Bad Books, Good Books, and Naming Names

On the most recent edition of Mortification of Spin: Bully Pulpit, Carl, Aimee, and I discuss the dreadful state of evangelical reading habits. Certainly there are some excellent books and publishers out there. But it takes only a moment perusing the Christian bestseller lists to understand that the majority of Christians buying books are buying bad books. That's right. I just made a judgment. On the podcast posted today we even name some names. I don't know any of those named writers personally. All I really know about them is that they have written some bad books that you ought to avoid. And if you are a Christian author and cannot handle being criticized then you chose the wrong profession. Criticism never feels good. I certainly don't like it. But if you write books and/or Bible studies then I assume you want people in the church I serve as pastor to buy those materials since it is marketed to them. Therefore if your books are bad then I have the responsibility as a pastor to warn people not to read your stuff. All that seems rather obvious to me but I have found that stating the obvious has become a necessity these days. 

But as much as I don't like bad books, I love good books and Bible studies. And the good news is that there are lots of good books and studies out there. Since in my last post I criticized the material written by Beth Moore you may be wondering: "Then what do you recommend we study you big grump?" Here are some excellent options to get you started:

Anything by Nancy Guthrie and Carol Ruvolo

Good Book Guides

Let's Study Series

Living Word Bible Studies

Knowing the Bible Series

Bringing the Bible to Life Series

* If you would like to challenge the women of your church to aspire to something better than the sentemental drivel that is marketed to them then check out this book.