50 books that have influenced Evangelical Christians

The leading Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, published a list of the 50 books they feel have most shaped Evangelical thought. It’s pretty interesting:

The top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals – Christianity Today Magazine

People and movements can be defined by the books they read and remember.

The time it takes to read and digest a book requires us to engage someone else’s ideas with more seriousness than almost any other activity. So it is with some trepidation that we present this list.

These are 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.We asked dozens of evangelical leaders for their suggestions, and they sent in their nominations. Then we vigorously debated as a staff as we ranked the 50 books. (We’re still debating.)


Comments

4 responses to “50 books that have influenced Evangelical Christians”

  1. Karen M Avatar
    Karen M

    Oh I was reading like crazy in the first years after my “conversion.” I went to the evangelical list you mentioned and found only two that I had read, The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer (which inspired me to write a videoscript about his life-I sent it around but was told it had no commercial potential) and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.
    The other books that I read which were very notable for me spiritually were the Screwtape Letters (Lewis), The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky), Falconer (Cheever), Life Together (Bonhoeffer), The Great Divorce (CS Lewis), The Wounded Healer (Nowen), The Road Less Taken (Peck) and recently Traveling Mercies (LaMott). I think that of them all, The Brothers Karamzov deserves a reread.

  2. kevin & mary blake Avatar
    kevin & mary blake

    Hi Tom, Kev was wondering how it feels to have a Tiger in your tank….how sweet it is, even if it’s not our BoSox!

  3. tom faranda Avatar
    tom faranda

    hadn’t read too many of the 50 books – but I have read the three CS Lewis one’s you mentioned. And Peck’s book was great. Interesting that a few years after he wrote it, Peck became a non-denominational Chrisitan – insisted on being baptised n a river I believe.
    But “The Brother Karamazov” – that’s out of my league!

  4. tom faranda Avatar
    tom faranda

    Kevin and Mary
    See my posting “Yanks down the rathole”

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