Book burnings. Threats of damnation. Censorship. Over its thousand-year history, the church has reacted with fury to books that challenged Christian beliefs. Names such as Galileo, Darwin, Marx, and Freud have provoked (and even still provoke) bitter recriminations from the church and individual Christians. But why all the fuss? How should the church respond today to these and other provocative books?
7 Books That Rocked the Church tackles these difficult questions by examining some notoriously controversial books—such as Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Voltaire’s Candide, and more—giving a brief history of the authors themselves, the ideas behind the books that conflicted with contemporary church thinking, the church’s response (and perhaps what church leaders could have done better at the time), and the relevance of these books for us today.
Through the text and accompanying helpful discussion questions, readers will come away better equipped to answer the charge, often leveled in secular environments, that the church is intolerant of competing ideas. Looking back at these infamous books will also help them interact with possibly “dangerous” future ideas—all the while following Jesus’ admonition to be wise as serpents but gentle as doves.
