Favourite Books of 2022

So much of my reading these days is online. I read lots of articles. I find many of them helpful. This year, as before, I have found the articles on UnHerd informative and insightful, especially on the current issues and trends in politics and culture. This year, though, I think the website that has been most helpful to me has been that of Mere Orthodoxy. If you haven't read any of their material you are missing out. They are often long-form articles so you may need half an hour of undisturbed reading. But they are well written and often display profound theological and cultural depth.

As for books though, as usual I have not read nearly as many as I had hoped. But here are my top ten books from this year:

Commentaries

The Letters to Timothy and Titus, by Philip H. Towner 

Over the last few years at Freeschool Court Church, we have been working through the letters Paul wrote to his friends Timothy and Titus in our bimonthly home groups. We are nearly finished and it has been so helpful. I don't have a great wall of commentaries in my study as many of my friends do, as I have not been in a pastorate with the need to be constantly working on new preaching material. But I have adopted the practise of asking my good friend John Kendal (among others) for a recommendation when I have to spend more time on a book. This is what John suggested. It is chunky - nearly 900 pages - and scholarly. But it is not technical so you don't have to have Greek to benefit from its wisdom. Highly recommend it if you are willing to spend the money - it's expensive.

Theology & Culture

The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D. A. Carson

This is ten years old and already a little out of date but still well worth the read. Like all Carson's books it is well-researched and readable.

Carson distinguishes between what he calls the 'old tolerance' and the 'new tolerance'. The old tolerance involves the acceptance of the existence of different views. The new tolerance involves the acceptance of different views. It is a subtle shift linguistically but profound in its impact. In the old tolerance of liberal democracy citizens were not to impose their beliefs on others. In the new tolerance the mere expression of disagreement with the radical agenda is to be banned.

The author reports a number of often high-profile cases in politics, the media, and the universities in which the new tolerance has been displayed. He then looks at the history of the idea of tolerance, directs the problems with the new paradigm, and suggests ten words as ways ahead. Still relevant.

Healing the Divides: How Every Christian Can Advance God's Vision for Racial Unity and Justice, by Jason Roach and Jessamin Birdsall

The authors, a Black British medic/pastor and a white American adult missionary kid writer, tackle this very thorny issue of race and especially the way Christians and churches should respond to ethnic diversity and prejudice.

They write well and explain current thinking clearly. They tackle the Black Lives Matter movement, Critical Race Theory, and anti-racism activism. Instead of emphasising one angle on racism they accept that there are individual and structural perspectives that are both useful. I had not come across the idea of 'interest convergence' before. Roach and Birdsall give plenty of practical suggestions along the road. I found the book helpful. It is a popular-level book and it left me wanting to go deeper into the concepts and theories that are informing much of the activism of our generation. I think that the authors on the whole did a fairly good job at navigating what is a potential minefield in writing this book. If there is any weakness I think it is in uncritical use of categories like BAME.

He Still Speaks: Francis Schaeffer’s Enduring Relevance, edited by Steve Wellum

I picked up this book at the FEUER conference. I am a Schaeffer fan and thoroughly enjoyed these essays by folks involved in L'Abri: Andrew Fellows, Dick Keyes, Ranald McCaulay, and others. Schaeffer is shown to be prescient in so many ways. It is astonishing to see how he really understood the times way ahead of pretty much everyone else. If you have not read Schaeffer himself (I read nearly all his books while I was a student) this would be a good way into his works. (I couldn't find a photo of the book and don't know where to buy it either.)

Biographies

Bavinck: A Critical Biography, by James Eglinton

Herman Bavinck was a prodigious Dutch theologian at the turn of the last century and for a long time was not well known in the English speaking world. Eglinton, of Edinburgh University, is a leading Bavinck scholar and, with others, is in the process of translating his works into English. I have not read any of Bavinck's works (though I have read some work of his missiologist nephew John Herman Bavinck) so wanted to read this biography as a way into understanding his significance. The book is scholarly but readable. I hope to go on to read some of Bavinck himself before long, though I doubt I have it in me to read his magnum opus, the four volume Reformed Dogmatics. (An interesting personal connection with Bavinck was when I was stopped by the police for riding a bike on the very Leiden street on which student Bavinck lived [a century before - I admit this is tenuous!]. I explained that I was visiting and couldn't read the Dutch no cycling sign, so he let me go.)

In the Shadow of the Rock, by Geoffrey Thomas

Geoff is my old pastor from student days in Aberystwyth and continues to stay in touch with me. He has written this autobiography in the hope that it will be a blessing to his readers. It was a joy to read old stories again and learn so many new anecdotes from his life. In a way Geoff was an ordinary pastor. But in that he ministered in the same congregation for over 50 years you want to read his story to glean lessons for your own life. So many men, especially, have benefitted from his mentoring over all these years, including me. When I was a teenager I was already convinced that the Lord wanted me to go overseas with the gospel and wanted to prepare by going to Bible college. But I was advised to go to university first and so I ended up in God's providence at Aber. I always say that sitting under Geoff's ministry for three years was my Bible college! 

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen 

I used to see this book in every book shop in Nepal and had often wanted to read it. When I saw it among the dross at the local lockdown book exchange - I periodically drop off gospel books there and they are always taken - it was like encountering someone I had known for ages but never had the chance to meet. It is a completely different book from what I had expected. Part travelogue and part Zen Buddhist meditation, Snow Leopard traces the journey of the author with his zoologist friend, George Shaller, into the snowy wastes of Dolpo to observe the rut of the Himalayan blue sheep. Evidence of those elusive and majestic cats is all around them, but would they actually get to see them with their own eyes? A tale of grief, human relationships, and personal discovery in an epic theatre.

Novels

The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

Osman's first, blockbuster novel. I resisted jumping on the bandwagon for a while but when a copy was left at our house I resisted no more - and thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot is a bit of a stretch, but the characters - especially the four friends who form the club at Cooper's Chase retirement home - are a delight. I love the idea for the setting, especially as Osman paints older people in such a positive light. 

Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the fourth of Ishiguro's novels I have read, after The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and When We Were Orphans. I think Klara is more like Never Let Me Go than any of the others but really quite different as well. Ishiguro is an expert in making you think about what it means to be human. And that is perhaps the most important issue in Western culture in our generation. Thoroughly recommend it. But don't read it if you want to read something to relax and make you happy. It made me renew my commitment to reaching lost people with the good news of Jesus.