Books in the Queue, Guilty Conscience Edition

I have a bad habit of acquiring books faster than I’m able to read them. I’m sure many of Reformed Forum’s readers can sympathize. My bibliophile friends tell me this isn’t a bad habit at all. In fact, some have suggested that throughout your life more than half of your personal library should be comprised of books you haven’t yet read. That leaves ample room to explore, lend, and otherwise move through your collection with freedom.

My guilty conscience is not yet fully persuaded of these virtues. So to help assuage it in some small way, I’d like to share several of the books I have in the queue. Some are hot off the press. Others have been published for several years. Many I’ve “read” in Mortimer J. Adler inspectional fashion but deserve a step up to analytical, or perhaps even syntopical reading.

• Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology (Oxford University Press) edited by Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray
• Still Interpreting Vatican II: Some Hermeneutical Principles (Paulist Press) by Ormond Rush
• Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church (Oxford University Press) by Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen
• The Second Vatican Council and Other Religions (Oxford University Press) by Gerald O’Collins, SJ
• Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Baker Academic) by Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain
• The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History, and Modernity (IVP Academic) by Stephen R. Holmes
• Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Baker Academic) by Khaled Anatolios
• The Renewal of Trinitarian Theology: Themes, Patterns & Explorations (IVP Academic) by Roderick T. Leupp
• God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Baker Academic) by Nonna Verna Harrison
• Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views (IVP Academic) with contributions by Craig L. Blomberg, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., F. Scott Spencer, Robert W. Wall, and Merold Westphal
• Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (George Braziller) by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
• Redeeming Mathematics: A God-Centered Approach (Crossway) by Vern S. Poythress
• The Problem of Good: When the World Seems Fine without God (P&R Publishing) edited by D. Marion Clark
• The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts (Crossway) by Joe Rigney

I’m thankful that I rest upon the finished work of Jesus Christ for my salvation. Having his righteousness imputed to me, I suppose I can take my time with these books without a truly guilty conscience.