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Books of the Century

Leaders and thinkers weigh in on classics that have shaped contemporary religious thought

posted 4/24/2000 12:00AM

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If you want to be changed, read a good book. Or so said A. W. Tozer: "The things you read will fashion you by slowly conditioning your mind." Of the millions of books published this century, only a few hundred have shaped people in extraordinary ways. Here are some of thoseâ€”100 books that had a significant effect on Christians this century.

Christianity Today asked more than 100 of its contributors and church leaders to nominate the ten best religious books of the twentieth century. By best books, we meant those that not only were important when first published, but also have enduring significance for the Christian faith and church. We have included books which do not always prompt agreement, but which are important for evangelical Christians to read and contend with. A few "period" pieces also made the list of 90.

By far, C. S. Lewis was the most popular author and Mere Christianity the book nominated most often. Indeed, we could have included even more Lewis works, but finally we had to say: "Enough is enough; give some other authors a chance."

Readers are welcome to send us their own nominations of the top ten religious books of the twentieth century, with comments.

THE TOP 10
1. C. S. Lewis

Mere Christianity

The best case for the essentials of orthodox Christianity in print.

David S. Dockery

2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship

Leaves you wondering why you ever thought complacency or compromise in the Christian life was an option.

Mark Buchanan

3. Karl Barth

Church Dogmatics

Opened a new era in theology in which the Bible, Christ, and saving grace were taken seriously once more.

J. I. Packer

4. J. R. R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)

A classic for children from 9 to 90. Bears constant re-reading.

J. I. Packer

5. John Howard Yoder

The Politics of Jesus

Some 30 years after this book was published, the church has found itself culturally in a more marginal position, and this book is making wider and wider sense.

Rodney Clapp

6. G.K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy

A rhetorically inventive exposition of the coherence of Christian truth.

David Neff

7. Thomas Merton

The Seven Storey Mountain

A painfully candid story of one Christian soul's walk with grace and struggle, it has become the mark against which all other spiritual autobiographies must be measured.

Phyllis Tickle

8. Richard Foster

Celebration of Discipline

After Foster finishes each spiritual discipline, you not only know what it is, why it's important, and how to do itâ€”you want to do it.

Mark Buchanan

9. Oswald Chambers

My Utmost for His Highest

A treasury of daily devotional readings that has fed the souls of millions of Christians in the twentieth century. Future generations of Christians must continue to draw from this treasury.

Richard J. Mouw

10. Reinhold Niebuhr

Moral Man and Immoral Society

Introduced a breathtakingly insightful, shrewd, and cunning realism about human sin, especially in its social expressions,
rooted in biblical theology and a penetrating appraisal of the dark era into which the Western world had entered.

David P. Gushee

THE OTHER 90

in alphabetical order by author

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

Alcoholics Anonymous

(The Big Book of A.A.)

Roland Bainton

Here I Stand

Karl Barth

The Epistle to the Romans

Ernest Becker

The Denial of Death

Robert N. Bellah, ET AL.

Habits of the Heart

Georges Bernanos

The Diary of a Country Priest

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison

David Bosch

Transforming Mission

Walter Brueggemann

The Prophetic Imagination

Emil Brunner

Truth as Encounter

Albert Camus

The Plague

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April 24 2000, Vol. 44, No. 5

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