Francis Bacon wrote in his 1625 essay, “Of Studies,” that reading is a private delight which strengthens the mind and sharpens the personality. However, he remarked, there are various ways of reading and not all books deserve the same attention.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.[1]
Books that require nothing from us or appeal only to our baser instincts are not worthy of our time. Instead we need to envelop our minds in rich texts that force us to weigh diligently their content. These kinds of books encourage us to follow the example of Solomon as he looked at the world around him, considered it, and received instruction (Prov. 24:30-34).
Listed below are the best books for digesting that we’ve found in the last few months. Although a vast array of topics are covered in these works, we think that each selection should engender reflection and offer insight to the reader. If you have a good book you’ve been chewing on for a while, please share it with us in the comment section.
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Bruce Ashford and Chris Pappalardo, One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics (Nashville: B&H, 2015), 142 pages.
With the 2016 United States presidential election just a few weeks away, many are asking if American politics is worth engaging. In One Nation Under God, Bruce Ashford and Chris Pappalardo reassure us that “Christians can engage in political activity with an unabashed confidence” (12). Readers will especially enjoy how the authors talk about choosing between four competing views of public life. These views include, “Grace Against Nature”, “Grace Above Nature”, “Grace Alongside Nature”, and “Grace Renews Nature.” Political engagement will be important for every Christian in the days ahead because we speak into the public square as we stand under the watch of God. This book would be a great small group study for anyone interested in political engagement.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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David Bagchi and David Steinmetz, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 289 pages.
We’re quickly drawing near the 500th anniversary of likely the most significant event in the last half-millennium of Christianity—the Protestant Reformation. A significant part of properly understanding the present is being aware of the past. That is certainly true for Protestants today. The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology covers a wide variety of key Reformation theologians and theological movements from magisterial reformers such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli to the Lollards and the Anabaptists. Like many edited volumes, this book consists of eighteen chapters written by various authors with each chapter covering individual theologians, councils, or theological movements associated with the Protestant Reformation.
The best thing about this book is that it is accessible and concise. You may not knowing anything about the Hussites, Lollards, Anabaptists, or Martin Bucer, but that won’t hinder your enjoyment of this volume. Furthermore, most of the chapters are less than fifteen pages, which will allow readers gain great insight into the chapter’s subject without feeling as if they’ll never make it to the end. I was so impressed by this book and its accessibility when I read it that I immediately began thinking about who I could share it with. I think your experience will be the same.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Bruce E. Baker and Barbara Hahn, The Cotton Kings: Capitalism and Corruption in Turn-of-the-century New York and New Orleans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 214 pages.
The Cotton Kings is a fantastic work of capitalism history that explains key developments in American economic policy over the early twentieth century. Bruce E. Baker and Barbara Hahn relate how William Perry Brown, the son of Mississippi cotton farmers, became a prominent stock trader in New Orleans and cornered the cotton futures market in 1903 and 1909.
Although this may seem like a dull subject, Brown’s story is quite thrilling, and Baker and Hahn tell it well. The history of capitalism has become a recent academic fad and has largely suffered from a myopic political perspective: capitalism is bad; big government is good. Baker and Hahn provide a much more nuanced and fair treatment of the successes and failures of capitalism in America. They highlight that Brown earned lots of money for poor farmers as well as himself and that regulation was a last resort for a government trying to curb the unscrupulous actions of some traders. Even though I disagree with the authors’ conclusion that government action is the best way to regulate the market, The Cotton Kings is still a good read.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils (New York: Cassell and Company, 1922), 184 pages.
Few twentieth century authors have affected my thinking more than G. K. Chesterton. Before C. S. Lewis began writing, Chesterton was considered by many to be the greatest apologist in the modern era. But Chesterton’s genius is spread broadly over writings beyond apologetics. His works cover historiography, epistemology, philosophy, theology, politics, sociology, church history, poetry, literary criticism, biography, cultural criticism, and fiction. In Eugenics and Other Evils, Chesterton characteristically brings several of these subjects together and welds them into one bright sword, which he then turns against the modern atheistic world.
Though the title suggests a narrower topic, Eugenics and Other Evils is actually aimed at the whole construct of rationalized social order. Chesterton argues that man starting from himself can only order society arbitrarily based on the whims of those in power. He contends for the older traditional English society that was built upon and saturated in a Christian worldview against the usurping modern society constructed on atheistic rationalism. Sometimes Chesterton goes too far in his criticisms. He’s certainly no friend to Calvinism. But the overall thrust of his work is magnificent.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Rod Dreher, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or at Least the Republican Party) (New York: Crown Forum, 2006), 259 pages.
Rod Dreher’s excellent book is especially poignant in our current highly polarized political climate. Reminding readers of the nature of true conservatism, he emphasizes the need to focus on preserving the “permanent things” and to live according to them. Too often, he argues, capitalistic fervor causes conservatives to become materialistic allowing greed to become the guiding virtue of the movement.
Dreher calls conservatives to reject mainstream conservatism and to instead return to a life that values family, community, nature, and faith over industrial progress. Each chapter highlights real people who embrace counter-cultural conservatism. Indeed, Dreher is reminiscent of the Southern Agrarians in his engaging call for a more traditional lifestyle and political outlook. Crunchy Cons encourages sustained reflection and evaluation on politics and cultural ideology even for those who might disagree with him.
—Recommended by Christa Hill
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Neil Gabler, Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (New York: Vintage, 2000), 320 pages.
A few weeks ago my wife and I turned on our television to see former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry dance his way across the screen on an episode of Dancing with the Stars. Immediately following, a game show aired in which former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin served as a panelist. After all, the GOP candidate is a former reality TV star. Why the connection between politics and entertainment? Because entertainment rules supreme. In Neil Gabler’s fascinating work, he surveys the development of entertainment in America to show how it has conquered reality itself. Gabler, in a winsome and engaging fashion, shows how far-reaching the entertainment ethos has become. This book is wonderful not only for the pop culture critic, but also for those seeking to wrestle through difficult cultural questions.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Robert P. George, Conscience and its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism (Wilmington: ISI, 2013), 384 pages.
Law is one of the major spheres in which social and cultural change is triggered or ratified. No doubt, many Christians work within the legal field, but few have published as extensively, excelled professionally, or gained as wide a hearing as Robert George. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University—a rare conservative in a very liberal institution.
In this substantial work, George surveys how the Constitution provides a basis for understanding the various historical questions, legal debates, and social questions of our day. Though George himself is a Catholic, and thus answers certain questions differently than a historic Protestant would, this book is truly a gift to interested Christians who have not had the benefit of a traditional legal education. He combines history, law, policy, and social science to produce a fascinating account of how we might confront “the dogmas of liberal secularism.”
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Michael A. G. Haykin, Eight Women of Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016), 160 pages.
I vividly remember the first time I heard Dr. Michael Haykin talk about Sarah and Jerusha Edwards, the wife and daughter of the great American pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards. It wasn’t long before I heard him speak of Susannah Wesley, Anne Dutton, and Macrina. I was aware of most of these women and knew some basic facts about their lives, but I vividly remember hearing Dr. Haykin speak of them because he did so in a way that seemed extremely foreign to evangelical Christianity. He exalted their spiritual piety, theological acumen, and faithfulness to Christ and his Church. They weren’t mentioned in passing as merely the biological mother of some other important figure. They were key instruments to Christ’s work and His kingdom.
Eight Women of Faith leaves the reader with the same sort of awareness. It introduces us to eight godly women: Jane Grey, Margaret Baxter, Anne Dutton, Sarah Edwards, Anne Steele, Esther Edwards Burr, Ann Judson, and Jane Austen. We learn of the boldness of women such as Jane Grey and Ann Judson. We encounter the theological giftedness of Anne Dutton and Anne Steele. But overall we’re reminded of the massive role that women have had in Christian history. As Karen Swallow Prior rightly points out in the foreword, we have often focused too much on what women cannot do in the Church (serve as pastors), and have failed to see the host of other ways in which God has gifted us with godly women who can serve boldly, speak faithfully, and write theologically. This book will help us begin to think more thoroughly about the variety of ways in which women can biblically and powerfully serve Christ and His Church.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), 89 pages.
Sometimes there is great value in reading books for a second or even a third time. Such is the case for my rereading Carl Henry’s classic call to socially-engaged evangelical faith. In the aftermath of two generations of fundamentalism, Henry was well-positioned to understand the historical shift of fundamentalists away from tracing out the social implications of orthodox Christianity—or the “genius of the Hebrew-Christian outlook” (xvii). Henry felt that this outlook was superior to its secular and liberal Christian competitors in providing a basis for social and cultural involvement.
Far from simply being a lament over passivity and disengagement, however, Henry’s book provides thoughtful theological reflection about how eschatology, specifically one’s beliefs about what the Bible calls “the kingdom,” makes all the difference in this discussion. Henry’s work paved the way for the eventual evangelical consensus we now see in discussions of the kingdom. Scholars learned from him to espouse a type of inaugurated eschatology that emphasizes both an “already” and “not yet” aspect of the kingdom. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism is worth a fresh reading for both historical insight and theological analysis.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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David Mathis and Jonathan Parnell, How To Stay Christian In Seminary (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 72 pages.
Christian spirituality through faith in Jesus should be manifested in the entire person. This applies to anyone in seminary, but also any person in a season of waiting or study. In How To Stay Christian In Seminary, David Mathis and Jonathan Parnell discuss commonly-reported challenges that seminary students face.
The mistake that many students make is to put spiritual disciplines on hold while they prepare for their next stage in life. No matter our season of life, our response to studying Scripture should be awe-filled worship and adoration of God. We must never treat God’s Word as a mere academic assignment. This book was a re-read for me as I start another semester of seminary. I believe this book should be placed in the hands of every seminarian and Bible college student.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage, 1993), 240 pages.
Do you feel like your life, your country, or even your world is conquered by technology? Everywhere we turn, technology seems to have fortified another outpost in our culture. We’re reminded on giant electric signs on the interstates not to use our “smart” phones to communicate through texts. The majority of our news, political or otherwise, is processed and received through television, social media and the internet. How did we get here? And what can we do about it?
Neil Postman, well known for his seminal work Amusing Ourselves to Death, wrote this volume as a clarion call against the dangers and pervasiveness of technology. He helpfully surveys how America has developed into the “technopoly” she is today. Yet instead of advocating for a Luddite-like reclusion, Postman offers a helpful way forward. If you want to think more critically about the use of technology in your own life, and in culture-at-large, then Postman’s book Technopoly is the place to start.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1943), 97 pages.
Good, heart-touching fiction can illustrate truth about our world as well as anything. In the words of Tony Reinke:
The best fictional authors spell out our common human experience in ways that prove elusive to other forms of writing. Which is to say, fictional literature may prove at times to be more true than nonfiction. Novels are free to move beyond the particulars of history to the universals of human experience, to such abstract and philosophical concepts as love, hate, goodness, and evil. With such liberty, the author may prove the human condition more profoundly.[2]
This is especially true with children’s literature, which can peel away the layers and give you a simple, yet profound nugget of truth.
The Little Prince, written by the French Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is a delightful novella for children and adults alike. In some ways, it’s a children’s book for grownups, for its lessons are grownup lessons. It reminds us what life is all about. It’s not about being wrapped up in ourselves. It’s not about cheap thrills. And it’s not about materialism. Instead, life is about love. It’s about giving ourselves to others: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” This is a quick, rewarding read for all ages.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 506 pages.
In a very real sense, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings served as my doorway to the world of reading. I hadn’t liked reading prior to my introduction to this trilogy back in 2003. Needless to say, though, it has played a vital role in my life. Recently, after more than a decade, I’ve begun re-reading this series.
The Fellowship of the Rings, the first book in the series, tells the story of a hobbit, Frodo Baggins, who goes on a quest to save the world. Compared to men, elves, and dwarves, hobbits are insignificant creatures in Middle Earth. And yet this book—as its narrative weaves through forests and fields, mountains and marshes, rivers and roadways—illustrates that seemingly small and insignificant creatures can make a big, even world-changing, difference.
The Fellowship teaches us about finding our place in this world and its affairs, and having the courage to follow the path before us. Seeing the difficulty of the task ahead, Frodo says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” Gandalf memorably replies: “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us” (55-56).
Whether you’ve read the series or not, this work always inspires the moral imagination. This time through, I’ve been struck, yet again, at how gripping, instructive, and magical it is. Its place in the history of fantasy, and in the history of English literature, is well deserved.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945), 351 pages.
This beautiful novel by Evelyn Waugh recounts the life of Charles Ryder and his relationship with the well-to-do, often eccentric, and very Catholic Flyte family. Throughout the novel, Charles, a self-proclaimed agnostic, grapples with the tension that exists between faith and the Modern age. Readers, too, must consider how firmly held religious beliefs shape life in an increasingly secular society. However, Waugh’s writing is never didactic or irreverent. Rather, his superb prose and interesting plot keep the reader’s attention while also engaging his intellect. A must-read for anyone interested in excellent twentieth-century fiction. (Thank you, Dr. Darrell Holley, for recommending it to me.)
—Recommended by Christa Hill
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[1] Francis Bacon, “Of Studies,” in Essays of Francis Bacon (1625; repr., Fairfield, IA: 1st World Library—Literary Society, 2004), 188-89.
[2] Tony Reinke, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 121.
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