2011 Book Selections
(It's the Year of the Biography)
January/February: Wives of the Signers by Mary W. Green (Reissued by David Barton). Originally written by Mary Green in 1912, this book draws from the diaries and letters of the wives of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Readers are given a glimpse into the lives of the women who made their own contribution to the American Revolution.
March/April: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Restored Version, Complete and Unabridged by Harriet Jacobs. This is the autobiography of Harriet Jacobs (1813 – 1897). Abolitionist speaker, reformer, and former slave, Harriet Jacobs, tells the story of her life in--and ultimate escape from--slavery. (There are many different editions of this book available. To ensure that we're all "on the same page," be sure to get the paperback published in 2009)
May/June: Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman. World War II was a defining event of the 20th Century and Christians who lived through it faced challenges to their faith that we can hardly begin to imagine. In her own words, Diet Eman recounts her experiences as a young Christian woman working in the Dutch underground to rescue imperiled Jews.
July/August: Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. From 1966 to 1976 Mao Zedong led a violent social movement that became known as the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Nien Cheng, a woman of faith, tells her story of loss, imprisonment and survival through that dark time.
September/October: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This is one woman's remarkable story of growing up Muslim, escaping to the West, and becoming the focus of international attention as an outspoken critic of her Islamic heritage. But, in her opposition to all so-called religious fundamentalism, Hirsi Ali is no special friend of Christianity either. Don't be surprised if this book leaves you with a slight case of cultural and social whiplash.
November/December: The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ by Lee Strobel. From popular novels such as Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, to scholarly research into the Dead Sea Scrolls, the biblical biography of Jesus has been under attack. Strobel chooses six major arguments leveled against the authenticity of the biblical Jesus and systematically takes them apart.
2010 Book Selections
January/February: Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children, by Faith J. H. McDonnell and Grace Akallo. Two strong women of faith wrote this book. The first is Ugandan, Grace Akallo who tells the story of her abduction (and ultimate escape) as a child soldier caught up in the genocidal wars of Africa. The second is the American activist, Faith McDonnell, who provides the historical and political context for Grace’s experience. Throughout this book, Grace and Faith remind us that the hope of Africa is also our hope: the living Christ.
March/April: Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God’s Creation, by Paul Marshall. Here’s how one Amazon reviewer described this book: “Using very clear language, vivid description, and intriguing personal stories, this book drives home the point that Christians are called to be at home in God's world, and about the King's business, rather than always attempting to escape this world. The impressive endorsements by notable figures such as evangelical theologian J.I.Packer ring true as one reads chapter after surprising and enjoyable chapter. This book will help the church discover a very old and orthodox truth: Christ frees us up to be fully human and radically engaged in realizing in the here and now his age-old purposes for his world.”
May June: Letters Across the Divide, Two Friends Explore Racism, Friendship and Faith, by David Anderson and Brent Zuercher. David Anderson is African American and Brent Zuercher is white. These brothers in Christ became friends through the singles group of the mostly white church in Chicago where David served as a pastoral intern. When David moved to Columbia Maryland to found Bridgeway Church, he and Brent continued their friendship and began a purposeful correspondence to explore issues of race. This book captures their conversation. Study questions and suggested readings on racial reconciliation are included.
July/August: A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsden. This short biography (just 142 pages) by award-winning historian, George Marsden, is a marvelous, readable introduction to “the most brilliant theologian ever born on American soil.” If the only thing you remember about Edwards from your school days is the phrase, “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” then here is your opportunity to learn more about one of the most influential Americans in the history of Christianity.
September/October: The Seven Faith Tribes: Who They Are, What They Believe, and Why They Matter, by George Barna. Having just immersed ourselves in the 18th Century Great Awakening under the guidance of George Marsden, we now follow George Barna as he reports on what faith communities look like in 21st Century America. Barna’s hope is that as believers better understand the religious diversity in our country, they will better grasp how to work for cultural renewal.
November/December: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, by Nancy Guthrie, Ed. With this book in hand, the heart and soul of Christmas won’t be swallowed up in busyness this year. Guthrie has collected 22 reflections drawn from the works and sermons of theologians, both ancient and contemporary, for daily readings during Advent.
2009 Book Selections
January/February: The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules, by Carolyn Custis James. Those of us who read Carolyn Custis James’ portraits of women in her earlier book, Lost Women of the Bible, gained surprising insights into the “blessed alliance” as the creational model for men and women working together for the Kingdom of God. Prepare to be inspired by Custis James’ again as she takes us through a study of the story of Ruth.
March/April: Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, by Andy Crouch. How should Christians relate to the culture around us: Shun it? Consume it? Critique it? Transform it? Andy Crouch helps us to think carefully about how Christians can be responsible culture makers. Crouch served for many years at Harvard University as a campus minister with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Currently he is the editorial director of the Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today.
May June: Let Justice Roll Down, by John Perkins. John Perkins is one of today’s shining lights for racial reconciliation and economic development work among the poor within the United States. This book is the moving story of how the racism he experienced led him into anger and bitterness, and how the Gospel led him back out.
July/August: Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton. Get ready to laugh. This light-hearted, humorous tale tells what happens when 78-year-old Mattie Rigsby takes to heart her pastor’s call to treat “the least of these” the way she would treat Christ. Wesley Snipes, a teen-aged social reject, becomes the object of her good works. Caution to the reader: in seeking to portray personality accurately, the author has some characters use offensive language.
September/October: The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller. Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Manhattan, has written a book for doubters—Christian and non-Christian alike. In the first half of the book, Keller reviews the seven biggest objections and doubts about Christianity he’s heard over the years. In the second half, he examines the reasons underlying Christian belief. Keller provides us all with an opportunity to re-examine the grounds for our faith.
November/December: Living The Resurrection: The risen Christ in Everyday Life, by Eugene H. Peterson. In keeping with M&M tradition, our November/December selection will be a reflection on some aspect of the life of Jesus. This year, we ponder the resurrection. “After the resurrection of Jesus, nothing is the same…Christ’s friends were utterly transformed by his resurrection. Their friendship, their work, and even their meals together took on new meaning and purpose. The same can happen to us today. When the resurrection becomes the core reality of our spiritual formation, our dimmed eyes and dull souls are lifted to a place of continual renewal” (from the publisher’s notes).
2008 Book Selections:
January/February: Same Kind of Different as Me: a modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together, By Ron Hall and Denver Moore. In alternating chapters, Ron Hall (the international art dealer) and Denver Moore (the modern-day slave) tell how the Lord brought them into a relationship and ultimately changed their lives. Their story takes us inside the world of the homeless and raises issues about race relations in our time.
March/April: Daughters of Hope: Stories of Witness and Courage in the Face of Persecution by Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett. Persecution of Christians is occurring in countries around the world, and this book shows how women are often the most vulnerable victims. Daughters of Hope gives voice to Christian women from Africa to the Middle East to Asia persevering under the yoke of oppression. Each section provides prayer requests and practical action steps.
May/June: Not the Way it's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin by Cornelius Plantinga. Our culture has made a joke of sin; Plantinga's breviary (which means summary) explores the nature and dynamics of sin and shows how it makes a “joke” of us. By teaching us to understand sin better, Plantinga sharpens our appetite for moral beauty and reminds us of how desperately we need grace. This book is the “heavy-weight” on this year’s reading list and best is absorbed in small chunks. You may want to order and start reading this one early.
July/August: Simon’s Night, by Jon Hassler. In this often-humorous novel, we enter into the life of the Irish Catholic, Simon Shea. We meet him on his 8th day in a home for the elderly where he has voluntarily moved after accidentally burning down his kitchen. The book explores how Simon’s faith and his principles have shaped his life choices, including his decision to remain married for 36 years to a wife who, very soon after their marriage, abandoned him to live with another man. Cautions: This book does not portray a sanitized world. But if you are not offended by the stories of the Old Testament, you are not likely to be offended by how human frailty is depicted in this book.
September/October: The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, by Rodney Stark. Described in 1996 by Newsweek magazine as, "A fresh, blunt and highly persuasive account of how the West was won for Jesus," Dr. Stark lays out the sociological facts and figures of how Christians persuasively embodied their faith in ancient culture. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
November/December: The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey. This book is the result of Yancey’s quest to break through the stale stereotypes of Jesus he had fallen into after a lifetime of Christian belief. Awarded the Gold Medallion Christian Book of the Year award in 1996 by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, The Jesus I Never Knew has inspired many to a joyfully renewed commitment to following Jesus.
2007 Book Selections
January/February: How To Be A Christian In A Brave New World, By Joni Eareckson Tada and Nigel M. De S. Cameron. “As a quadriplegic who has spent three decades advocating for the disability community out of a wheelchair, Joni offers the insights of a woman intimately acquainted with suffering and struggle. Dr. Cameron shares from his vast knowledge as one of today’s foremost bioethics experts. Together, they offer deeply informed perspectives on such pressing issues as human cloning, designer babies, redefining human nature and human harvesting.” [Quote from back cover.]
March/April: The Big Picture, by M.D. Ben Carson, with Mr. Gregg Lewis. This book will give us an inside look at how faith in God shaped the life of a local hero, the Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson.
May/June: In The Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, by Alister McGrath. The title says it all! But why read about the King James Bible when most of us don’t even use that version anymore? Here’s why: the KJV story touches on vital aspects of our own faith history, such as the Reformation, and the historic battles over Bible translation. You’ll never again take for granted the fact that you have God’s Word in your own language!
July/August: Digging to America, by Anne Tyler. Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist, and long-time resident of Baltimore, MD, Anne Tyler, has written a novel that explores how an Iranian immigrant family and an American family learn about each other’s cultures and work through their misunderstandings. The families first meet at BWI while awaiting the arrival of their adopted daughters from Korea. By turns painful and humorous, this is a story of people persevering with one another and ultimately becoming friends.
September/October: Wicca’s Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality, by Catherine Edwards Sanders. Statistics indicate that Wicca is one of the fastest growing spiritualities today, especially among young women. Why is that? As a Christian and a journalist, Catherine Sanders undertook to understand what makes this movement so compelling and how we as Christians can speak the nourishing truth of the Gospel to Wiccans.
November/December: Jesus and His World, by Peter Walker. In this book, Peter Walker, lecturer in New Testament studies at Oxford, argues that if we don’t understand Jesus on His terms, which includes understanding the time and place during which He lived, then we will distort Jesus such that He fits our preferred expectations and agendas. In a text beautifully supplemented with artwork and photos of the Holy Land, Walker helps us better understand the world Jesus inhabited.
2006 Book Selections
January/February: Lost Women of the Bible, By Carolyn Custis James. Carolyn Custis James takes a fresh look at the women in the Bible, recovering dimensions of their lives that have been overlooked, in order that their stories may encourage us in our 21st Century walk of faith. Be sure to sign up for the all-EP churches women’s retreat where Carolyn Custis James will speak.
March/April: Miracle of Miracles, by Mina Nevisa, with Jim Croft. Iranian-born, and Muslim-raised, Mina Nevisa was miraculously converted to Christianity in the 1980s. This is her story of transformation and deliverance. An addendum explains key concepts of Islam.
May/June: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, By Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart. This book, widely used in Christian colleges and seminaries, teaches basic principles of biblical interpretation. Written in an easy-to-understand style, the authors provide us ordinary Christians, not just the scholars, with tools that help us read, believe, and obey the Bible.
July/August: At Home in Mitford, By Jan Karon. Spend some time in the gentle fictional world of Jan Karon’s Mitford, where the Gospel is lived out in the day-to-day lives of a small southern community. This wildly successful series has touched the hearts of millions, including author Lauren Winner, who attributes the Mitford series with being part of how God brought her from Orthodox Judaism to Christian faith.
September/October: Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, by Philip Hallie. This is the true story of how the villagers of Le Chambon, an isolated Huguenot village in southern France, managed under the teaching and leadership of their Protestant pastors, to rescue thousands of Jews escaping from Hitler’s persecutions.
November/December: Prayer: A Holy Occupation, by Oswald Chambers. Most readers are familiar with Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, but in this volume, all of his reflections on prayer have been collected for our edification. In the introduction Chambers writes, “We use prayer as a last resort; Jesus wants it to be our first line of defense.” This book will challenge all of us who wish to learn how to make prayer our “first line of defense.”
2005 Book Selections
January/February: Islam at the Crossroads: Understanding Its Beliefs, History and Conflicts, by Paul Marshall, Roberta Green and Lela Gilbert. Baker Book House, 2002. In just 120 pages, this small book explains how Islam was founded and formed and some of the forces that are influencing it today. A good primer for anyone looking for basic insights to better understand the world taking shape around us.
March/April: A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, by Gerald Sittser. ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1996. Driving home one night with his family, Gerald Sittser's van was hit by a drunk driver. The accident claimed the lives of his wife, his mother and his four-year-old daughter. In this book Sittser walks us through his experience of catastrophic loss and shows how God’s grace met and transformed his life.
May/June: girl meets GOD: A Memoir, by Lauren F. Winner. Random House, 2002. This engaging memoir takes us through the twists and turns of how a young woman, born of a Jewish father and lapsed Southern Baptist mother, journeys through orthodox Judaism only to find herself falling in love with Jesus and ultimately coming to faith in Christ.
July/August: Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger.
September/October: Good News about Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World, by Gary A. Haugen. IVP, 1999. In his foreword, John Stott says, “Gary Haugen’s book is a powerful combination of narrative and Scripture, of dramatic storytelling and biblical reflection, of human injustice and the justice of God.” Haugen, a major Christian human rights advocate, shares his first-hand knowledge of the realities of our fallen world but always in the powerful and hopeful light of our just and compassionate God.
November/December: Our Heavenly Father: Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, by Helmut Thielicke, translated by John W. Doberstein. German evangelical theologian, Helmut Thielicke, preached these sermons to his anguished and suffering congregation in Stuttgart during the last days of World War II, offering them—and now us—a strong word of hope. This out-of-print treasure will take some work to find (check the used book sites on the internet).
2004 Book Selections
January/February: When Life and Beliefs Collide, By Carolyn Custis James.
March/April: Five Women of the English Reformation By Paul F. M. Zahl
May/June: Ordering Your Private World By Gordon Macdonald.
July/August: The Color of Water, By James McBride.
September/October: Knowing God, by J. I. Packer.
November/December: The Man Born to be King, by Dorothy Sayers.
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