Cover Story

1996 Christianity Today Book Awards

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is proud to announce the results of the 1996 CT Book Awards. More than 200 books published in 1995 were nominated for this year’s awards. Ballots were sent to a large and diverse panel of scholars, pastors, writers, and other church leaders, who chose the titles for our “Top 25” list. (Because of ties, the list includes a total of 27 titles.) Thirteen publishers are represented on the list, headed by InterVarsity, with nine titles, and Eerdmans, with six–including CT’s Book of the Year, “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin,” by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. The titles listed here are but a few of a much larger number that merit recognition.

Noteworthy trends in this year’s list? Three come quickly to mind. First, the very strong showing of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” edited by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, constitutes a significant endorsement of the aims of ECT by leading evangelical thinkers. Coverage of the evangelical response to that historic statement, issued in March 1994, has tended to focus on critics of ECT. Perhaps this emphasis has been misleading.

Second, books such as “The Jesus Quest,” by Ben Witherington III, “The Jesus I Never Knew,” by Philip Yancey, “Jesus Under Fire,” edited by Michael Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, “Cynic Sage or Son of God?,” by Gregory Boyd, and “The Real Jesus,” by Luke Timothy Johnson (who is profiled in this issue), reveal a robust orthodoxy well equipped to meet the challenge of the Jesus Seminar. At the same time, these books are reminders of the perennial challenge that Jesus poses to us–above all, to our self-satisfied complacency.

Third, a number of this year’s books concur in identifying the present moment as “postmodern.” Some of us have hoped that this term would quietly fade away. (Remember how “structuralism” disappeared, an amazingly short time after the vogue for structuralist accounts of narrative, and “cinema,” and ice hockey?) Apparently we are out of luck. As a category of analysis, “postmodern” seems ever more solidly entrenched.

There is no shortage of guides to this phenomenon. One such, just published, is “A Primer on Postmodernism” (Eerdmans, 199 pp.; $13, paper), by Stanley J. Grenz, a lucid and unpretentious survey. See especially Grenz’s first chapter, which uses the differences between the original “Star Trek” and its successor, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” to illustrate the shift from modernity to postmodernity. (Spock is modern, “the ideal Enlightenment man”; Data, the android who would be human, is postmodern. It’s great fun.)

Evangelicals differ regarding the import of postmodern thought, some seeing it in entirely negative terms (postmodernism equals the abandonment of truth), others–while not uncritical–seeing a corrective to the cherished illusions of modernity and thus a great opportunity for Christian apologetics. For a concise and penetrating exposition of the latter viewpoint, see Lesslie Newbigin’s “Proper Confidence.”

Is there a book missing from this year’s list that you would like to recommend to our readers? (Remember: only books published in 1995 were eligible for consideration.) Let us know; we’d like to hear from you.

1996 BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin”

by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

An excerpt

Nobody studies sin very long without discovering that the subject is full of depths, turns, ironies, and surprises. Some of these arise from the inventiveness of the human will, and some from its intractability; some from the oddities and pressures generated by group evil, and some from the sovereignty of the individual conscience, struggling to uncinch its burdens. At its depths, sin corrupts religion itself, its public enemy. All of the turns and ironies of sin arise in some way from the fact that evil does not–indeed cannot–appear alone. Even in our sin, Augustine said, we imitate God whose image we bear. Our willfulness, for instance, shows “a dim resemblance to omnipotence.” Evil always appears in tandem with good.

WINNERS

1. “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin,” by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Eerdmans

2. “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission,” edited by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, Word

3. “Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity,” by Alister McGrath, InterVarsity

4. “Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education,” by Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity

5. “The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth,” by Ben Witherington III, InterVarsity

6. “Straight and Narrow: Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexual Debate,” by Thomas Schmidt, InterVarsity

7. “Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements,” by Thomas C. Oden, Abingdon

8. “The Jesus I Never Knew,” by Philip Yancey, Zondervan

9. “The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity,” by Donald McCullough, NavPress

10. “Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus,” edited by Michael Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, Zondervan

10. “Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age,” by J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh, InterVarsity

12. “Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars,” by Tom Sine, Eerdmans

12. “Concise Dictionary of Christianity in America,” edited by Daniel G. Reid, Robert D. Linder, Bruce L. Shelley, Harry S. Stout, and Craig A. Noll, InterVarsity

12. “God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love,” by Donald Bloesch, InterVarsity

15. “Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis,” by L. Gregory Jones, Eerdmans

15. “One by One from the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America,” by Glenn C. Loury, Free Press

15. “What About Those Who Have Never Heard?” by Gabriel Fackre, Ronald Nash, and John Sanders, InterVarsity

18. “A Christian Theology Reader,” edited by Alister McGrath, Blackwell

18. “Fundamentalisms Comprehended,” edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, University of Chicago Press

18. “The Goddess Revival,” by Aida Besancon Spencer, Donna F. G. Hailson, William David Spencer, and Catherine Clark Kroeger, Baker

18. “New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology,” edited by David J. Atkinson, David F. Field, Arthur Holmes, and Oliver O’Donovan, InterVarsity

22. “Cynic Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies,” by Gregory Boyd, Victor Books

22. “Fatherless in America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem,” by David Blankenhorn, BasicBooks

22. “Not My Own: Abortion and the Marks of the Church,” by Elizabeth Achtemeier and Terry Schlossberg, Eerdmans

22. “Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship,” by Lesslie Newbigin, Eerdmans

22. “The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels,” by Luke Timothy Johnson, Harper San Francisco

22. “Remembering the Christian Past,” by Robert Wilken, Eerdmans

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

When Crowds Gather, 'No Greater Love' Is There

CIA Use of Missionaries Revisited

RCA Pastor Refuses to Repent

Prepacked Communion Takes Off

Politics and Pulpit A Real Confession

Deposed Bishop Invents Online Diocese

Graham Son Subs for Dad Down Under

Anglican Province Created

Patriarchs Quarrel over Estonia

CHARLES COLSON: Christian v. America

'The Right to Parent': Should It Be Fundamental?

Graham Reaches Largest Television Audience

Jury Still Out on Homosexual Ordination

Muslim-Christian Conflicts May Destabilize East Africa

Stanley's Wife Halts Divorce Plans

News

News Briefs: April 29, 1996

Where Is the Christian Men's Movement Headed?

Classic & Contemporary Excerpts from April 29, 1996

ARTICLE: Politics and Religion Do Mix

ARTICLE: Rehearsing Forgiveness

ARTICLE: The Jesus Seminar Unmasked

ARTICLE: The Case for Christian Kitsch

ARTICLE: Saint John Wayne and the Dragon

ARTICLE: Why Volunteers Won’t Save America

Editorial

EDITORIAL: Confessions of an Editor

Editorial

EDITORIAL: Our Extended, Persecuted Family

LETTERS: Jesus is the truth

Staff Assignments

News

Flash Cards from Heaven

View issue

Our Latest

Join CT for a Live Book Awards Event

A conversation with Russell Moore, Book of the Year winner Gavin Ortlund, and Award of Merit winner Brad East.

Excerpt

There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Proper’ Christmas Carol

As we learn from the surprising journeys of several holiday classics, the term defies easy definition.

Advent Calls Us Out of Our Despair

Sitting in the dark helps us truly appreciate the light.

Glory to God in the Highest Calling

Motherhood is honorable, but being a disciple of Jesus is every woman’s primary biblical vocation.

Advent Doesn’t Have to Make Sense

As a curator, I love how contemporary art makes the world feel strange. So does the story of Jesus’ birth.

Public Theology Project

The Star of Bethlehem Is a Zodiac Killer

How Christmas upends everything that draws our culture to astrology.

News

As Malibu Burns, Pepperdine Withstands the Fire

University president praises the community’s “calm resilience” as students and staff shelter in place in fireproof buildings.

The Russell Moore Show

My Favorite Books of 2024

Ashley Hales, CT’s editorial director for print, and Russell discuss this year’s reads.

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