Now that all the lists have come and gone, I figured I would share with our friends some of the most enjoyable books I engaged with in 2019. I thought about keeping it to a “top 10” list and then it got too long. So here is my “top 10ish” books from 2019 with a few others linked in.
Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an English Voice by David Teems. If you are new to the historical person of William Tyndale this is a great place to start for both believers and non. Teems comes to Tyndale through his English translation of the Bible and its import to the English language. Teems argues that Tyndale’s work belongs next to Shakespeare in shaping the English tongues but is not often acknowledged as such. Teems makes this argument through a helpful biographical sketch that amplifies Tyndale’s own faith without being obnoxious.
The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades by Roger Crowley. I am a huge fan of Roger Crowley’s works in creative non-fiction. Crowley’s interests scan the middle ages and center around various engagements with the West and the World of Islam. This book highlights the final battle for the port of Acre in the Levant. Acre was a city that was taken and retaken several times throughout the crusading era. This book focus on the final fall of this stronghold to the rising Islamic power lead by the Seljuk Turks. I recommend all of Crowley’s published works. Start with “Empires of the Sea” for an introduction or head directly to the accursed tower of Acre.
Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injusticeh by Eric Mason. I thought this was a 2018 read for me, but I finished it in January 2019 so it counts for the year. Woke Church is a great book that explains how gospel centrality and a stand for biblical justice go hand and hand. One of my favorite quotes from the work brings a needed clarity for the American church:
You have to be intrinsically changed by God in order for justice to be done. In other words, justice doesn’t come by legislation, because you can legislate things and nothing changes. We can go to the executive branch. We can go to the legislative branch. We can go to the judicial branch. We can put whatever kind of Supreme Court justices we want to put in place. But at the end of the day legislation doesn’t change hearts … only the gospel does.
Eric Mason, Woke Church, 50.
We discussed this book on Episode 39 of the Gospel Underground Podcast. Woke, Too Woke, or Broke? Too often we lack balance in discussions of justice with one’s political bent taking over immediately. We need not be blindly dismissive or excessively political correct in discussing justice. Mason’s book is helpful to Christians throughout a political spectrum.
Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political by Quassim Cassam. This work focuses on thinking and the habits of forming beliefs and knowledge. Just are there are intellectual virtues like honesty, integrity, open mindedness, Cassam also argues there are ways of thinking that are vicious. Cassam argues that there are certain ways of thinking that are actually blameworthy. He mentions many such as pride, gullibility, self-satisfaction, excessive dogmatism, and willful stupidity among the vices of the mind. Though some may find his political examples off-putting, Cassam makes a strong case that we ought to be virtuous in our thinking. Now if virtue and vice, good and evil, are “real” this project survives. This project unravels completely when paired with any sort of moral or epistemic relativism.
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. Ok, quick confession. I read this book so I could keep talking to certain friends who were taken in by the Pentagram. Uh, I mean, the Enneagram. Just kidding. I really enjoyed this book and its introduction to what I understand to be tool for gaining self knowledge, conversations, and emotional health. I understand the issues that some have with it and also get why others find it so helpful. For me I found the Enneagram to be a tool that was good for conversations and for engaging how I interact with other people. I don’t ascribe to it any mysticism, omniscience, or divine inspiration. Oh, and I know this is obligatory so I am a 2 with a 3 wing and sometimes showed as a 3 with a 2 wing. Either way, I am loyal, deeply committed, and like to lead. This, of course, is only until things get super stressful.
The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Don Hoffman. This book will probably come off a bit odd to most readers. Hoffman is a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. He works across the disciplines of Cognitive psychology, Logic and Philosophy of Science, and Computer Science. Hoffman argues that our failure to understand human consciousness, or consciousness broadly, has resulted from our materialistic assumptions. From oddities in quantum mechanics and human experience Hoffman is working on the hypothesis that mind does not emerge from matter but rather, space-time, is the operating system of a universal consciousnesses. Evolution has developed our operating system to make us think the abstraction of space-time is the real world whereas the truth is that all emerges from a broad consciousness. Is he taking a scientific route towards pantheism? Is Hoffman’s conscious realism, or further ideas such as simulationism, worth of my consideration as Christian theist? Here is his Ted Talk, Do we see reality as it is? for a quick view of his ideas.
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough. David McCullough is a beloved writer of American History whose works have been well traveled for decades. His most recent book travels with American settlers as they headed west after the founding of our republic. The title might make one think this is about heading all the way to the west coast but the scope of the work is more narrow. In fact, “West” should be understood as the Ohio territories and the move of settlers in the final decades of the 18th century. Those who want European settlement to be villainized will be disappointed here. McCullough’s telling has the settlers precarious situation and survival in a more heroic light. Furthermore, if your view of Native Americans is pristine as a people only victimized, there are some disturbing stories here as well. I have enjoyed most books by McCullough, particularly those on the Brooklyn Bridge, Panama Canal and the Wright Brothers. Though I did enjoy this work enough to pick up another volume on the Whiskey Rebellion, it was not my favorite David McCullough book thus far.
Leading - Learning form Life and My Years at Manchester United by Alex Ferguson and Michael Moritz. This is a book about the life and leadership style of former Manchester United football club manager Alex Ferguson. For any fan of the premier league or world football this book is a delight. Though there is more here than fluff for the rabid football fan. The book also goes into the leadership principles that guided what many argue is the greatest football manager in history. If you want to get something from Sir Alex, I recommend you pick this up. Also, the audio book version has a proper reader with a Scottish accent. Delightful. I also read a great history of the Premier League this year entitled, The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports. Very very fun read.
In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown by Nathaniel Philbrick. Philbrick is in the midst of a run of books about the American Revolution. I read his previous works Bunker Hill and Valiant Ambition in the last couple of years. This book, like the two previous, was a wonderfully detailed account giving a window in a smaller slice of a well told history. This particular book focuses on the final days of the war and the risks, guess work, British blunders, and statesmanship necessary for the victory in the last great battle of the American Revolution. Philbrick is a masterful story-teller as well as a communicator of history. These gifts come together into a fascinating look at the decision making of Washington and others that led to the birth of a nation.
Christ and Culture Revisited by DA Carson. I’ll just post the conclusion from my full review of this book as my summary:
In the past, I have been thankful for the articles, lectures and books I have read by Dr. Carson. His intellectual rigor along with a devoted biblical commitment to Christ has continued to be a refreshing guide to my own life and faith. I think his evaluation of such an influential work like Christ and Culture is both needed and helpful for our time. His judgment that the five fold typology [of Niehbur] now seems a bit parochial, (Carson 200) I found helpful and his own path forward to be inspiring. In what seemed like a false ending, before a final post script of the book, Carson quotes CS Lewis at length to offer wisdom to our age. I found that quotation to be quite helpful,and will close my review with it as well:
What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic systems. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.(Quoted in Carson, 225.Mere Christianity (1952; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 73.)
In light of these realities,we must take the truth of the gospel to people in culture and engage the systems and powers that be with the appropriate posture led by the Spirit of God. In doing so, we might manifest the glorious kingdom of Christ right in the midst of our time and culture.To such ends we submit our lives to our sovereign King who is to be forever praised among the nations.
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben MacIntyre. Sometimes the truth is better than fiction and this is almost always the case in the works of Ben MacIntyre. He focuses on true stories of espionage from the 20th century. This is, perhaps, one of the most fascinating. MacIntyre tells the story of KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky and his recruitment as a cold war era spy. I will ruin nothing of this amazing work and just tell you to go an grab it. Exhilarating read! If you get hooked, grab his Spy Among Friends next for a story that tells the greatest defection in the other direction from West to East.
Can Science Answer Everything? by John Lennox. This was my favorite Christian book of 2019 and also a favorite of my middle child. Lennox is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Oxford University and an active Christian Apologist. Lennox possesses a fine scientific mind that engages ideas with precision. At the same time, he writes (and speaks) like an old Irish uncle that loves to laugh and cares about his reader. He pulls no punches but makes sure you never feel as if he’s throwing a punch at you. The book begins with a treatments of atheistic philosophies claims to be “scientific” and argues how Christian faith actually makes more sense of reality and the scientific enterprise itself. For those who enjoyed Thaxton and Pearcey’s The Soul of Science will love this book. The book ends with a more testimonial and evangelistic tone, commending the gospel to the reader. As such it is a wonderful volume to give to non Christian friends. Our family has given away a few already.
I’m looking forward to another year of engaging reads where I might learn more about God, history, technology, and our interaction with these.
May the Lord meet you in a good book and engulf your mind in his glory in the year to come. Remember, in our reading, let us not lead our focus away from the Scriptures.
11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. 12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
- Ecclesiastes 12:11-12