Sunday, December 27, 2009

Top ten books I read in 2009

I like making lists to review my year. Last year I didn't read that much so didn't do a top ten list (2007's list is here) but this year I've read more books in a year than I ever have. I realise I've read quite a lot looking down this post, but this has been an exceptional year for me. I'm unlikely to have so much time for reading again for a long, long time. Besides, a lot of these books are really very short. I'm painfully aware too that reading doesn't produce either holiness or wisdom ex opere operato. Thankfully though many of them do remind me that I have both in Christ, by faith and not by reading!

One theme of my reading this year has been CS Lewis (7 books). You may have missed that on this blog, as I haven't blogged that much about it. A group of people from our church have had a reading/discussion group going through some of his books this year and that was the impetus. I am left with enormous respect for the brain he had. His learning, his skill in communication, his mastery of so many disciplines (fiction, philosophy, theology etc), and his insight into how humans tick is beyond belief. Nevertheless, I have a few concerns with his approach. I was continually struck by two things. Firstly, how rarely he starts with Jesus Christ, and secondly the almost total absence of repentance as fundamental to knowledge of God. But a couple of his books make it into my top ten despite those fairly fundamental problems.

The second theme is probably less of a surprise. Nine of the books are Lutheran. My respect for the distinctives of Lutheranism has only grown this year. I ought to write a post to give an account for why I think that everyone should listen to the Lutherans, and take them as seriously as they take the human situation. However, I have seen that their strength in getting to the heart, and seeing through to what is fundamental, also means that they often become disconnected from the Bible.... but this does need a post to explain.

Before I get into the top ten books I've read this year, I have to mention 2 books which I've only dipped into but which still come with the highest recommendation from me. First, Leiths Vegetable Bible. A dirty little secret is that I became a (flexible) vegetarian this year. This recipe book has made me actually enjoy that transition. While I went over to the dark side on moral grounds, I think this book has made me willing to stay here just on taste grounds too. Hundreds of excellent, honest but not boring, recipes. Even if you're not a veggie you should buy this book. Second, is The Books of the Bible which I've mentioned before. It has made reading lengthy sections of the bible so much more enjoyable.

But without further ado, here are the top ten books I read in 2009:

  1. Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation (by Oswald Bayer). This book took me almost a year to read. It was so rich I felt I needed a few weeks to absorb each chapter. A truly incredible book, I can't recommend it highly enough. One of Germany's premier Lutheran theologians having a conversation with Luther in order to understand what he has to say to us today.
  2. Loci Communes (1st edition, 1521, by Philip Melanchthon). Luther praised this book more than any other, saying it deserved "not only to be immortalized but even canonized". Written by his sidekick Philip Melanchthon when aged just 23, only 4 years after Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church. It is a theology shaped around the distinction between 'Law and Gospel'. Short, but packing a punch. It should be much more widely read.
  3. On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (by Gerhard O. Forde). Brings out the powerful, world shaking nature of Luther's message to his fellow Augustinians at Heidelberg early in the Reformation. Will throw you upside down, as you seek to re-evaluate whether you really see things as they are.
  4. Life Father Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in Our Humanity (by Tom Smail). A good brief introduction to the contemporary movement to putting the Trinity back at the heart of our theology. It then asks what implications thinking Trinitarianly would have to our understanding of ourselves as human. Brilliantly provocative.
  5. Out of the Storm: Questions and consolations from the book of Job (by Christopher Ash). A brief exposition of the book of Job. I've read Job many a time, but I don't think I really understood it as good news for sufferers until I read this book. It really opened up God's final speech to me at a time in this year when I really needed to hear it.
  6. When Christ Comes and Comes Again (by TF Torrance). A collection of early evangelistic sermons by Tom Torrance. Beautiful, comforting and thought-provoking. You couldn't assume this level of biblical and theological literacy today (you probably couldn't then!), but he shows us how we can imaginatively present the gospel from a variety of different angles.
  7. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (by CS Lewis). A novel! I have only read two this year, and this is the only one that wasn't explicitly Christian one. I'd read it once before, but reading it again while discussing it with others showed just how deep it goes. I have literally spent hours talking about this book with others in our group that have read it, and I still don't think I've reached the bottom of it.
  8. Miracles (by CS Lewis). Packed full of arguments to take seriously. I particularly liked his argument against David Hume. And his idea of the 'fittingness' of the biblical miracles - and particularly the 'Grand Miracle' of the Resurrection.
  9. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (by Heiko A. Oberman). Brings out quite how Luther's view of his life and the preaching of the Gospel as apocalyptic struggle against the devil shaped his theology in ways as Moderns we have trouble comprehending.
  10. The Soul of Prayer (by PT Forsyth). This is on the list almost entirely for the final chapter, 'the Insistancy of Prayer', and its explanation of how prayer should include wrestling - that is fighting - against God's will being done (Ooo that's provocatively put, but that's what he says and I think he's right).

For what it's worth here is the complete list of books I read in 2009:

Posted by Dave K at 9:31 PM Labels:

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