Lesslie Newbigin Reading List

Recently, Michael Goheen reflected on The Lasting Legacy of Lesslie Newbigin for Q. The next day a friend emailed me and asked for a recommendation on what Newbigin book to read in a book study with others. It struck me that constructing a prioritized Lesslie Newbigin reading list could be valuable for a lot of people. Secondly, it would force me to clearly state what the major contribution of each of his works is. And finally, it would give me a great excuse to finish reading the Newbigin corpus.

The list that you see below is a work in progress. I will add summaries of each of his works, along with explanations of their importance. If I miss something, please feel free to add out-of-print or other less-known works in the Comments. And if I don't nail the value of the book, chime in with your insight on Newbigin's contribution.

1. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture
   If anyone asks me where to begin with Newbigin, I invariably point them to Foolishness because in it Newbigin distills:
1. The contours of "modern western culture." Newbigin has the perspective of an outsider (from 40 years of life in India) and the language of an insider (educated at Cambridge University). He has the unique ability to help "Westerners" become aware of the lenses through which they see the world.
2. The Gospel. Newbigin candidly admits that there is no "pure" or "culture-free" gospel. Indeed, the message of the gospel is that the Word became flesh. The question is not how we strip away culture (including modern western culture) to get to the pure gospel, but rather how the gospel becomes the new starting place that calls every culture into question and announces the Lordship of Christ over every sphere of life.
3. The missionary encounter. Newbigin's insight on western culture and the nature of the gospel are sufficient reason to read, and re-read the book. (I've read it cover-to-cover six times.) However, that is not the point of the book. His central question is, "What would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and modern western culture?" He answers this question with respect to politics and science and concludes with The Call to Be the Church. That final chapter is Newbigin's clarion call not just to understand, but to be the hermeneutic of the gospel - by which the good news of Christ is rendered present to the world.
2. Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History
3. Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth
4. Gospel in a Pluralist Society
5. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship
6. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission
7. Honest Religion for Secular Man
8. A Walk Through the Bible
9. The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel
10. Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian
11. The Household of God: Lectures on the Nature of the Church
12. Unfinished Agenda: An Autobiography