About a year ago, we announced our call for nominations for the Best Christian Book of All Time, and you —our readers —responded with great enthusiasm. From a nomination pool of over 140 worthies, we first narrowed the bracket to 64 contenders, voted out lesser lights (such as Luther, Calvin, Chesterton, Aquinas —I hope they make something of themselves some day!), and crowned our winner: Augustine's Confessions, the Best Christian Book of All Time.[1] You may have heard of the runner-up, a short tract by C.S. Lewis … [Read more...] about The Best Christian Book of All Time: One Year Later
Best Christian Book of All Time
Best Christian Books of All Time Review Series: Knowing God Pt. III
Several weeks ago I left you with the second installment of my review of J.I. Packer's Knowing God, one of the works that made it onto ESN's March Madness bracket, The Best Christian Books of All Time. As I said then, this book has greatly impacted the way I see and live in the present world. I'm far from being able to say that I've got this life under wraps (and I hope I never think I do), but Packer's words have led me to question and wrestle with many “wrapped” beliefs that I would've probably left inside that worn, … [Read more...] about Best Christian Books of All Time Review Series: Knowing God Pt. III
Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. II
Last week I wrote the first part of what will be a several-part review of J.I. Packer's Knowing God. This week I'm going to take a look at the remaining chapters of Part I before moving on and moving through a bit of Part II. Knowledge and Idolatry Chapter 3, "Knowing and Being Known," deals more directly with the distinction between knowledge about and knowledge of (which I highlighted in last Thursday's post). I like to call the former "factual" and the latter "intimate." Concerning the latter, Packer … [Read more...] about Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. II
Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. I
During the month of March, here at InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Blog, we offered a distraction away from the tomfoolery of the NCAA and held a little tournament of our own. "What are the best Christian books of all time?" we asked. And you answered. We had hundreds of nominations for works of poetry, fiction, romance. You name it. Some of the books that made it to the bracket surprised me, but what really caught my attention were some of the outcomes of the early rounds. Several of the first round losers were my … [Read more...] about Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. I
Best Christian Book: What Have You Added to Your Reading List?
Thank you, Andy, for your amazing breakdown of the advanced metrics of the Best Christian Book of All Time Tournament. One of Andy's findings was that the Tournament seedings came much closer to an ideal seeding than the most recent NCAA Men's Basketball tournaments. (However, I do note as a proud UofL alumnus that this year, at least, the #1 overall seed justified its ranking. Go Cards! #L1C4) Perhaps this represents my in-depth understanding of ESN members' voting tendencies —or, more likely, I was simply quite … [Read more...] about Best Christian Book: What Have You Added to Your Reading List?