WORLD mag. Top 40
PHyatt1962
Christianity made so much sense or was so exhilarating until they read Lewis,
the century's foremost defender of the faith.
2. T. S. Eliot, The Collected Poems (1963). The Modern Library made the wildly
experimental Ulysses by James Joyce the No. 1 novel of the century, despite, or
perhaps because of, its obscenity trial and the fact that it is nearly
unreadable. Against this quintessential modernist novelist, we offer the
quintessential modernist poet, who charted the spiritual wasteland of the 20th
century, in the process becoming a conservative Christian.
3. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). This exuberant, joyous, humorous
journalist defended the faith with a razor logic and a razor wit. He also
showed how Christianity can transfigure all of life.
4. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (1968). Schaeffer taught
evangelicals to become engaged with culture, art, and the world of ideas. His
worldview criticism became a catalyst for Christian activism.
5. The Fundamentals (1909-1915). This series of monographs by various authors
battled the liberal theological modernism that would take over much of mainline
Protestantism. Those who consider "fundamentalism" a synonym for narrow
anti-intellectualism have never read these books, which, for the most part,
remain strikingly relevant.
6. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1974). By documenting and
describing the evils of communism in his powerful and evocative style,
Solzhenitsyn did much to pull down the Soviet Empire, showing that the pen
really is mightier than the sword.
7. Whittaker Chambers, Witness (1952). The moving autobiography and reflective
mediation of a communist spy who became a Christian and, to the scorn of the
intellectual establishment, witnessed to God's grace. Chambers didn't know it,
but he was on the winning side after all.
8. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). This Princeton
professor and Westminster Seminary founder showed that liberal theology
actually constitutes a new non-Christian religion. This insight got him kicked
out of his increasingly liberal denomination, but Machen was right-then and
now.
9. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955). Although his attention
to "presuppositions" rather than "evidence" in Christian apologetics continues
to spark debates, Van Til remains the father of worldview criticism.
10. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1956). The Oxford professor
whose witnessing to C. S. Lewis helped bring him to Christ wrote the century's
grandest fantasy epic, a staggering work of self-contained imagination.
11. Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901). A freed slave at the
beginning of the century laid out a strategy for pulling out of poverty, based
on faith, hard work, and character.
12. Harold Lindsell, Battle for the Bible (1976). This book caused scandal,
provoked fights, and split churches, but it arrested the slide of evangelicals
toward a liberal view of the Bible, establishing instead the doctrine of the
inerrancy of Scripture.
13. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression (1965). A master preacher and
evangelist, Lloyd-Jones here writes about why there are so many joyless
Christians. Answer: We do not fully understand the grace of God.
14. Adolf Koeberle, The Quest for Holiness (1936). A classic of the spiritual
life, exploring how sanctification and good works really do grow out of a
rigorous, Lutheran understanding of justification by faith.
15. A. W. Tozier, The Pursuit of God (1949). Evangelicals do have a legacy of
spiritual depth.
16. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937). Grace may be free,
but it isn't cheap, as this young theologian showed both in his words and in
his martyr's death at the hands of the Nazis.
17. Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (1941). Cut from the same cloth as C.
S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers was an apologist, an imaginative writer, and a scholar
whose essay on classical education has provided a model for the current
renaissance in Christian education. This book shows how human creativity has
its origins in nothing less than the Triune God.
18. Hans Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970). This friend
of Francis Schaeffer showed evangelicals how to read art as a manifestation of
the worldview of the artist and his times. It also encouraged Christians to
find ways to express their biblical worldview.
19. Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away (1960). The conflict between
sin and grace, between the modernist and the Christian worldview, is pushed to
shocking extremes in the fiction of this nice handicapped Southern lady.
20. Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (1940). The melancholy Catholic
novelist has written a masterpiece about a priest being hunted down by the
anti-Christian socialists during the Mexican revolution.
21. George Orwell, 1984 (1944). The novel that alerted our imaginations to the
encroachment of totalitarianism. Although 1984 came and went, the specter of
Big Brother taking care of us, the technological violations of privacy, and the
perversions of language were all predicted by Orwell.
22. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932). This novel is even more prophetic,
predicting virtual reality, hallucinogenic drugs, entertainment-mad hedonism,
and genetic engineering-all to keep the population happily in line, oblivious
to its enslavement.
23. Charles Williams, The Descent into Hell (1937). C. S. Lewis's friend was an
odd, original, yet in the final analysis, orthodox theologian, who worked out
his ideas in supernatural thrillers.
24. William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1955). This tale of schoolboys
shipwrecked on a desert island, and how, without adult supervision, they revert
to primitive violence is a good answer to those who do not believe in original
sin. And it has a particular resonance in light of the recent killings in
Littleton, Colo., and other schools across the nation.
25. Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos (1983). This combination of short stories,
theoretical essays, and a mock self-help quiz is both an offbeat Christian
apologetic and a devastating satire of America's real religion, pop-psychology.
26. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (1940). A novel about the Stalinist show
trials that exposed the lies of Communism to many who once accepted them as
gospel truth.
27. Michael Shaara, Killer Angels (1974). A pioneering historical novel, taking
us inside the combatants at the Battle of Gettysburg.
28. Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (1969). A witty but cynical
curmudgeon, whose journalistic career put him at the center of many of the
century's most notable events, finds the Lord.
29. Anne Frank, The Diary of A Young Girl (1953). The magnitude of human sin
expends itself against ordinary, sympathetic human beings, as this diary of a
child hiding from the Nazis shows.
30. Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place (1983). The autobiographical account of a
woman whose Christian faith led her to imprisonment in a concentration camp for
helping the Jews.
31. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1953). The godfather of cultural
conservatism, Kirk inspired the revival of conservative thought in America.
32. Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (1947). Another catalyst of the
conservative revival, this book provides a still relevant critique of modernist
thinking and its catastrophic results.
33. F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944). Hayek showed how personal and
political freedom was tied up with economic freedom. A prophet of the free
enterprise system at a time when socialists and big-government Keynesians ruled
the world of economics, he has been proven right every time.
34. Richard Crossman, ed., The God That Failed (1949). A collection of essays
by ex-communists who woke up to the true nature of their false religion. This
book contributed to the containment of the evil empire and portended its
eventual collapse.
35. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). What she describes
about the dynamics of fascism and communism needs to be heeded today.
36. Jacques Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word (1981). This continental
Christian intellectual defended language and the Word of God against the
image-worshippers of modern technological culture.
37. Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (1945-1961). In this tour de force of
scholarship, Toynbee studies all of the world's major civilizations through
history, traces how they rise, and shows that the Aztecs and the Romans look a
lot like us.
38. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962). Kuhn showed why
Christians do not have to fear science anymore: It keeps changing.
39. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1988). A devastating account
of how today's moral and intellectual relativism is stifling American
education.
40. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918). This book by a descendant
of presidents, who could not summon up his ancestors' gumption, offered a fine
contrast between the pre-modern mind (symbolized by the "Virgin" of the great
cathedrals) and the just-emerging modern century (symbolized by the industrial
"dynamo"). The Modern Library listed it as the No. 1 nonfiction book of the
20th century. While it is a good book, it is not quite that good; but we will
let it make the cut of the top 40.
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Ranger57
>
> 1. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1943). Modernists did not realize that
> Christianity made so much sense or was so exhilarating until they read Lewis,
> the century's foremost defender of the faith.
Lewis is a most easily-shredded Christian apologist, although his
prose style is a wonder to behold.
> 4. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (1968). Schaeffer taught
> evangelicals to become engaged with culture, art, and the world of ideas. His
> worldview criticism became a catalyst for Christian activism.
If you are determined to find it, you can find God in art, and art
in a Campbell's Soup can.
> 9. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955). Although his attention
> to "presuppositions" rather than "evidence" in Christian apologetics continues
> to spark debates, Van Til remains the father of worldview criticism.
Circular reasoning is only as good as its assumptions, and Van Til's
are downright laughable on their face. For any god for whom all things
are possible, nothing is excludable. Van Til becomes an exercise in
mental masturbation.
> 10. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1956). The Oxford professor
> whose witnessing to C. S. Lewis helped bring him to Christ wrote the century's
> grandest fantasy epic, a staggering work of self-contained imagination.
The Hugo for the best sci-fi piece ever was given to Isaac Asimov's
Foundation trilogy, but my vote is for Tolkien. Christians _have_ to
have a fine appreciation of fantasy ... their theology is full of it!
> 12. Harold Lindsell, Battle for the Bible (1976). This book caused scandal,
> provoked fights, and split churches, but it arrested the slide of evangelicals
> toward a liberal view of the Bible, establishing instead the doctrine of the
> inerrancy of Scripture.
It really wasn't worth fighting over.
> 16. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937). Grace may be free,
> but it isn't cheap, as this young theologian showed both in his words and in
> his martyr's death at the hands of the Nazis.
It certainly has been cheapened, though.
> 21. George Orwell, 1984 (1944). The novel that alerted our imaginations to the
> encroachment of totalitarianism. Although 1984 came and went, the specter of
> Big Brother taking care of us, the technological violations of privacy, and the
> perversions of language were all predicted by Orwell.
While everything Orwell wrote was at some level a critique of Commu-
nism, Nineteen Eighty-Four is almost as easily aimed at modern Chris-
tianity. "J-C! J-C! J-C!!!"
> 22. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932). This novel is even more prophetic,
> predicting virtual reality, hallucinogenic drugs, entertainment-mad hedonism,
> and genetic engineering-all to keep the population happily in line, oblivious
> to its enslavement.
Curious that this book should end up on a Christian Top-40 list; I
think Island hits a lot closer to home.
> 24. William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1955). This tale of schoolboys
> shipwrecked on a desert island, and how, without adult supervision, they revert
> to primitive violence is a good answer to those who do not believe in original
> sin. And it has a particular resonance in light of the recent killings in
> Littleton, Colo., and other schools across the nation.
Adult supervision doesn't seem to prevent it -- see Kosovo -- and
Christianity doesn't seem to restrain it -- see Northern Ireland.
> 34. Richard Crossman, ed., The God That Failed (1949). A collection of essays
> by ex-communists who woke up to the true nature of their false religion.
See http://www.sonic.net/~jhuger/kisshank.htm. It should be on every
Christian's hard drive.
Eric Simpson
(PHyatt1962) writes:
>1. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1943). Modernists did not realize that
>Christianity made so much sense or was so exhilarating until they read Lewis,
>the century's foremost defender of the faith.
Lewis, an Anglican, is an odd choice for Evangelicals, since he wouldn't fit in
very well. A theistic evolutionist, he also disliked Calvinism and denied the
plenary inspiration of Scriptures.
>2. T. S. Eliot, The Collected Poems (1963). The Modern Library made the
>wildly experimental Ulysses by James Joyce the No. 1 novel of the century,
despite,
>or perhaps because of, its obscenity trial and the fact that it is nearly
>unreadable. Against this quintessential modernist novelist, we offer the
>quintessential modernist poet, who charted the spiritual wasteland of the
>20th century, in the process becoming a conservative Christian.
This is a patently absurd statement, and I laughed aloud when I read it.
Eliot's poetry was at least as sophisticated as Joyce's literature, filled with
multitudinous allusions. In fact, Eliot felt his poetry was so difficult to
understand he felt it necessary to append hundreds of footnotes to each poem in
order to explain it. Moreover, Eliot was not a "conservative" Christian in the
Reformed Evangelical sense of the word, although he was a genuine Christian.
Oddly enough (but irrelevant to Eliot himself) his grandfather was involved in
the Salem witch trials.
>3. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). This exuberant, joyous, humorous
>journalist defended the faith with a razor logic and a razor wit. He also
>showed how Christianity can transfigure all of life.
Chesterton was indeed a brilliant Roman Catholic who also often spoke out
harshly against the narrow-minded and ugly theology of Calvinism. Every time
'Credenda Agenda' quotes Chesterton as though he were a friend, I have to laugh
at their ignorance and pretension. Chesterton eruditely filled his work with
political poetry, repudiating the likes of George Bernard Shaw and others.
>4. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (1968). Schaeffer taught
>evangelicals to become engaged with culture, art, and the world of ideas. His
>worldview criticism became a catalyst for Christian activism.
Schaeffer called modern Evangelicalism a "disaster". His best work is his
critique of Protestant Christianity; his worst work is his sloppy sojourn into
philosophy, which has bred a group of elitists (L'Abri) who feel they are the
intelligentisa of Christianity. If so, we are in trouble. Schaeffer's
understanding of Western philosophers such as Hegel, Kierkegaard and Jaspers
was often severely skewed; sometimes he just got it wrong; he was like a
dilletante who learned from his students rather than teaching them. His
caricature of existentialism, for instance, is ironically absurd. But he gets
an A for compassion and for at least trying. Neitzche claimed that faith is an
attempt to escape from what is true; Calvary Chapel often proves him
right...Schaeffer does not.
etcetera...
Eric Simpson
http://members.aol.com/JamzSimp/
"And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God..."
(Job 19:26)
Doug
>
> >CS Lewis denied the inspiration of Holy Scripture? Could you back that up?
> >I
> >would like to see that.
> >
> >Thanks
>
> I said he denied the *PLENARY* inspiration of the Scriptures. I'll be glad to
> back it up. Stay tuned.
This is well documented. Lewis did not see Adam as much a historical
character as he saw Christ.
PHyatt1962
least.
CS Lewis denied the inspiration of Holy Scripture? Could you back that up? I
would like to see that.
Thanks
PH
Eric Simpson
>I
>would like to see that.
>
>Thanks
I said he denied the *PLENARY* inspiration of the Scriptures. I'll be glad to
back it up. Stay tuned.
Eric Simpson
inspiration (hence the inerrancy) of Scripture, from his book 'Reflections on
the Psalms':
"...I take it that the whole Old Testament consists of the same sort of
material as any
other literature--chronicle (some of it obviously pretty accurate), poems,
moral and political
diatribes, romances, and what not; but all taken into the service of God's
word. Not all, I suppose, in
the same way. There are prophets who write with the clearest awareness that
divine compulsion is
upon them. There are chroniclers whose intention may have been merely to
record. There are poets
like those in the Song of Songs who probably never dreamed of any but a secular
and natural
purpose in what they composed. There is (and it is no less important) the work
first of the Jewish
and then of the Christian church in preserving and canonizing just these books.
There is the work of
redactors and editors in modifying them. On all of these I suppose a divine
pressure; of which not by
any means all need have been conscious.
"The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naiveté, error,
contradiction, even (as in the cursing psalms) wickedness are not removed. The
total result is not "the word of God" in the sensethat every passage, in
itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the word of God; and we
(under grace, with attention to tradition and to interpreters wiser than
ourselves, and with the use of such intelligence and learning as we may have)
receive that word from it not by using it as an encyclopedia or an encyclical
but by steeping ourselves in its tone or temper and so learning its overall
message" (Reflections On The Psalms p.111-112).
Doug
> Lewis, an Anglican, is an odd choice for Evangelicals,
> since he wouldn't fit in very well. A theistic
> evolutionist, he also disliked Calvinism and denied the
> plenary inspiration of Scriptures.
Interesting points. Let me explain why I (as an evangelical) like Lewis.
#1 - He's intellectual and yet did not write above other people. His
conversion was later in life and it followed a personal searching.
Thus, his theological education, at least - for the most part, was self
taught as a layperson and not a professional.
#2 - He's one of the earlier of the modern age apologists for the faith.
His arguments cut across all lines of denomination. Lewis himself
pointed out that we as Christians underestimate our own strengths. We
see our divisions. Lewis pointed out (and I think correctly) that what
the enemies of the faith see is a striking unity of belief even across
the various denominational lines. This is the awesomeness of
Christianity.
The same thing has been noted in the "Evangelicals and Catholics
Together" document. As a conservative Protestant I have much more in
common with a conservative Roman Catholic than I do with a liberal
Catholic.
The greatest weakness of Lewis for postmodern people is that Lewis is a
modern thinker from the modern age. Thus, in the postmodern world we
live in a lot of his ideas are dated. Probably the best one (I've read)
who makes this point about Lewis is Rodney Clapp in his book, "A Pecular
People: The Church in the Postmodern World".
Hope that helps a bit.
PHyatt1962
Wow.
thanks, Eric, for the posts.
PH