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What did you think about our list of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals? Let us know.

I have been reading for more than six decades and discovered only a dozen books from this list that I have read. [I would have included in the list] Dr. Paul Brand's books, especially Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I have given this book to college graduates, read it several times, and also read Philip Yancey's book about this fine man and his life.

Also not included was Joni Eareckson Tada—her first book especially, about her accident—and Billy Graham. Not even one of Graham's books made the list?

I'm glad to see some of my favorites, though—Christy, The Hiding Place, God's Smuggler, and This Present Darkness.

V. L. Wilson
Millville, NJ

One interesting thing about this list is that the number 3 book, C. S. Lewis's excellent Mere Christianity, was not written by an evangelical. If Lewis were alive today, it's safe to conclude that he would find little in common with the typical evangelical in the pew. Lewis endorsed (or at least positively explored) theological concepts such as universalism, purgatory, and a second chance to believe in Christ after death, concepts which might result in expulsion from some of the evangelical churches that now claim him as their own.

This reveals an irony of the evangelical movement. Most evangelicals are fed a constant diet of works by popularizers such as Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Bruce Wilkerson, Frank Peretti, Rick Warren, etc. It saddens me to find the excellent works of people such as F. F. Bruce and Mark Noll toward the end of the list, indicating their relative lack of influence, while finding the works of popularizers like McDowell near the head of the list.

If nothing else, this list should be a wake-up call for a movement that has increasingly become more concerned about gay marriage, evolution, and The Da Vinci Code than figuring out how to better love their neighbors, care for widows and orphans, and announce the reconciling work of Christ. Is it any wonder that evangelicalism's most pressing concern often seems to be creating a comfortable subculture replete with a smorgasbord of entertainment alternatives, all designed to accommodate the movement's wholesale embrace of consumer culture?

Robert Eugene DiPaolo

I can't argue with your top 50 list, but I would be interested to know where Wild At Heart fits in. Would it be in the top 100? In time, I think we will look back and see that Eldredge started something in the evangelical world that had significant impact. I have read many of the books on the list, but none of them had as much impact on my personal life as Wild At Heart.

Dean J. Callison
Vice President of Development, Avant Ministries
Kansas City, Missouri

In such a limited list there are sure to be countless titles that readers believe should have been included. But there seems to be one particularly glaring omission, given the historical significance and influence of the title. Harold Lindsell's The Battle for the Bible (1976) was hugely influential in shaping and codifying for a new generation of evangelicals a serious commitment to biblical inerrancy. It altered the way evangelicals evaluated theological institutions, particularly Fuller Theological Seminary, the darling of the neo-evangelical movement. Furthermore, it is hard to conceive of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention or of the drafting of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) apart from Lindsell's book. Surely this title merits a position in the top ten.

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October (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50