when you are an elder. Hal is a celebrity. And, by the way, I don't KNOW that he is married 4 times, merely that some bio information on the Internet mentions his fourth wife???

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

Originally Posted by Stephen

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

???

Is it three? I came across part of his bio on the internet. Is it inaccurate?

Jan - Second wife, worked together in Campus Crusade (mother of his three grown children).

Kim - Third wife (on back cover of Planet Earth - 2000; sister of author Johanna Michaelsen)

JoLyn, Fourth wife????, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

Really? I was not aware that he was married a fourth time. So much for church discipline.

You only need to be a "one woman" man when you are an elder. Hal is a celebrity. And, by the way, I don't KNOW that he is married 4 times, merely that some bio information on the Internet mentions his fourth wife???

It is a consolation that he has only had one at a time

The worst book I have ever read was "A Divine Revelation of Hell" or something like that. Mary Baxter said that she left her body and spent time in Hell so that she could come and tell us about it (for just $9.99). Her trip to hell was so profitable, she took another trip. This one was to heaven. I ordered it from CBD for a book club that I belonged to at the time. I didn't take her second trip with her though.

Originally Posted by christianyouth

I agree with Davidius, that the Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee could be the worse book ever written.

One that is worse, is ANYTHING by Andrew Murray.

serious???