Top Books of the Twenty-First Century
Current's list offers much food for thought.
I was pleasantly surprised to be included on Current’s top 100 books of the 21st century for Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh. These lists are a lot of fun and Current’s offers some great suggestions for future reading.
I have probably read (or at least perused) about half the books on the list. Although I have read a few of the fiction titles (Peace Like a River, A Gentleman in Moscow [affiliate links]) I wouldn’t presume to have opinions about the best fiction published since 2000.
But here’s a compilation of my top non-fiction/history titles of the twenty-first century, including some on Current’s list:
Jonathan Edwards: A Life, by George Marsden. Admittedly, this is an obvious pick since Marsden was my doctoral adviser and I was a research assistant for the book, but I still think this is one of the best biographies ever written.
America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, by Mark Noll. Noll’s magnum opus, and a must-read for anyone interested in theological change and American history.
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins. A mind-blowing tour of the massive changes wrought by Christian growth in the Global South.
Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution, by James Byrd. I’ve read a lot of books on religion and the American Revolution. None have changed my thinking about the topic more than this one.
Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic, by Erskine Clarke. One of the best books ever written on Christianity and slavery in the antebellum South.
They Flew: A History of the Impossible, by Carlos Eire. As with a number of the authors here, this could as easily be a career award for the brilliant Eire. But I am selecting They Flew for its sheer audacity, given he’s a Yale historian writing for Yale Press. Eire asks, what if we treated miraculous claims in religious history as if they might be true?
Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America, by Catherine Brekus. An evocative and highly empathetic biography of an evangelical believer in the era of the First Great Awakening.
The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England, by Bruce Hindmarsh. No one understands evangelical spirituality better than Professor Hindmarsh.
God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America, by Larry Eskridge. Eskridge brilliantly tells the story of the Jesus People, who changed evangelical worship and culture perhaps more than any other movement since World War II.
Evangelical Worship: An American Mosaic, by Melanie Ross. Unlike many books on evangelicals in the past decade, Evangelical Worship is genuinely interested in understanding evangelicals on their own terms - the result is wonderfully illuminating.
Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England, by Timothy Larsen. Those who lose their faith (then and now) get the headlines, but Larsen delightfully shows how common it was for English skeptics and freethinkers to come to orthodox Christian faith.
There you go! I could list many, many more authors and titles, but thanks again to Current and Nadya Williams for inspiring my thoughts!
From around the web:
“The Historic Creeds vs. Passing Theological Fads” - my latest at the Acton Institute.
“America’s Most Controversial Religious Movement” - my conversation with Biola’s Sean McDowell.