This weekend, I was again thinking about the subject of art without Christ. Besides facing mortal embarrassment in the Fat Face store (see my story below), on Saturday morning I popped into Hampstead Waterstones and spent a few minutes browsing there. I love bookshops and have done so since a child and could quite happily spend hours in one. The sheer aesthetic of such places always threatens to seduce through the endless possibilities on offer, the multitude of attractive covers that hit one upon entry, screaming ‘LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME'; the new titles wanting to overwhelm one's mind, placed strategically on tables near the front; the increasingly comfy sofas to plonk one's rear into and while time away - they are delightful places. And as Waterstones go, the Hampstead branch is one of the best, books chosen by the erudite for the erudite. The cultural elite. The sophisticates. Books that positively drip with profound meanings, busily occupying space and time. Such importance is without question. The ruling classes. Media folk as my dear old grandfather might say.

But on this occasion, I found my visit slightly distressing. ‘1001 books that you must read before you die' was the first title that hit me as I entered the store. From Adams to Zola, a book that will allow one to buy a literary knowledge suitable for most dinner-party conversations. But why? Who defined such a list? What genres are included and what defines the importance of the chosen tomes? Where is Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Lewis, Stott et al to mention just a few? Who dictated that we need to read ‘Clockwork Orange', a particularly delightful read that is about as pure as Beelzebub bathing in a cesspit of fried cockroaches deep underground in a Calcutta sewer during the annual festival of impurity...

In itself, the book ‘1001 books that you must read before you die' is no bad thing because reading is a wonderful gift and if a book can help people increase their love of reading, then that's wonderful. A reference guide to increasing one's love of literature is excellent. No, what disturbed me was the subtle sub-plot behind the book. 1001 books you MUST read before you die. Or you will be the loser. You will be sad. Inadequate. Culturally missing out.

A few tables further on, I hazarded upon the personal recommendations of the staff. Various books that had stickers attached such as ‘must read', ‘essential reading', ‘a book you have to own'. But why? Who says? And what will such books do? How will they help us? They will certainly increase our conversation, give us further ammunition to impress our friends, increase our profile in certain circles. But will they really bring us any closer to truth? I am not against reading widely or devouring secular books per se, because they do contain absolute nuggets of truths and can pinpoint us to greater things. They can also be immensely enjoyable, fun, refreshing, all good things. But to me, it was further proof of the means becoming an end in itself, chosen by a cultural elite whose compass points anywhere but to Christ.

1001 books you MUST own. 100 places you MUST visit before you die. 250 films you MUST see before you hit 60. 50 things you MUST do before you are 30 (I had done 22 of them, most of which were done before I became a Christian!). It's not that these things are bad in itself. They are good. Books are good, travel is good, films are good. They are a means to an end and moreover, are given to us for our enjoyment and our pleasure (wasn't it CS Lewis who wrote that every pleasure in the world is God-given and all the enemy does is corrupt them?). No, it's that these things take on an importance that should not be invested in them and which is only propped up by the apparatus of a cultural elite who will do everything in its power to prevent people returning to the only important thing on this planet. Fill our minds with culture. Fill our minds with chatter. Fill our minds with desires, dreams, hopes, show people what we need to read, watch, do. Stop at all costs a return to Eden.

Meanwhile, upstairs in a small sub-section, next to the huge ‘New Age and Spirituality' section that seemed to be encroaching further and further into other genres, with such wisdom contained on crystals, fortune telling, astrology and other delights, I stumbled upon the Christianity section. I have seen larger looking sections on Martian table-tennis. But before I had time to look at the seven titles on offer (excluding the Bible), my phone rang and I realised that I was late for breakfast with my friend Mimes.

I was also thinking over the weekend about what heaven might be like, in response to my blog on Hell. Can we ever truly know? Will we ever know, before we actually get there? It's a tough question and yet I spent a lot of time over the past couple of days imagining what it might be like. Tomorrow evening (Tuesday), I will try and define it, as I see it, because I do think that we need to remember where we are heading, as Christ's children.