6. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Michael J. Kruger, The Heresy and Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway 2010). A thorough, systematic, patient, scholarly dismantling of the Bauer-Ehrman thesis. Ever wondered if orthodoxy is just the theology of the winners, or if the canon is nothing but the product of arbitrary church fiat, or if the textual evidence for the New Testament is unbearably weak? Then read this book–it is a necessary antidote to much popular and silly thinking. My only complaint: I wish there were a 25 page version that would reach a wider audience.
7. Theodore Dalrymple, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism (Encounter Books 2010). Theodore Dalrymple is the pseudonymous name for a retired British physician, who doubles as a brilliant essayist. Dalrymple (not to be confused with Timothy Dalrymple of Patheos) is not religious, but his outlook on the world is conservative in the sense that he recognizes something like original sin and believes in preserving the best of Western culture. In this latest work, Dalrymple argues that every civilization must find a way to conserve while changing. This, he thinks, is Europe’s present failure. They have conserved too little and accommodated too much, like Vichy France during the Nazi regime. I didn’t think this was Dalrymple’s best book (Life at the Bottom probably is), but he is always provocative, blunt, and super-smart.
8. Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (Bloomsbury Press 2010). Speaking of super-smart, Victor Davis Hanson is another one of those guys. Granted I don’t know a lot about military history so I may be easily impressed, but it sure seems like Hanson knows every last detail. And yet, his writing is a masterstroke of clarity and style. This book is a collection of reworked essays, reviews, and articles. Despite the patchwork approach, several coherent themes still come through: war is inevitable because man is imperfectible; wars often happen for ordinary reasons like honor, pride, and hurt feelings; because people are evil and often bent on evil, deterrence comes from strength not from appeasement. I’m not the biggest war buff, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the parts about Thucydides. Hanson’s bottom line sounds quite Augustinian: “The peril is not in accepting that the innate nature of war lies in the dark hearts of us all, but rather in denying it.”
9. C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (P&R 2006). With this book, Collins, a professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, has written the best defense of an analogical interpretation of the creation days (see also his Faith and Science: Friends or Foes?). The exegesis is careful and extremely detailed. Collins demonstrates that “seven twenty-four days” is not necessarily the most natural reading of the text. If you want to make a tight exegetical case for longer creation days and the historicity of Adam, this is your book. Collins also makes several good arguments for the presence of animal death before the fall.
10. Ted Kluck, Hello, I Love You: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood (Moody 2010). Everything you’d expect from a Kluck book: honesty, humor, and more honesty. There’s also a good deal of tenderness too. Ted is always fun to read, and here we see Ted struggle with bitterness, forgiveness, complaining, and trust. Like I said, he is nothing if not transparent. This book will be especially poignant for anyone who has endured or contemplated overseas adoption.
Bonus: You really should get The Church History ABC’s by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard. It is funny, informative, and the pictures are wonderfully creative. I love the book and, best of all, my kids do too. I never thought my seven year old would be so interested in Hippolytus.
