In the year 2000, Christianity Today asked more than 100 of its contributors and church leaders to nominate the 100 best religious books of the 20th century.
Why am I blogging about a book list that is over five years old? I guess because I’m interested in what people read and what they think about these books. and I’m more interested in what looking at that list can do to us. it can a) make us realize how we limit our reading to our small sphere of thought, and read only those with which we want to agree; b) it can challenge us to get out of our reading range and expose ourselves to other great thinkers; c) it gives us a good checklist to measure our own reading against some people who have thought about it.
You are reading: Most influential christian books of the 20th century
We all have our biases and our theology, but go through the list for yourself and see where you stand.
here is his top 10:
top 10
1. c. yes lewis mere christianity the best case for the essentials of orthodox christianity in print. David S. dock
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship leaves you wondering why he ever thought complacency or compromise in the Christian life was an option. buchanan brand
3. Karl Barth’s church dogmatics ushered in a new era in theology in which the Bible, Christ, and saving grace were once again taken seriously. J. Yo. packer
4. J. r. r. tolkien the lord of the rings (trilogy) a classic for children from 9 to 90. deserves constant rereading. J. Yo. packer
5. John Howard Yoder The Politics of Jesus Some 30 years after the publication of this book, the church has found itself in a more marginal position culturally, and this book makes more and more sense. rodney applauds
6. gk chesterton orthodoxy a rhetorically inventive exposition of the coherence of christian truth. david neff
7. Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain, an achingly candid story of a Christian soul’s journey with grace and struggle, has become the benchmark against which all other spiritual autobiographies must be measured. tickle phyllis
8. richard foster celebration of discipline after foster finishes each spiritual discipline, not only do you know what it is, why it’s important, and how to do it, but you want to do it. buchanan brand
9. oswald saves my best effort for his highest 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 treasure. richard j. moo
10. reinhold niebuhr the moral man and the immoral society introduced an astonishingly insightful, cunning, cunning realism about human sin, especially in its social expressions, rooted in biblical theology and a penetrating assessment of the dark ages the western world had entered . david pag gushee
How are you doing? have you read any of these books? if so, do you agree? If you haven’t, why do you agree or disagree? it’s a pretty good list. Since you’ll find Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, and CS Lewis in my left column as some of the most influential thinkers in my life, I’m pleased to have them on this list. going down the list I have read, or partially read, or studied about 60% or more of the books listed. I still have a lot to read, but this list is a good start.
here are the remaining 90 in alphabetical order:
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 am
karl barth’s 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 documents from prison
the transformative mission of david bosch
walter brueggemann the prophetic imagination
emil brunner true as I find
albert camus the plague
edward john carnell the case of orthodox christianity
willa cather death comes for the archbishop
dorothy day the long loneliness
annie dillard pilgrim in tinker creek
vatican documents ii
See Also: Rick Campbell – Book Series In Order
w. me. b. dubois the souls of black people
t. yes eliot four quartets
the invisible man by ralph ellison
jacques ellul the technological society
shusaku endo silence
anne frank the diary of anne frank
victor frankl man in search of meaning
sigmund freud’s civilization and its discontents
the basics
langdon gilkey shantung compound
carol gilligan in a different voice
graham greene the power and the glory
john howard griffin black like me
gustavo gutiérrez a theology of liberation
philip paul hallie so that no innocent blood is spilled
stanley hauer was a community of character
václav havel living in truth
richard hays the moral vision of the new testament
carlo f. h. Henry God, revelation and authority (six volumes)
john r. hersey hiroshima
abraham heschel the prophets
aldous huxley brave new world
william james the varieties of religious experience
franz kafka the trial
martin luther king jr. a testament of hope
tomás s. kuhn the structure of scientific revolutions
harper reads to kill a mockingbird
aldo leopold a sand county almanac
c. yes lewis the chronicles of narnia (especially the lion, the witch and the wardrobe) and the screwed cards
j. gresham machen christianity and liberalism
alasdair c. macintyre after virtue
malcolm x and alex haley the autobiography of malcolm x
jorge m. marsden fundamentalism and american culture
the tangle of vipers by françois mauriac
jürgen moltmann the crucified god
See Also: How to Read Kindle Books Offline on a Chromebook – OMG! Chrome!
richard john neuhaus the naked public square
lesslie newbigin the gospel in a pluralistic society
reinhold niebuhr the nature and destiny of man (two volumes)
h. richard niebuhr christ and culture
kathleen norris the cloister walk
henry j. meter. nouwen the wounded healer
anders nygren agape and eros
elizabeth o’connor journey in, journey out
flannery o’connor a good man is hard to find and other stories
rudolf otto the idea of the holy
j. Yo. bagger meeting god
scream of alan paton, the beloved homeland
jaroslav pelikan jesus through the centuries
josef pieper the four cardinal virtues
michael polanyi personal knowledge
chaim potok the chosen one
walter rauschenbusch christianity and the social crisis
dorothy l. those who say the mind of the creator
albert schweitzer the search for the historical jesus
nevil shute on the beach
ronaldo j. Christian rich sider in an age of famine
alexander solzhenitsyn the gulag archipelago and a day in the life of ivan denisovich
john r. w. stott basic christianity
paul tournier the meaning of people
a. w. tozer the search for god
barbara tuchman the guns of august
evelyn underhill mysticism
exclusion and embrace of miroslav volf
gerhard von rad old testament theology
andres f. walls the missionary movement in christian history
max weber the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
simone weil waiting for god
the night of elie wiesel
charles williams descent into hell
walter wink committing to the powers that be
philip yancey the jesus i never knew
See Also: Guide to the Four Gospels – OverviewBible