Christianity Today has complied a list of the top 50 books that have shaped Evangelicals. The list includes well-known classics and some surprises. Also surprising is some that were left off the list.
I would have thought more than one C.S. Lewis book would have made it. Screwtape Letters or a Narnia volume, but only Mere Christianity was tabbed.
I was surprised to see A Wrinkle in Time listed. I enjoyed the book and several others by Madeleine L’Engle, but am unsure how it impact the Evangelical movement.
Perhaps L’Engle and Lewis influenced me more as a writer than I am really aware. As a child (and even a teenager) I loved their books and had no idea of the author behind the stories I loved.
I remember being on the basketball team and while everyone else had headphones blaring on the team bus, I was reading Many Waters.
It was many years later when I learned of the faith that influence both of my favorite childhood authors. The message was there, but it was not preachy and obnoxious.
As I write today I seek to be informed and influenced by my faith. I can’t help but be impacted by something around which my life revolves, but I understand the power of the “mystery.” Because of my background in their writing, I am able to grasp the depth of people like Ted Dekker and others who write as Christians, from a Christian perspective, but without “shoving it down my throat” that offends so many people.
Good stories draw people into the world. Good stories told by Christians are able to draw people into contact with Christianity without beating them over the head with it.
So while maybe A Wrinkle in Time is not an obvious influential novel, it influenced me and apparently a lot of others.
Christians, any surprises on there? Who should have made the list and didn’t? Who should have been higher or lower?
Non-Christians, any books on there you have read, heard of or at least seem interesting to you?
