BOOKS.

[IainH]

I thought I'd start a thread to suggest good reading. I found this book on Amazon titled "Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible" by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. IVP Press. It was interesting to read a book by American authors, that doesn't presume God is an American or that the western way of life is Gods idea.
  The authors spent time as missionaries in Indonesia in a society that was more in line with God's than ours. They also brought out some of the failings in western Christianity but, I think  the similarities with us ends there. They just couldn't help categorizing and ended with......wait for it.....YES, three things you can do. If you use your winnowing fork there are a few worthwhile moments.

I might recommend Orthodoxy and Heretics from GK Chesterton. Yes, he is western and a Catholic but I believe he was heart-lead...more so than C.S. Lewis. And he often railed against modernity and its patterns of thinking. Some his prose might be dense but there's always some humor in it, and he doesn't take himself too seriously (he was called "The Prophet of Mirth" for a reason).

You may get something out of it. I definitely did, and still do, but I'm biased.

Gutenberg has them for free:
Orthodoxy
Heretics

I've heard of him but, never read his works, I will now.