Ten Significant Books I Read in 2020

The leading candidate for cliché of the year for 2020 has to be any phrase involving the term “unprecedented.” Whatever term we use for the year, it was a different year than I’ve ever experienced.

One of the most significant differences this year is how difficult I found it to read and write at my usual pace. Part of that had to do with the pandemic. I am a supervisor who had to shift to leading my team online and remotely while trying to complete a major team project. As it turns out that is a mentally and emotionally taxing experience, that left me exhausted in the evenings looking for a movie to watch or a light and fluffy book to read. It isn’t particularly conducive to reading new and sometimes challenging books attentively and quickly.

Additionally, this year I taught and developed a lot more curriculum than ever before in my life as part of my efforts outside of work. So, I created an Old Testament course for my daughter’s homeschool and recorded half of the lectures (I still have about half to go this year). I researched a “Great Books” reading list to go along with her history reading. I also taught through an overview of systematic theology in Sunday School, wrote and presented a series on Christian Contentment, and preached several times. I have no complaints about those investments, but they did consume a bunch of time.

In another shift, I’ve been listening to Ken Myers and his Mars Hill Audio Journal this year. I had been interested for years, but never gotten into it because I have a thing for not paying subscriptions when there is so much free content, and much of it very good. But the Mars Hill discussions were a treasure this year. On the weekly Friday features, Myers often interviewed people thinking about current events. The scheduled journals are enriching and tend to be timeless, helpful discussions that lead in a whole lot of interesting directions. Ken Myers is singularly responsible for an uptick in my spending on books and also for a shift to reading older books, which is, on balance probably a good thing (if C. S. Lewis is to be believed).

Who know what next year will be like. I just signed a contract for a book on Environmental Ethics and I’m hoping to be more productive on outlets that aren’t my own blog. It’s always good to have dreams.

The Beginning of the List

In any case, here are some of the more significant books I read this year (in no particular order). If there is any obvious selection criteria, it is that the first ten listed are books I read this year that I haven’t reviewed on my own website. There are some below in my “other” list that were also very significant.

1. Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund.

I read this one (along with a lot of other people this year) during the pandemic and it was a breath of fresh air. I need to re-read it again, and maybe once every year for the rest of my life. There are few books that rise to the level of Christian classic, but this is one. I mean that without any exaggeration. That is exactly why I haven’t reviewed it, because I need to re-read and more thoroughly digest it before I can share my thoughts. The essential thought of the book is that one of Jesus’ essential character traits is his gentleness. Not an earth-shattering concept, really, but in Puritan fashion, Dane Ortlund meditates on that thought through Scripture for a book-length essay. I’ve given a dozen copies away and it needs to be more widely read and distributed than it has been at this point. It is a phenomenal book.

2. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman.

This is not an easy book to read. Even with a background in theology, an increasing familiarity with philosophy, and significant reading on the question of modernity in the past few years, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self was, at times, tough sledding. But the book is an important one and worth the work (especially for pastors and educators). Trueman surveys a significant portion of the intellectual history of modernity. He traces the thought of Rousseau, the Romantics, Freud, Marcuse, Reich, and others into the 21st century. There is a lot of explanatory power in this book. Most significantly, the book is expository and not polemical, which means that it may be a helpful way to engage with a non-Christian immersed in the ethos of modernity. It has significant explanatory power.

3. Bavinck: A Critical Biography by James Eglinton.

I’ve officially fallen down the Bavinck rabbit-hole and it’s been a good thing. This year I’ve read most of Bavicnk’s Reformed Dogmatics as I prepared for my weekly teaching of Christian Doctrines in Sunday School. I also wrote and presented a paper on Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics for ETS. Meanwhile I found Bavinck’s Christian Worldview an excellent book for our day. Eglinton is one of the premier Bavinck scholars writing today. His biography of Bavinck corrects some misinterpretations of earlier scholarship and really sets Bavinck’s intellectual project in its context. The research for this project is impressive. This will be the definitive Bavinck biography for this generation. It is worth reading as a biography, but it is also a vital entry into Bavinck-studies.

4. Conspiracy Theories: A Primer by Joseph Uscinski.

Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have a conspiracy theory problem. There are contributing causes that have their roots in the lack of discipleship and, more particularly, the failure for discipleship programs to include a proper emphasis on epistemology—how we know things. This little book by a non-Christian provides an even-handed diagnosis of the nature and dangers of conspiracy theories, which are increasingly prevalent in our social media saturated world that is rife with political divisions. I reviewed this book at TGC and although this is only a primer, I think that it would be good for pastors and laypeople to pick up and digest as they think about their attitudes toward media consumption.

5.Histories and Fallacies by Carl Trueman.

This book was released in 2010, but Crossway had a sale and I’m working on homeschool curriculum, so I picked this book up. As it turns out, it was a good selection and is going to make it into the reading list for our Sophomore critical thinking or history curriculum. Most Christian teachers end up working in history at some point as non-specialists, so a book like this where a specialist discusses discipline-specific problems can be helpful. I found it so. Trueman shows why some approaches to history seem fair, but are actually bankrupt methodologically. They sell well, but at the same time are misleading. If you teach, whether in a school, at home, or in the church, this is book that will help you read and think better.

6. Walking through Infertility by Matthew Arbo.

Arbo published this in 2018 and it has lingered on my shelf for a while in the ever-growing to-be-read pile. I pulled it off the shelf some time this year because I wanted a short book on a topic adjacent to much of my reading list that I could read through and feel like I had accomplished something. What I found in Arbo’s book was a surprisingly pastoral approach to an intensely important ethical topic. Many people in the US struggle with infertility. There are a number of contributing causes, but they are less important than the unthinking ethical landmines folks step on in order to have kids. Because the topic is so personal (it involves the sex life of married couples) and because the pressure to have kids with your DNA at just the right time is so high, few people stop to think about the implications of invitro fertilization, surrogate “mothering,” and other fertility-adjacent technologies. Arbo manages to provide a sensitive, biblical, and ethically precise book that will help Christians avoid sinning while in pursuit of becoming parents. This is a book that belongs in every pastor’s library and should be a ready reference to distribute to those struggling with the question of fertility.

7. How do We Know? An Introduction to Epistemology (2nd ed) by James K. Dew and Mark Foreman

Francis Schaeffer once commented that the biggest danger to evangelicalism is epistemology. He was right, but one of the reason the topic is often neglected is because it’s hard to find an entry point. The term itself is hard to parse until you read it in context a whole bunch of times, but how we know is vitally important. How do We Know? provides one of the best entry-level presentations of the topic I’ve found. Readers do not need a background in philosophy to get the benefit from it. As a result, this will become part of our homeschool curriculum, and I feel confident in recommending it widely.

9. Work: Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation by Daniel M. Doriani.

At this point I’ve read most of the recently published material on work and vocation, so I didn’t expect much new or particularly helpful in Doriani’s book. I was pleasantly surprised and this will be my go-to book on the subject for the foreseeable future. The conversation on faith and work has evolved over the past few decades and Work reaps the blessings of the years of conversations. Doriani affirms the goodness of work without falling into the trap of arbeit mach frei, which characterizes some of the more blatant attempts to unquestioningly affirm capitalism as it exists in the US while also wrestling with the doctrine of work from Scripture. Doriani is critical of both the anti-work approach and some of the more zealous trends in the faith and work debate. As a result, he presents a biblical vision for work that takes into account the various critiques offered and presents a rich discussion on the topic. This is another resource that pastors should have ready for distribution for those struggling with deep career questions.

10. Learning the Virtues, Romano Guardini.

This is an older book that I came across as a result of Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio. It is also reflective of an effort that I’m making to read for my soul as well as my mind. I’m curating a list of volumes that I intend to read on a regular basis to point me toward healthy spiritual and mental habits. Guardini is Roman Catholic, so there are comments throughout his book that anticipate actual merit being accrued because of the pursuit of virtue. That misunderstanding of theology aside, however, the book is a sound meditation on what it means to live in the presence of God. It is the sort of book one should read a chapter at a time, perhaps in the evening, and spend a few minutes thinking about how that particular virtue can shape the reader in a more Christlike pattern. If you are struggling in dry patch spiritually, this is a book that may be a welcome relief.

Other Significant Books:

As I noted, the above ten books are listed in no particular order. As I look through the list of other volumes I read this year, there are a number of them that also belong on this list. After some thought, I put mainly books that I have read but not reviewed in the section above, since I am a bit behind in my reviewing. Some of the books below have already been reviewed but not posted and a few are also to be reviewed.

In any event, here are some other profitable books from my reading this year:

11. Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft.

12. How to Win the Culture War by Peter Kreeft.

13. In Search of the Common Good by Jake Meador.

14. Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver.

15. The Humane Economy by Willhelm Ropke.

16. The Possibility of Prayer by John Starke.

17. Christian Worldview by Herman Bavinck.

18. Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs.

19. Technopoly by Neil Postman.

20. Pagans and Christians in the City by Stephen D. Smith.

21. He Descended to the Dead by Matthew Emerson.

22. Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals by Gavin Ortlund.

I’ll stop there before I drag the list on any further, but there is a lot of good stuff out there and there is a lot of very good material being produced right now, too.