Christianity Today Book Awards 2005
From more than 300 nominations, these books represent the year's best.
posted 05/20/2005 09:00 a.m.

This year we received 327 nominated titles from 52 publishers. CT staff selected the top five books in each category, and then panels of judges (one panel for each category) determined the winners. In the end, we honor 23 titles that bring understanding to people, events, and ideas that shape evangelical life, thought, and mission. We also include our judges comments on the winners.

 
APOLOGETICS/EVANGELISM
The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
Lee Strobel (Zondervan)
Explores the arguments for the existence of a personal Creator granted to us by advances in physics, cosmology, astronomy, biology, biochemistry, and other sciences.

 
CHRISTIAN LIVING
The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others
Scot McKnight (Paraclete Press)
In clear, engaging prose, The Jesus Creed offers a broad range of material—from personal anecdote to Jewish prayers—for abundant reflection on Jesus and on practical ways for loving God and others.

 
BIBLICAL STUDIES
Africa and the Bible
Edwin M. Yamauchi (Baker Academic)
Fresh, deep research that challenges many of the excesses of Afrocentrism in U.S. and African biblical interpretation.

 
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys
Mark A. Noll (IVP)
Destined to be the benchmark for an entire field of inquiry, no other book tells the story of evangelicalism's formative decades with such illuminating attention to the movement's historical antecedents.

 
CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE
The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design
William A. Dembski (IVP)
Exemplifies the classic way in which ideas are sharpened—through vigorous engagement with the strongest objections that can be raised against them.

 
MISSIONS/GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach
Irving Hexham, Stephen Rost, & John W. Morehead II, ed. (Kregel)
The book treats a breathtaking range of biblical, historical, methodological, and practical issues related to Christian witness to new religious movements.

 

 
THE CHURCH/PASTORAL LEADERSHIP (tie)
Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship
Leonard J. Vander Zee (IVP)
Clear as air and brilliantly organized and written, this book offers sources and insight to pastors of any Christian tradition, including the emergent church.

 
Reviewing Leadership: A Christian Evaluation of Current Approaches
Robert Banks & Bernice M. Ledbetter (Baker Academic)
Focusing more on character and integrity than on methods and techniques, this book sifts through the enormous amount of literature on leadership to present essential theories and practices.

 
FICTION
Gilead: A Novel
Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Like a wise elder whose front-porch musings keep you listening deep into the night, the narrative voice in this portrait of grace sparkles with insight, wonder, and both the frailty and indomitability of the human creature.

 
SPIRITUALITY
Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence
Ruth Haley Barton (IVP)
Countering the hyperactive evangelical subculture, this book shows in practical ways how a deepened intimacy with God, found in silence and solitude, can influence our perceptions and choices in daily life.

 
THEOLOGY/ETHICS
Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition
Hans Boersma (Baker Academic)
One of those rare evangelical tomes that engages critically and creatively with a major doctrine under attack—the Atonement. Boersma has written a spirited defense of divine violence as a means toward an eschatological state of pure hospitality.

Awards of Merit

APOLOGETICS/EVANGELISM
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
Gary R. Habermas & Michael R. Licona (Kregel)

BIBLICAL STUDIES
Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth
Michael J. McClymond (Eerdmans)

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE
Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
Nancy Pearcey (Crossway)

CHRISTIAN LIVING (tie)
Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church
James M. Ault Jr. (Alfred A. Knopf)

When I Lay My Isaac Down: Unshakable Faith in Unthinkable Circumstances
Carol Kent (NavPress)

THE CHURCH/PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian: How the Community of God Transforms Lives
Tod E. Bolsinger (Brazos Press)

FICTION
Unveiling: A Novel
Suzanne M. Wolfe (Paraclete Press)

HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
The Kingdom Is Always But Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch
Christopher H. Evans (Eerdmans)

MISSIONS/GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century
Donald M. Lewis, ed. (Eerdmans)

SPIRITUALITY (tie)
How to Be Good in a World Gone Bad: Living a Life of Christian Virtue
James S. Spiegel (Kregel)

Seeing Is Believing: Experience Jesus Through Imaginative Prayer
Gregory A. Boyd (Baker)

THEOLOGY/ETHICS
The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship
Robert Letham (P & R Publishing)

 

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
June 2005, Vol. 49, No. 6, Page 30