Nineteen titles receive honors this year for helping readers understand the people, events, and ideas that shape evangelical life, thought, and mission. CT received 300 nominated titles from 46 publishers. This year's awards, chosen by leaders in a variety of disciplines—including academia, the church, and journalism—honor books from well-known evangelical publishers, academic presses, and mainstream houses.
APOLOGETICS/EVANGELISM 16 Nominees Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today
John G. Stackhouse Jr. (Oxford)
Stackhouse, the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, Vancouver, reflects on how to share Christian faith in a postmodern world.
BIBLICAL STUDIES 36 Nominees The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language
Eugene Peterson (NavPress)
The prolific author and pastor completes his 12-year project to render the whole of Scripture in modern language—to the acclaim of readers ranging from J. I. Packer to Bono of U2.
CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE 51 Nominees The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity
Philip Jenkins (Oxford)
Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University, explores how 21st-century Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere will be more vibrant, orthodox, and culturally transforming than it usually is in the Northern Hemisphere.
CHRISTIAN LIVING 40 Nominees Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living
Cornelius Plantinga Jr. (Eerdmans)
The president of Calvin Theological Seminary writes on the grand theological themes of Creation, Fall, and Redemption.
THE CHURCH/PASTORAL LEADERSHIP 24 Nominees The Company of Preachers: Wisdom on Preaching, Augustine to the Present
Richard Lischer, ed. (Eerdmans)
Lischer, a professor at Duke University Divinity School, gathers insights on one of the highest forms of verbal communication.
FICTION 25 Nominees In This Mountain
Jan Karon (Viking)
The seventh novel in Karon's Mitford series finds Father Tim and Cynthia returning to Mitford, where the Episcopal priest struggles with ennui during his retirement.
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY 30 Nominees The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life
Armand M. Nicholi Jr. (Free Press)
Nicholi, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, explains how Lewis's Christianity and Freud's nonbelief affected not just their ideas but also their lives.
MISSIONS/GLOBAL AFFAIRS 13 Nominees The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal & Charismatic Movements
Stanley M. Burgess, ed. (Zondervan)
Weighing in at nearly 1,300 pages, this comprehensive work covers the world of enthusiastic Christianity from Africa, Central, to Zopfi, Jacob.
SPIRITUALITY 30 Nominees Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ
Dallas Willard (NavPress)
Reading for people ready to make spiritual discipline a regular practice in their lives. Sample chapters: "Radical Evil in the Human Soul," "Radical Goodness Restored to the Soul," "Transforming Our Social Dimensions," and "Transforming the Soul."
THEOLOGY/ETHICS 35 Nominees Worldview: The History of a Concept
David K. Naugle (Eerdmans)
Naugle, professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University, surveys Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant thinkers, and describes how this concept developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Related Elsewhere
To order any of these books click on the book covers above or visit Christianbook.com.
See our earlier book awards for 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997, as well as our Books of the Twentieth Century.
For other coverage or reviews, see our Books archive.