Books we should not read!!!

[turnorburn]

You should be able to read any books that you're interested in reading. The trick is to keep an open mind; always question what you read, but don't avoid anything you read just because it disagrees with you.


Finis,
Eric

 

[Ed the Ned]

I think we should be careful to try and use our own judgement in reading a book or not, certain authors distort the Gospel and can lead to deception. Are you willing to take the chance of being decieved. We pray lead me not into temptation yet when it comes to reading books we open ourselves to all kinds of nonsense and half truths and lies. Authors like Brian McClaren are certainly decieving the church with their false doctrine, yet they are top of the sellers list in Christian bookstores! Where can one learn about authors that teach incorrectly?

 

[Fembot]

You should be able to read any books that you're interested in reading. The trick is to keep an open mind; always question what you read, but don't avoid anything you read just because it disagrees with you.


Finis,
Eric

What is so confusing?

 

[Nick]

I agree with Eric. Just becasue a book is not Christian (or is of another religion etc) that doesn't mean that we shouldn't read it. But it means that we should be carefull, so that we do not fall into sin or stumble when we read it.

Romans 14 comes to mind.

1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. 11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "[a] 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

 

[Ed the Ned]

I do not have any major issues with books that are of a different faith. We know when we start reading the book what it stands for. The problem arises when we read a book from a so called Christian author, the book is advertised as a Christian book yet it has serious flaws in how it proclaims the gospel. Lets take "A purpose driven life" by Rick Warren. Although it is seen as a Christian book it has some serious errors in it. Another book that needs to be looked at, and it is used as scripture by Rick Warren is "The Message" by Eugene Peterson. This book is riddled with new age and mystic jargon. "The Shack" although not a non-fiction book is being used in Bible Studies across the world as a teaching tool of how to be a Christian. I did not want to use examples asI know it will raise a lot of arguments amongst you, but it is important when reading books to understand that even if it is in the Christian Category at the book store, it does not make it Christian.

 

[jasoncran]

i will be reading thomas paines common sense , in ye ole english, that will be fun that off to the communist manifesto

jason

 

[Tina]

^

Books we should not read ? ... How about those written by . . Rebecca Brown


...... :naughty ........ ......... :devil

 

[Lance_Iguana]

If you don't want to become cynical, I would recommend not reading anything by Weber, Marx, or Nietzsche. Their works are a wealth of knowledge, but may make you look at humanity in a darker way and may not be the slant you want.

Though if you consider Nietz a lunatic, his work " Twilight of the Idols" can come off as amusing.

 

[jasoncran]

If you don't want to become cynical, I would recommend not reading anything by Weber, Marx, or Nietzsche. Their works are a wealth of knowledge, but may make you look at humanity in a darker way and may not be the slant you want.

Though if you consider Nietz a lunatic, his work " Twilight of the Idols" can come off as amusing.

weber as in max weber the socialigist.

jason

 

[Ed the Ned]

I have personally never heard of her before, but two things come to mind from what I have read on wikipedia.

1) Its a good thing she never found and plates with writing on them, we could have had another mormonism cult on our hands or something similar.
2) She seems a little deluded in her analysis of things, and could very well be mentally ill.

I would not pick up one of her books and read it as fact.

I recently picked up a book by Salem Kirban called "The rise of ANTICHRIST". I personally have an interest in the newage movement and I am trying to learn about end time prophecy as well. The title seemed enticing so I borrowed it to read, I stopped at the contents.
Although some of his theories had some relevance, he spoke of Head transplants, cannibal worms and birth hatcheries, human babies in cows etc. This book was written in 1978 and he seemed to state that these things would be happening soon.
I would deem these authors to be false teachers and false prophets and yes I would say don't read, but if you feel you have to, learn a little about the author before hand.
Salem Kirban made many false prophecies in his day and I am not interested in reading someones science fiction hogwash.

 

[Lance_Iguana]

If you don't want to become cynical, I would recommend not reading anything by Weber, Marx, or Nietzsche. Their works are a wealth of knowledge, but may make you look at humanity in a darker way and may not be the slant you want.

Though if you consider Nietz a lunatic, his work " Twilight of the Idols" can come off as amusing.

weber as in max weber the socialigist.

jason

Yeah. Him and Marx agreed on allot of issues. Though Marx was more of class reform then Webber's Bureaucracy reform. :yes

 

[cyberjosh]

ok i have a book that i believe we should not read and i will state why. But firstly i would like to say that i am weary about even saying which book because sometimes that stirs peoples flesh to go out and do the exact oppostie out of curiousity but fear is not of God so i am asking the Lord to please help people to not go in their flesh and get this book to seek it out.

The book i believe no one should read is the screwtape letters by c.s.lewis.

I had heard much about this book and so when i saw it at a discount store i bought it and was very excited to see what it was about because it has great renown(i know shutter to think of why that may be) the book begins with a statement by c.s.lewis in which he mentions in veiled terms that he will not disclose what method he used to get the converstaions in this book(implying first it is not a good method to use, and secondly that they are real conversations and not made up)the book is about three demons and the conversations they have back and forth about how to deiceve people and keep them decieved. they speak together about the people they are working on and how to keep them in chains and they speak of what the people begin to do in differnt cases that begins to free them from these demons and the plans and actions these demons take to recapture these people.


When i read this book the first day i got it, i only got maybe 20 pages in and i began to feel dizzy, like the room was spinning, i was off balance i felt like i was going to pass out or fall asleep right there, i did not know what was going on. i prayed against this not really knowing what it was but suspecting it may be the book but not sure about it. i went and layed down to take a nap because i really couldnt function. i prayed before i slept against whatever this was. When i slept i had a dream of three small scorpions one bigger than the other two but all pretty small. when i woke up i remembered this verse
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Jesus called devils serpents and scorpions so i knew that these were demons in my dream- 3 of them just like in the book 3 of them. So i prayed agains tit and rebuked them and then went outside with the book and burnt the whole book in my back yard area and when it was burnt up i felt just fine again. but it was a very old dry brittle book that should have went up like a match but i had to keep relighting it because that thing would not burn easily it kept going out. now i have burnt a bit of books since i was saved and very rarely does such a dry old book fail to go up in flames but eventually it did and pi prayed against those spirits and was fine. i do not believe this is a safe book to read and i believe it is possible that it was recieved to lewis by nefarious means.

Whoa, by the sound of it you were definitely under spiritual attack - but I wouldn't be so quick to blame the book. I have read about half of the book and there is nothing bad or sinister in it. In fact C.S. Lewis was a very Christian man and he wrote the book to help stengthen believer's faith. C. S. Lewis' introduction by the way is "tongue-in-cheek", meaning he was fictionalizing the means by which he 'heard' the situation to suck the reader in - just like the way he narrates in the Chronicles of Narnia. He is a master story teller and he was not trying to hint that he actually observed some discourse between demons - no nefarious means were used.

I do not know why you were attacked in such a way during the reading of that book, but if any rush to judgement were to be made at all I'd say the attack was to keep you away from reading it! But I have no way of knowing that without further details. It could have been something stirring inside your spirit before or while you were reading it that triggered the attack.

Also I have experienced the close connection between tiredness and spiritual attack. When your body and mind is tired it is harder to resist spiritual attacks. The only way to remedy such attacks is through prayer. The details of the experience you gave were somewhat sketchy but if you want to discuss it more I will be glad to do so.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[Vince]

I can't show this from the Bible, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but any publication with the word "Truth" in the title is full of lies.

Just something I've picked up along the trail.

 

[Ed the Ned]

I can't show this from the Bible, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but any publication with the word "Truth" in the title is full of lies.

Just something I've picked up along the trail.

Makes sense why add truth into the title.

Think of the titles:

1) Bible prophecy explained
2) The truth about Bible prophecy (MAKES ONE THINK IS THERE AN UNTRUTH)

Which book would you go for.

 

[Vince]

Concerning "The Screwtape Letters," it helps to look at C.S.Lewis as a whole. He was the first man to preach live to over a million people (on the radio, during WW2) and his influence for good is tremendous.

He was confused by his deep studies, and he often felt that logic alone could prove the Bible. (Correct logic does indeed agree with the Bible, but we're often too corrupted to discern correct logic). He never left the Church of England, he smoked, and he drank.

He explained in later life that the ideas no longer occurred to him, and despite his great fame, he died in obscurity. Why? Because he died just a few hours before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and his death was under-reported.

His book, "Pilgrim's Regress," was very helpful to me in showing the error of trying to live a Godly life by obeying a list of man-made rules, and I'm currently showing the BBC versions of "The Chronicles of Narnia" in children's church on Wednesday night.

 

[RND]

Any book that doesn't lift up Jesus, take the Seven Day Adventist, they have Ellen G. White.

Give me one, just one EGW book that DOESN'T lift up Jesus. Just one.

 

[kevkelsar]

Any book that doesn't lift up Jesus, take the Seven Day Adventist, they have Ellen G. White.

Give me one, just one EGW book that DOESN'T lift up Jesus. Just one.

And to add to that, give me one, just one, LDS (Mormon) book that doesn't lift up Jesus.

Sometimes I am absolutely blown away at what those in "mainstream" Christianity think/believe. For many years I thought that we, the Mormons, were the ones being closed minded. However, in my many journeys into Christian forums, organizations, and other discussions with Christians, it has been quite the opposite. So many are so unwilling to even hear a differing opinion than their own. I find this disturbing and very dangerous. We fear that which we don't understand, and many times in history ignorance to another people's way of thinking has led to horrible tragedies and atrocities.

At the same time, there are a few who are willing to at least hear and understand a differing opinion. Understanding people isn't a bad thing. You don't have to give up your way of life to simply come to an understanding of a different point of view.

 

[RND]

And to add to that, give me one, just one, LDS (Mormon) book that doesn't lift up Jesus.

How about two? The Book of Mormon and the book of Doctrine and Covenants.

 

[Steve76]

And to add to that, give me one, just one, LDS (Mormon) book that doesn't lift up Jesus.

How about two? The Book of Mormon and the book of Doctrine and Covenants.

:toofunny


Ahemm, sorry..


http://getwiththeword.blogspot.com/

 

[Ed the Ned]

you forgot about the Pearl of great price, that makes it three