Sunday, February 22, 2015

Next Up On My Reading List

Having finished a few books I am plunging into a couple more.

The first is one I have been eager to read since I heard a conversation with the author on NPR. The book is God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power At the Vatican by Gerald Posner. You can get a good flavor of the book by checking out the interview on NPR, From Laundering To Profiteering, A Multitude Of Sins At The Vatican Bank. As Posner, who considers himself a Catholic, points out:

It us not about faith, belief in God, or questions about the existence of a higher power. Instead, God's Bankers is about how money, and accumulating and fighting over it, has been a dominant theme in the history of the Catholic Church and often in shaping its divine mission.

I am already seeing some applicability in the cautionary story for the Christian church. Money is a demanding task master and there is a reason why warnings about love of money abound in the Scriptures.

The second book I am getting ready to read has a lengthy title: The Hutterian Brethren, 1528-1931, and The principle of nonresistance as held by the Mennonite Church by John Horsch. It is so old and obscure that it doesn't even show up on Amazon! It will probably go to the back of the pack as I have other books I want to read first and it is a topic I have read a lot about recently but it still looks to be a good read.

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