Christianity Today polled 60-plus evangelicals (including big names like Tony Compolo, Chuck Colson, Andy Crouch, Anne Graham Lotz, Mark Noll, and Phillip Yancy as well as poet Luci Shaw and novelist James Calvin Schaap) and then came up with a list of “books that have shaped evangelicalism as we see it today—not an evangelicalism we wish and hope for. Books that have been published since World War II—not every book in the history of Christianity. Books that over the last 50 years have altered the way American evangelicals pray, gather, talk, and reach out—not books that merely entertained.”It’s an interesting list, one that includes eye-rollers such as Late Great Planet Earth (indeed, one of the books that left my generation believing the world would end in nuclear holocaust before we finished college) as well as greats (and read-more-than-once) like C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Interestingly (and quite pleasantly), the list also includes some fiction, including Madeleine L’Engle’s unbeatable (and one of my most cherished and favorite novels) A Wrinkle in Time, Frank Peretti’s angel-demon thriller This Present Darkness, you-either-love-it-or-hate-it Left Behind and the now classic Christy. I was also relieved and glad to see Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy and Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline on the list, because I think these guys get at what it’s really all about in following Jesus. For the entire list, go here.
(Images: Wikipedia)
