Send to Printer

Christianity Today's 100 most spiritually significant books of the 20th century

Christianity Today asked more than 100 of its contributors and church leaders to nominate the ten best religious books of the twentieth century. By best books, we meant those that not only were important when first published, but also have enduring significance for the Christian faith and church. We have included books which do not always prompt agreement, but which are important for evangelical Christians to read and contend with. A few "period" pieces also made the list of 90.

By far, C. S. Lewis was the most popular author and Mere Christianity the book nominated most often. Indeed, we could have included even more Lewis works, but finally we had to say: "Enough is enough; give some other authors a chance."

Pages: Pages: 1

1.
?
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis  
2.
?
Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis
 
3.
?
The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
 
4. Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship (Shepherd's Notes. Christian Classics)
by Greg Ligon
 
5. J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings)
by J.R.R. Tolkien
 
6. The Politics of Jesus
by John Howard Yoder
 
7. Orthodoxy (Dodo Press)
by G. K. Chesterton
 
8. The Seven Storey Mountain
by Thomas Merton
 
9. Celebration of Discipline
by Richard J. Foster
 
10.
?
My Utmost for His Highest
by Incorporated Barbour Publishing
 
11. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics (Library of Theological Ethics)
by Reinhold Niebuhr
 
12.
?
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
 
13. Big Book Awakening - 12 Step Guide Book
by Awakening
 
14. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther
by Roland H. Bainton
 
15. The Epistle to the Romans (Galaxy Books)
by Karl Barth
 
16. The Denial of Death
by Ernest Becker
 
17. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life
by Robert N. Bellah
 
18. The Diary of a Country Priest: A Novel
by Georges Bernanos
 
19. Letter and Papers from Prison
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 
20. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (American Society of Missiology Series, No. 16)
by David Jacobus Bosch
 
21. The Prophetic Imagination
by Walter Brueggemann
 
22.
?
Truth As Encounter
by H. E. Brunner
 
23. The Plague
by Albert Camus
 
24. The Case for Orthodox Theology
by Edward J. Carnell
 
25. Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather Scholarly Edition)
by Willa Cather
 
26. The Long Loneliness
by Dorothy Day
 
27. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
by Annie Dillard
 
28.
?
Documents of Vatican II
by Austin P. Flannery
 
29.
?
The Souls of Black Folk (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics Hardcover)
by W. E. B. Du Bois
 
30. Four Quartets
by T. S. Eliot
 
31. Invisible Man: A Novel
by Ralph Ellison
 
32. The Technological Society
by Jacques Ellul
 
33. The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition
by Netherlands Institute For War Documentation
 
34. Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
 
35. Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud
 
36. Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure
by Langdon Gilkey
 
37. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
by Carol Gilligan
 
38.
?
Graham Greene's the Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
 
39. Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin
 
40. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation
by Gustavo Gutierrez
 
41. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed
by Philip P. Hallie
 
42. A Community of Character
by Stanley Hauerwas
 
43.
?
Living in Truth: 22 Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel
by Vaclav Havel
 
44. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics
by Richard B. Hays
 
45.
?
God, Revelation and Authority
by Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry
 
46. Hiroshima (Vintage)
by John Hersey
 
47. The Prophets (Perennial Classics)
by Abraham J. Heschel
 
48. Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
 
49. The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James
 
50. The Trial
by Franz Kafka
 
This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists.
Created by Susan Reed on Sep 26, 2006.