2021 Top Book List
Another year fades in which many pages were turned. Was this time well spent? Yes and no. Again, I am haunted by a few sentences from William Shirer many decades old, “I love books, they connect you with the past and the present, with original minds and noble spirits, with what living has been and meant to others. They instruct, inspire, shake you up, make you laugh and weep, think and dream. But while they do enhance experience, they are not a substitute for it” (Twentieth Century Journey: The Start, 14). Reading about life is not the same as living it. Many lovers of literature believe, in a Socratic spirit, that an unread life is not worth living, but this posture misses what great literature is attempting to communicate to us: the deep things of lived experience. This is why those who have actually lived a story of suffering, of hope, of courage, of complexity, can more richly grasp written accounts of them. The written word is a servant to the journey of real life.
Yet books do transport us out of our lives and into another. Places that existed before us and without us open wide to show what cannot be known by our individual experience. Reading has the beautiful effect of getting us out of ourselves and fixated on something greater, something deeper. Malcolm Guite writes, “In almost any book I open, I find that I am on the topmost branch of some tree of learning, opening the latest finding of a discipline whose branches go back to the great trunk of all enquiry, & deep into the roots of human curiosity where every science & art has its origin” (Heaven in Ordinary).
In sum, books should humble us. They are not a shortcut to a full life nor should they insulate you to your own perspective. Books support the task of real living and connect you to a river of wisdom that can never be exhaustively explored. This list of a few books most memorable to me this year has hopefully enriched my soul and expanded my mind. As a Christian, the experience of good books and the gaining of knowledge are not ends in themselves. These treasures of humanity stand as lighthouses beckoning a weary pilgrim to travel onward toward the fountain of all knowledge and beauty, God himself.
6. The Mystery of Christ: His Covenant and HIs Kingdom by Sam Renihan
Dr. Renihan is probably the most authoritative scholar in the world on what is known as “1689 Federalism.” Much of his work seeks to retrieve and expand upon the covenant theology of many of the authors who wrote the 2nd London Baptist Confession. In this book, Dr. Renihan attempts to come off the playing field of historical theology and write something more accessible and devotional for Christian readers. The book is an exegetical sketch of the Bible’s covenants and the concept of Christ’s kingdom from Genesis to Revelation. It is certainly a much needed voice for reformed baptists who have little available to them in parsing out the friendly differences in the larger camp of Reformed covenant theology. Even if one does not know (or frankly does not care about) the underlying tensions between these conceptions of biblical covenants, this work is a wonderful exposition of Scripture with a good introduction to thinking about biblical hermeneutics in general. I esteem this work as the best book available for reformed baptists to hand out as an introduction to biblical covenant theology.
Favorite quote(s):
“Christ in the Old Testament as a mystery is the mode of His revelation, and typology the medium” (p.34).
“The purpose of the Old Covenant was to produce the New Covenant because the purpose of the Old Covenant was to provide the Messiah, the Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant” (p.135).
5. Living in Union with Christ by Grant Macaskill
A short book that attempts to summarize and apply a long discussion, Macaskill unpacks scholarly concepts with a devotional aim concerning union with Christ, the center of Paul’s thought, and the “New Perspective.” I don’t think I have read another text better at explaining Paul’s idea of union with Christ and its implications for how Christians should connect this to obedience and Christian morality. This work has the feel of Luther and Calvin’s determination to ward off legalism and attacks on Christ’s finished work, yet it’s content interacts deeply with current Pauline studies and mediates tense scholarly debates with nuance. One of the biggest benefits of this book was its modeling of how to bear practical fruit from critical scholarship. Macaskill shows pastors the benefit of connecting critical scholarship with their practical ministry and gives them a model of how to tie those two things together going forward. Devotionally, the understanding argued for here concerning Gal. 2:20 that sees the Christian life as Christ in me or seeing one’s identity as Christ-in-me is the true power of what it means to be a Christian. The realization of Christ’s victory within us and his union to us is the only secure foundation for the moral battle, the meaning of the sacraments, the actualization of Christian unity, and the sensibleness of prayer. Macaskill’s text will benefit my understanding of Paul and its implications on pastoral ministry for years to come.
Favorite quote(s):
On Paul's thinking:
“He is not becoming a better version of Paul; he is becoming Paul-in-Christ” (p.lx).
“Paul’s representation of Christian unity is that it is actually a matter of participation in the oneness of the God to whom we are united. It is not so much our telos as it is our basis. It is not that we are to gradually eradicate disunity and exclusion and thereby come to a better imitation of Jesus; it is that the presence of any disunity is essentially at odds with what we are: in union with the one God through the one mediator” (p.36-37).
“Paul represents the Great Exchange that lies at the heart of the gospel, whereby Jesus bears the affliction of our condition and we enjoy the glory of his, as involving at its most basic level an exchange not merely of status but of identity. It is not simply that our guilt is transferred to Jesus and his righteousness to us but that our status before God rests on a more fundamental exchange. What Jesus takes to the cross is who we are, our very selves with all their guilt, and what we enjoy in union with him is precisely who he is, his fullness with all its glory. The activity of the Spirit in sanctification, then, is intended not to bring about a better version of ourselves but to realize in us the personal moral identity of Jesus Christ. Any account of the Christian moral life, any program of discipleship, that does not begin and resolve with Paul’s words, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” is deficient and will eventually turn into a form of idolatry” (p.39-40).
4. The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed by William Blair & Bruce Hunt
I cannot say enough about the beauty of this testimony to the Christian movement in Korea in the early part of the 20th century. It is moving, encouraging, complex, and devastating all at the same time. As short as it is, the authors recount the raw history of what it is like to see the gospel explode on a people. This comes with great glory and great challenges. For an in depth analysis of my thoughts on this book and the broader history of Christianity in Korea see the post I wrote entitled, “The Korean Pentecost's Beauty and Complexity.”
Favorite quote(s):
On the Korean woman’s plight:
“All her life she has been in ignorance and virtual bondage, scarcely as valuable to her husband as the ox that plows his field, rising in the dark to cook the meals for her lord and master, eating whatever has remained after he has finished, toiling often with a baby on her back, not only in the house, but frequently in the field with the men. Unwelcomed at birth, unloved through life, and with no hope of a better world beyond, she lives continually in the fear of the demons that populate earth and sky; afraid to live and still more afraid to die. When to such an old Korean woman, just about to pass out into the unknown terrors beyond, comes the message of God’s love and forgiveness and of a home in heaven, and she understands enough to know that God loves her and gave his Son in her stead, all the glory of it fills her soul to overflowing. It shines forth like sunshine, beautifying her old face with the love of Jesus” (p.14).
On the aftermath of the night of the revival:
“Repentance was by no means confined to confession and tears. Peace waited upon reparation, wherever reparation was possible. We had our hearts torn again and again during those days by the return of little articles and money that had been stolen from us during the years. lt hurt so to see them grieve. All through the city men were going from house to house, confessing to individuals they had injured, returning stolen property and money, not only to Christians but to heathen as well, till the whole city was stirred” (p.88).
3. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman
Carl Trueman took on quite a project with this one. Surveying basically the last 300 years of intellectual history, he aims at historically making sense of the flowering of modern thought on the supremacy of self. Much of today’s cultural orthodoxy concerning sexuality, individualism, and worldview can be traced brick by brick to theories of post-enlightenment thought that continued to build on one another. Trueman has done a great service to many readers, Christian readers in particular, trying to get inside the head of modern people coming to conclusions on gender, sexuality, and the meaning of life itself. Yet it goes beyond the obvious, hot button issues of sexuality. This book taps into a broader phenomenon that infects all of us, non-Christian and Christian alike. The entrenchment of expressive individualism as the unconscious lens through which almost everyone operates under is exposed for all of us to wake up to. Trueman sounds an alarm for our entire society simply by exploring the data.
One of the biggest arguments of the book:
“The self must first be psychologized; psychology must then be sexualized; and sex must be politicized” (p.221).
“The idea that sexuality is identity is now basic and intuitive in the West, and this means that all matters pertaining to sex are therefore matters that concern who we are at the deepest level. Sex is identity, sex is politics, sex is culture” (p.299).
“Where a sense of psychological well-being is the purpose of life, therapy supplants morality—or, perhaps better, therapy is morality—and anything that achieves that sense of well-being is good, as long as it meets the rather weak condition that it does not inhibit the happiness of others, or that of a greater number of others” (p.360).
2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
An end of life memoir is not unique, but this one is a product of circumstances that seem so incalculable. Paul Kalanithi was a scholar of both science and literature. He had completed graduate degrees in philosophy and switched gears to pursue a prestigious career as a neurosurgeon. After ten years of study and residency at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, all of Kalanithi’s dreams were becoming reality at the age of 36. Yet within a few weeks he finds himself laying in a hospital bed listening to his colleague deliver the news of a rare form of cancer. The outlook is bleak; there is not a lot of hope for survival statistically. In the midst of wrestling with the physical, mental, and emotional rollercoaster of treatment, he decides to pursue three tasks with his final years: 1) have a child with his beloved wife 2) finish his residency in order to graduate 3) write a book exploring the deep questions of life to give to his family and daughter as he faces them head on. With the caliber of thinker he was and the extraordinary circumstances he endured, this work is existential ink splattered on pages with the hope of making sense of his destiny that seems so cruel. Kalanithi died before finishing his final chapters, and his wife writes the last pages. This is a book that plunges deep into the cocktail of life that is love and suffering. It was hands down the most moving book I read all year.
Favorite quote(s):
“I don’t think I ever spent a minute of any day wondering why I did this work, or whether it was worth it. The call to protect life—and not merely life but another’s identity; it is perhaps not too much to say another’s soul—was obvious in its sacredness” (p.97-98).
1. Herman Bavinck
2021 was the year of Bavinck for me. Last year his The Wonderful Works of God was the first book I picked up by Herman Bavinck, and since then I have not stopped digging into his works. This past spring, I took a course at Reformed Theological Seminary dedicated to reading Bavinck’s corpus. This submergence in Bavinck and his world stamped the imprint of Bavinck’s project of confessionally reformed theology in a modern world onto the foundations of my thought. The major dogmatic categories of Prolegomena, God, Scripture, Creation, and Man have now been fundamentally shaped by Bavinck and the tradition he carries. In my opinion, there has not been a greater dogmatician in the modern world, and yet Bavinck would argue there needs to be those who take the tradition beyond him. It would be frustrating to pick one work of Bavinck’s that was my favorite this year. I have been immersed in so many of his works and so many secondary works about him that it is too difficult to choose. So, here I list all the books of Bavinck or on Bavinck that I read excluding the dozens of journal articles both by Bavinck and about him as well. If you are interested, I would start with Bavinck’s The Wonderful Works of God and the phenomenal biography of Bavinck written by James Eglinton entitled, Bavinck: A Critical Biography.
Primary sources read:
Reformed Dogmatics vol. 1: Prolegomena
Reformed Dogmatics vol. 2: God and Creation
Essays on Religion, Science, and Society
Herman Bavinck on Preaching & Preachers
Secondary sources read:
Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck's Organic Motif by James Eglinton
Bavinck: A Critical Biography by James Eglinton
Orthodox yet Modern: Herman Bavinck's Use of Friedrich Schleiermacher by Cory Brock
God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology by Nathaniel Gray Sutanto
Favorite quote(s):
The opening sentence of RD 2:
“Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics” (Reformed Dogmatics vol. 2, p.29).
“There is a most profuse diversity [in the cosmos] and yet, in that diversity, there is also a superlative kind of unity. The foundation for both diversity and unity is in God...Here is a unity that does not destroy but rather maintains diversity, and a diversity that does not come at the expense of unity, but rather unfolds it in its riches. In virtue of this unity the world can, metaphorically, be called an organism, in which all the parts are connected with each other and influence each other reciprocally” (Reformed Dogmatics vol. 2, p.435-36).
“Clearly emerging from all this, finally, is the purpose of special revelation. The final goal again is God himself, for he can never come to an end in creation but can only rest in himself. God reveals himself for his own sake: to delight in the glorification of his own attributes. But on the journey toward this final end we do after all encounter the creature, particularly the human being, who serves as an instrument to bring to manifestation the glory of God’s name before the eyes of God. Precisely in order to reach this final goal, the glorification of God's name, special revelation must strive to the end of re-creating the whole person after God’s image and likeness and thus to transform that person into a mirror of God's attributes and perfections. Hence the object of revelation cannot only be to teach human beings, to illuminate their intellects (rationalism), or to prompt them to practice virtue (moralism),or to arouse religious sensations in them (mysticism). God’s aim in special revelation is both much deeper and reaches much farther. It is none other than to redeem human beings in their totality of body and soul with all their capacities and powers; to redeem not only individual, isolated human beings but humanity as an organic whole. Finally, the goal is to redeem not just humanity apart from all the other creatures but along with humanity to wrest heaven and earth, in a word, the whole world in its organic interconnectedness, from the power of sin and again to cause the glory of God to shine forth from every creature. Sin has spoiled and destroyed everything: the intellect and the will, the ethical and the physical world. Accordingly, it is the whole person and the whole cosmos at whose salvation and restoration God is aiming in his revelation. God's revelation, therefore, is certainly soteriological, but the object of that salvation is the cosmos, and not only the ethical or the will to the exclusion of the intellect, and not only the psychological to the exclusion of the somatic and physical, but everything in conjunction. For God has consigned all human beings under sin that he might have mercy upon all (Rom. 5:15f.; 11:32; Gal, 3:22)” (Reformed Dogmatics vol. 1, p.346).
“Indeed, all sciences proceed from a series of unproven and unprovable propositions that are accepted a priori and serve as a starting point for all argumentation and proof. Aristotle already saw this. There is no infinite regress; precisely in order to have evidential value, proofs must finally rest in a proposition that needs no proof, that rests in itself, and can therefore serve as principle of proof (principium argumentationis). A building cannot stand in the air, and a given argumentation can rest only on a foundation that is established by being self-evident and not by proof” (Reformed Dogmatics vol. 1, p.220-21).
A letter Bavinck wrote to a close friend as he wrestles with coming out of the academy as a young man where he fought for his faith in the midst of intellectual opposition details how scared he was to face the transition from that environment to the pastorate (he served as a pastor for a very short time before spending his entire career in the academy):
“The time to begin in my post is coming quickly. My installation and first service have been set for the second Sunday in March. To the extent that the moment draws near, I am increasingly dreading it. There is such a colossal amount that I still wanted to study and make my own in order to be able to speak about it with confidence, with inspiration, with belief. But it is possible that I might never finish [such a task]. Perhaps interaction with the congregation, with simple, pious people, will give me what the study cannot. No, it is true, Kuenen and Scholten have not had much influence on me (apart from in the contemplations of Scripture), if by that you mean the loss of the truths of faith and the adoption of others, of theirs. But they have (how could it be otherwise?) had an influence on the power and manner with which I embrace these truths. The naivete of childlike faith, of unbounded confidence in the truth instilled within me, you see, that I have lost, and that is a lot, such a lot; in this way, that influence was great and strong. And now I know it, that I will never get that back. I even find this good, and I am truly and sincerely thankful that I have lost it. There was also much in that naivete that was untrue and needed to be purified. But still, there is in that naivete (I know no better word), something that is good, that is a consolation; something that must remain, if the truth is to be sweet and precious to us. And if I then sometimes—very occasionally, because oh, where is the rock-solid faith of yesteryear in our age?—meet people in the congregation who have this, and do well by it and are so happy now, I cannot help but wish that I believed again as they do, so happy and jolly; and then I feel that if I had that, and could preach like that, inspired, warm, always fully convinced of what I say Yes, as one of them, oh I think, then I would be strong, mighty, then I could be useful; myself alive, I could live for others.” (Bavinck to Snouck Hurgronje, Kampen, 1/13/1881. Found in Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography, p.116).
If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for reading!