The information revolution has cheapened words. We are awash in a sea of verbs and nouns hastily typed into digital existence. To avoid drowning under the crashing waves, we have learned to scan documents for keywords or, worse still, hashtags. Even in the world of print, we can find thousands of books in community libraries anywhere in the nation. Such a wealth of material was unimaginable to the vast majority of premodern men.
But, of course, words are not cheap. All words find their meaning and foundation in the Word Who became flesh. In Him all things were created that were created and nothing exists outside the power of His might. More damning, all things are intended for Him, and we will be judged for our engagement in every area of life (see Col. 1:15-20 and Mt. 12:36). For these reasons, we must be very careful about the words we produce and those we take into our hearts and minds.
With that in mind, we would like to recommend the following books. Several of our favorites this quarter relate to ministry and spiritual development directly, but many will enrich you in broader ways. We hope that you will find our suggestions helpful.
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Jerram Barrs, The Heart of Evangelism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 288 pages.
We need books to be written on proclaiming and sharing the gospel. While this area of writing is important, it hasn’t always enjoyed a plethora of substantive content. Many of these books have been written from practical as well as programmatic approaches. While these perspectives are needed, Jerram Barrs offers a holistic approach to evangelism. He never minces words and always makes clear what is on the line in our communication of the gospel. Throughout the book, he lays a Biblical foundation for personal and corporate evangelism. He also shares his personal conversion testimony. Furthermore, Barrs seems keenly aware of the evangelistic obstacles one faces when trying to share the gospel in a postmodern context. This volume is warm, clear, and, most importantly, pastoral.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 224 pages.
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’s book Total Church has been an important book for me. The New Testament church is not a group of people who merely gather for weekly worship services or Bible studies. Christians in the New Testament certainly gather for what we might call corporate worship, but they’re deeply involved in one another’s lives on a daily basis. Individual responsibilities and burdens in the New Testament become communal responsibilities and burdens to be shared. Plenty of discussion has arisen in recent years about “authentic community” and “doing life together,” but I often wonder if much has really changed. Chester and Timmis’s work has helped remind me that the Christian life is to be lived in gospel-informed and gospel-shaped community. What is unique about Total Church is that it’s not just a Biblical argument for community. Instead, it specifically spells out how this radical reshaping informs key aspects of the Christian life such as evangelism, pastoral care, social involvement, and discipleship. This book has been timely for me, and I expect that it might be for you as well.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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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 . . . America (or at least the Republican Party) (Crown Forum: New York, 2006), 259 pages.
About twelve years ago, Rod Dreher published Crunchy Cons. Crunchy stands for things like granola, environmental stewardship, or creation care. Cons is short for conservatives. I first read it back in 2008 but have read it again recently. Regardless of the controversy of his most recent book, The Benedict Option, which considers the question of Christian cultural engagement, Crunchy Cons is a marvelous book. It’s one of those books I first read at a pivotal time in my life and I credit it for making a big impact in shaping my cultural sensibilities. Dreher doesn’t accept the status quo of Republican conservatism but hearkens back to the classical conservatism that existed prior to the Industrial Revolution. After setting forth a conservative manifesto (worth the price of the book in itself), Dreher considers topics such as consumerism, food, the home, education, and the environment. If you’re interested in the topic of cultural conservatism (or even if you’re not!), I commend this book to you.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Garry Friesen and J. Robin Maxson, Decision Making and the Will of God (New York: Multnomah, 2004), 480 pages.
Decision-making and the will of God are favorite topics among Christians, having produced numerous books, articles, and seminars in recent years. In the New Testament alone, authors make nearly fifty explicit references to the will of God. Why are we interested in the will of God? Many believers sense that God has a plan or an individual will for their lives. This is where Garry Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God is helpful. It is the most comprehensive treatment of this subject available.
Friesen spends the bulk of his book criticizing the commonly held “traditional view” that states how God has a specific blueprint for every person’s life. After his critique, Friesen then proposes what he terms “the way of wisdom.” He sees Scripture as being fully sufficient to guide the believer in any decision-making event during the day. This framework is especially helpful with respect to deciding between which college to attend or what kind of house to buy. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the ethics of moral decision-making.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), 89 pages.
Carl Henry was one of the foremost evangelicals of the twentieth century. In his classic, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundementalism, he issued a clarion call for Christians to be salt and light in the culture. He expressed concern that many were refusing to engage the world with Biblical solutions. “The ‘uneasy conscience’ of which I write is not one troubled about the great Biblical verities . . . but rather one distressed by the frequent failure to apply them effectively to crucial problems confronting the modern mind” (xviii). The gospel does not call people to withdraw from the culture but to face it, while staying true to the gospel. Faithful Christians, said Henry, must engage the whole wide world because Christ is King of the whole wide world, including, then, those areas such as economics, education, ethics, politics, and science.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 384 pages.
Few decades in American history produced more radical change than the 1960s. Several movements that had been growing independently for decades suddenly bore fruit in surprisingly violent fashion. The general discontent of the middle class fed by suburban life, the Civil Rights movement, radical leftist politics, a burgeoning new youth culture, and post-modernism came together in a complex, interrelated, and shifting attack on traditional America culture. Historians Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin provide a splendid introduction to this multifaceted narrative in America Divided.
Isserman and Kazin convincingly argue that each of these groups attempted to change fundamentally American society, often resulting in violence. Despite the early successes of these social movements, their promises began to unravel by the end of the decade. As a result, American politics began a multi-decade shift toward extremes. The Democrat party increasingly embraced radical leftist causes, declining in support, while Republicans experienced a conservative revival that appealed to many Americans. Thus, while some see the 1960s as a nostalgic time of radical promise and others see it as one of the darkest periods in American history, we can all agree that we exited the decade a more divided nation.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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P. D. James, The Children of Men (New York: Knopf, 2015), 193 pages.
P. D. James, one of Britain’s premier mystery authors, did not limit herself to the mystery genre. In fact, The Children of Men is a distinctly dystopian work. In it, the reader is transported to the year 2021 in which the women of the world have become infertile and the last human has been born. Through this bleak setting, James explored the sacredness of human life, the hopelessness that would characterize such a society, and the role of religion in society. This masterful work of science fiction (that certainly does not feel like typical science fiction) is sure to keep readers intrigued and in suspense as they engage these weighty matters.
—Recommended by Christa Hill
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Lindsay Mattick and Sophie Blackall (illustrator), Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2015), 56 pages.
This winner of the 2016 Caldecott Medal is one of the most charming children’s books I’ve read in a long time. It presents children with the true story of the bear who would become the inspiration behind A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. Mattick weaves together the past and present to create a beautiful portrait of history and legacy. Blackall’s illustrations are equally lovely and are accompanied by an epilogue featuring old photographs from which she clearly drew inspiration. This book is certain to delight teachers, children, and parents alike. I am certainly affected each time I read the book.
—Recommended by Christa Hill
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Jon Meacham, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (New York: Random House, 2015), 864 pages.
As a lover of presidential biography, I’ve enjoyed Jon Meacham’s interesting portrayals of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. In his most recent book, he narrates the legacy of one of our more recent presidents. Though one-term presidents tend to be overlooked as political leaders and are usually not seen as influential, Meacham’s sweeping tome on Bush argues to the contrary.
Because this was an authorized biography, Meacham was granted rare access to Bush archival material, and he conducted many interviews with Bush himself several years ago before the former president’s health declined. Thus, Meacham is well positioned to tell this story, and he does so with great care, balance, and fairness. Moreover, it is interesting (especially if you enjoy this genre of literature). I was struck by how unusual Bush’s political career was (most of it was filled with positions to which he was appointed, not elected). I was also reminded of how he had a much larger role in the demise of the Soviet Union and in the peaceful transition to the new world order than he is often given credit for. Many leadership lessons, political insights, and historical vignettes made this heavy book a “light read” for bedtime.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics: Comparing Contemporary Approaches (Downers Gove: IVP Academic, 2015), 384 pages.
At first glance, the novice in the field of apologetics might not realize the varied apologetic methodologies that are used. After all, isn’t everyone simply just defending the faith? While this sentiment is certainly true, much of how one approaches his practice of apologetics is wrapped up in theology and epistemology. Disputes persist about what can count as evidence, or what role faith plays in the practice of apologetics. In his book, Morely surveys five different apologetic methods: (1) presuppositionalism, (2) reformed epistemology, (3) combinationalism, (4) classical apologetics, and (5) evidentialism. Morley surveys the approaches of significant, recent advocates of each of these methods. As opposed to Five Views on Apologetics, a comparable volume, Morely himself surveys the approaches, while often interacting with the apologists themselves in each chapter. For those interested in diving further into apologetics, I recommend this volume.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 111 pages.
Lesslie Newbigin was perhaps the best known missionary of the twentieth century. Late in his life, he wrote a number of significant books. However, though this title is seldom discussed among his many works, it is definitely my favorite (this was my second time reading it). Proper Confidence, one of Newbigin’s last books, tackles the question of how the pursuit of certainty undermines the historic understanding of Biblical truth. Interacting with philosophers as varied as Descartes, Kant, and Polyani, Newbigin shows that religious notions of knowledge don’t abandon truth claims, while at the same time demonstrating how philosophers and scientists cannot ignore how their truth claims involve faith and trust. Newbigin does not ultimately accept a Biblical view of inerrancy, which is unfortunate since this brief little book is otherwise excellent. But I would still commend much of his insight here to people struggling with doubt or to people more generally interested in epistemology.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Rodney Stark, How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity (Wilmington, DL: ISI, 2014), 370 pages.
Rodney Stark is a Christian sociologist of religion with a long and celebrated career. His and Roger Finke’s The Churching of America provides quantitative analysis of church growth and decline in America since the founding and remains a standard in American religious history circles (see my recommendation for summer 2017). In How the West Won, Stark successfully contends with the dominant early twenty-first century narrative of Western Civilization. Instead of portraying the West as a rapacious culture of bigots, Stark argues that rational theology, modern liberal society, modern science, and widespread wealth are impossible without the West.
Stark builds his argument by highlighting data which have been overlooked or intentionally excluded by historians. In addition, he directly engages other interpretations, highlighting faulty arguments built on atheistic assumptions about the nature of the world. Stark admits that the West has not always acted in concert with its Scriptural underpinnings, but he is also clear to show that no other culture has such principles to guide moral development. The result is an inspiring overview of Western Civilization that arms readers with an array of important facts and arguments to level at competing hostile narratives.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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