For some reason, I never get called brilliant. For obvious reasons, made obvious again by my recent birthday, I never get called a childhood prodigy. For some reason, I fear those words in Shakespeare’s King Lear: “You have grown old without having grown wise.” So, I accept my own limitations, with one strong caveat. I may not be brilliant, or a genius, or wise, but I have been near much brilliance, genius, and wisdom. In fact, I have been so surrounded by the best minds that surely some smartness should have rubbed off.
I live in a world of books, surrounded by books, book purchasing, and book reviewing. This life with the printed word surrounds me with much that is brilliant, beautiful, powerful, strong, and convincing. Of course, some books contain folly, drudgery, error, and foolishness as well. I am spared much of that by basing my readings on the recommendations of others.
Becoming book savvy creates an impression of having read “everything.” A high school classmate of mine once told my wife, “Ben read everything by William Faulkner in the ninth grade.” That is not true, but why deny such a compliment? Fact is, I read The Sound and the Fury and a few other titles in the eleventh grade and have still not read everything by Faulkner.
I read a fair number of books from cover to cover—and some of those I reread numerous times, but I only read portions of many books. Occasionally, I buy books that I never really look into. Many worthwhile books receive only scanning or inspectional reading. The time and attention the deserve is blocked by my teaching school, attending meetings, eating, sleeping, and attending to other petty tyrannies. Also, my favorite four first editions—my children—and my favorite poem—my wife—take lots of time from reading, but enhance and beautify and give meaning to reading.
Here at the end of 2007 is the time to look back over some books that can be called “The Best Unread Books of the Year.” My self-made qualifications are as follows: The book has to be one that I own. It has to be a book that is recognized by others I respect as having worth and value. The main qualification is that I have to have spent at least enough time perusing the book, scanning certain chapters, reading snippets, and feeling the work to recognize that it is worthy of being one of the BEST UNREADS of the year. (Don’t give heed to the numbering system. The books are all equally compelling.)
#10. Gordon H. Clark is remembered for being a Christian philosopher, a Calvinist apologist, a defender of Christian education, a strong adherent to historic Presbyterianism, and an opponent of fellow apologist and Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til. Clark’s From Thales to Dewey is frequently cited as a key work on the history of philosophy from a Christian perspective. My BEST UNREAD or unfinished selection by Clark is Historiography: Secular and Religious. Like much of Clark’s writing, this book is serious, scholarly, heavy, and ponderous. But the rugged peaks lead to beautiful visions. The main attraction to this book stems from the fact that having taken many undergraduate and graduate courses in history, I never had a course, a book assignment, or a lecture on historiography. I actually want to teach such a course, and when I do, Clark’s book will be on the required reading list. (A shorter glimpse of Clark’s view of history can be found in his book A Christian View of Men and Things.)
[All of Clark’s books can be purchased from the Trinity Foundation.]
#9 Rousas J. Rushdoony was a contemporary and fellow scholar along with Gordon Clark. Although they had some differences, they worked together for a time in promoting, writing, editing, and evaluating Calvinistic Christian scholarship as found in that defining era of Calvinist Worldview Thinking when Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company was at its intellectual height. (All of that is another fascinating story.) Rushdoony’s major work was The Institutes of Biblical Law, published in 1973. In one sense, much that Rushdoony wrote after The Institutes was commentary or elaboration on the themes central to Christian Reconstruction. My BEST UNREAD comes from the period before 1973, when Rushdoony was engaged in a broader Christian scholarship. The book is The One and the Many: Stories in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy, judged by Andrew Sandlin as Rushdoony’s best. In this work, Rushdoony surveys history, philosophy, political science, and theology from the ancients to the modern age. His topic is that most central issue of “the one and the many.” Rushdoony’s reading was so expansive that one can get an incredible sampling of prominent philosophers and thinkers by simply reading the quotes and footnotes from Rushdoony’s book.
[Rushdoony’s many worthwhile books are available from Ross House Books.]
#8 This selection is a tie since between two books dealing with science from a Christian perspective. They are Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach by Vern Poythress and The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy by Nancy Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton. I generally shy away from reading about science. I fear that an interested in science might cause a career change to something financially lucrative. Currently, much of the Christian work on science relates to the current rubble removal from around that idol Darwin. The Darwinists proclaim that the idol still stands, although a few will admit it tottered. The Creationists and the Intelligent Designers continue to break the big chunks of the statuary into pebbles. Both of these books deal with these matters, but seem to be pressing on to the more serious worldview task of applying Christian thought to the field of science.
[ Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company has published Pythress’ book and Crossway published the Pearcey-Thaxton work.]
#7 Back to history! I have long loved the writings of Catholic historian Christopher Dawson. I have never read a Dawson book I did not like. When I get to teach that course on historiography, several Dawson books and essays will be essential readings. Still, Dawson leaves me feeling jealous. Why do the Catholics get so many of the great thinkers? (Chesterton, Dawson, Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor, et. al.) Thankfully, this past year, I have discovered that for Christian thinking the Netherlands is “an embarrassment of riches” (to borrow from a book title about Dutch history). From the Netherlands came such thinkers as Groen Van Prinsterer, Kuyper, Bavinck, Dooyeweerd, Geerhardus Vos, Cornelius Van Til, and others. Beyond the most prominent names—past the starting line-up—are other Dutch thinkers of equal, although not as prominent merit. Move over Christopher Dawson. Here comes Dutchman M.C. Smit and his work Toward a Christian Conception of History. This collection of essays is edited by H. Donald Morton and Harry Van Dyke. Smit studied at and later taught at the famed Free University of Amsterdam. He sat in on the weekly lessons of Herman Dooyeweerd and the Sunday school lessons of S. G. de Graaf. This demur bachelor’s historical writings include a survey of Catholic thought in the field of history (including Dawson), and from there he turns to a Reformed conception of history. More fodder for my historiography mill.
[This best price on this somewhat expensive book is from the publisher—University Press of America.]
#6 Speaking of the Dutch, I am filled with awe and thankfulness for a new set of books I have. I am speaking of the three volumes of Reformed Dogmatics by Herman Bavinck. This set, currently some 2000 pages of theology, will be completed with a fourth volume sometime in 2008. I figure this set could make my “BEST UNREADS” list for a decade or two, unless some benefactor steps in and pays me money just to sit and read. Bavinck was the successor to Kuyper at the Free University of Amsterdam. Where Kuyper and Bavinck agreed and where their thought diverged is the topic for someone else. I am merely walking through Bavinck in the same way I would walk through the Louvre—admiring, trying to take in what I can absorb, and hurrying from exhibit to exhibit.
[Baker Publishing Company publishes Bavinck.]
#5 E. L. Hebden-Taylor was an Englishman (actually born in Africa) and not a Dutchman; however, he became Dutch in his world-view thinking. Hebden-Taylor was a Reformed Episcopalian pastor and thinker who labored to apply the insights of Herman Dooyeweerd to politics, labor matters, law, biology, economics, and family. His books were published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company in the 1960s and 1970s. Alas, none of his works are in print, although more and more of his writings are available via the Internet. The BEST UNREAD is his Christian Philosophy of Law, Politics, and the State. My on-going work on Calvinist worldview thinkers led me to examining this obscure man. In fact, for a time, no one seemed to know what had happened to him. He wrote books, lectured in both the British Isles and America, and taught for a time at Dordt University. We finally discovered that he went to glory just about a year or two ago. Recently upon re-reading the twenty-seven page introduction to this work, I was struck by how compelling and relevant it was in regard to current political issues, even though it was written in 1966. Someone please reprint this man’s books.
[Out of Print—Alas. Some of his writings are available at www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/hebdentaylor. ]
#4 This selection has not been read, partially read, or scanned, but I am already familiar with the content and subject of this book. It is Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography by Eberhard Bethge, a massive biography of the Christian pastor, Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II. Over the past year, I read a short biography of Bonhoeffer by Susan Martins Miller to my junior high class. She continually referenced Bethge’s work. I also watched a wonderful docudrama about Bonhoeffer. This interest in Bonhoeffer led me to reread his powerful short work titled Common Life and to read portions of his Prison Letters and Diaries. A few years back I read The Cost of Discipleship. Bethge was a close friend of Bonhoeffer’s and was the main guardian of his literary works. Bonhoeffer apparently had some theological quirkiness, but my readings of his writings and of his life story stir my soul.
[Fortress Press published this book.]
#3 Another German keeps beckoning me. This past year, I bought copies of The Christian Future, or the Modern Mind Outrun and I Am An Impure Thinker by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. I have long possessed and read from Rosenstock-Huessy’s key book Out of Revolution. People generally describe him as being a difficult man to classify. He was a historian, a philosopher, a critic of modernity, and a sociologist. His perspective is Christian, but his orthodoxy is a bit shaky around the edges. Like Herman Dooyeweerd, he is highly respected and referenced in some academic circles, but ignored in others. Also, like Dooyeweerd, he is not easy to grasp without making a serious effort. Those who have made the effort have convinced me that I need to read his works.
[Argo Press has reprinted several titles by Rosenstock-Huessy.]
#2 I am ashamed to admit, contra the rumors about my ninth grade accomplishments, that I have never completely read William Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy, which consists of three novels—The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town. I could be very happy being a teacher of Southern literature. Teaching Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Caroline Gordon, the Agrarians/Fugitive poets, and others who write with a Southern drawl could make a fulfilling life and career. But I have been called to be a gadfly and not a specialist. I presented a paper last February on Faulkner’s book The Unvanquished. In a brief conversation with the brilliant Dr. Louise Cowan and in a paper another person presented, I was reminded of my need to read more about the Snopes clan. I have read the first and started the second, but I really need to read the whole set.
#1 I have never outgrown my bad habit of wanting to put off doing my homework. Since my homework this year involved reading Ancient History, I find myself wanting to slip off and read American history. Two books, Almost a Miracle: American Victory in the War for Independence by John Ferling and The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800 by Jay Winik, are two powerful temptations. Ferling’s book is a military history of the War for Independence, and its title comes from General Washington’s description of the American victory. As an avid reader of American military history, I am most attracted at this time by the War for Independence. Winik’s book picks up in the time right after Washington’s successful military campaigns. This book compares the American experiment at that early stage with events in Europe, particularly the upheavals in France. Two names—two totally different visions—dominate that time period: George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Back To the Books!
The preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us, "Of the making of many books, there is no end." To which we add, "Of the buying and reading of many books, there is no end."
