The All-Time Most Influencial Christian Books

I had this all set up to post on my book industry blog, but felt it really deserved the wider readership here also…

I found this rather awesome list at the blog James’ Mirror – Christian Discipleship Guide. I’d like to think that if I posted the link most of you would click through, but experience teaches me it’s better to reblog the item; however, I hope a few of you will give the author some traffic, and click through (click the title below) to read this at source.

Most Influential Christian Books

After a search across the internet for the most influential texts in Christian history came up empty, I decided to create my own. It is admittedly biased toward western, evangelical, Protestant books with a skew toward more recent publications. I’m sure there are a lot of gaps, so I’d love your ideas for how to improve the list. It’s ordered by date and includes texts such as creeds and Bible translations.

• Antiquities of the Jews (94) – Josephus
• The Didiche (~100)
• Against Heresies (180) – Irenaeus
• On the Incarnation (318) – Athanasius
• Nicean Creed (325)
• Life of Antony (360) – Athanasius
• Confessions (400) – Augustine
• Latin Vulgate (405) – Jerome
• City of God (413-426) – Augustine
• Creed of Chacedon (451)
• The Rule of St Benedict (530) – Benedict
• The Philokalia (400-1500) – Various
• On Loving God (1128) – Bernard
• Book of Sentences (1150) – Peter Lombard
• Summa Theoligica (1273) – Thomas Aquinas
• Revelations of Love – Julian of Norwich
• Imitation of Christ (1418-1427) – Thomas a Kempis
• Gutenberg Bible (1456)
• 95 Theses (1517) – Martin Luther
• Bondage of the Will (1525) – Martin Luther
• German Bible translation (1522, 1534) – Martin Luther
• Commentary on Galatians (1535) – Luther
• Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) – John Calvin
• The Divine Comedy (1555) – Dante Alighieri
• Acts and Monuments (aka Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) (1563) – John Fox
• Dark Night of the Soul (1584) – John of the Cross
• Spiritual Exercises (1522-1524) – Ignatius
• Book of Common Prayer (1549) – Thomas Cranmer
• Heidelberg Catechism (1563)
• King James Bible (1611)
• Westminster Confession (1646)
• Death of Death (1647) – John Owen
• Reformed Pastor (1657) – Richard Baxter
• Pensees (1669) – Blaise Pascal
• Pia Desideria (1675) – Philip Jacob Spener
• Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) – John Bunyan
• Institutes of Elenctic Theology (1679-1685) – Francis Turretin
• Attributes of God (1682) – Stephen Charnock
• New England Primer (1687)
• Body of Divinity (1692) – Thomas Watson
• Practice of the Presence of God (~1700) – Brother Lawrence/Joseph de Beaufont
• Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728) – William Law
• Religious Affections (1746) – Jonathan Edwards
• Diary of David Brainerd (1749) – Jonathan Edwards
• Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766) – John Wesley
• Missionary Travels (1857) – David Livingstone
• Holiness (1877) – JC Ryle
• Systematic Theology (1871) – Charles Hodge
• Diary of George Muller – George Muller
• In His Steps (1897) – Charles Sheldon
• Lectures on Calvinism (1898) – Abraham Kuyper
• Orthodoxy (1908) – GK Chesterton
• The Scofield Study Bible (1909) – Cyrus Scofield
• The Fundamentals (1910-1915) – RA Torrey
• Christianity and Liberalism (1923) – J Gresham Machen
• My Utmost for His Highest (1924) – Oswald Chambers
• Church Dogmatics (1932 – 1967) – Karl Barth
• Cost of Discipleship (1937) – Dietrich Bonheoffer
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) – CS Lewis
• Christ and Culture (1951) – Richard Neibuhr
• Mere Christianity (1952) – CS Lewis
• Late Great Planet Earth (1970) – Hal Lindsey
• Knowing God (1973) – JI Packer
• The Celebration of Discipline (1978) – Richard Foster
• Desiring God (1986) – John Piper
• The Purpose Driven Life (2002) – Rick Warren

…So what did you think? Anything you would want to add? How many of these have you read?

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