top 5 books of 2011
December 31, 2011 1 Comment
2011 was a good year in reading for me. In the past, I’ve often read books that I thought I should read, rather than just reading what interested me. This year, thanks in large part to the “to-read” list on GoodReads, I always found myself with a compelling page-turner.
Here’s the top-5 books that I read (for the first time) in 2011:
5. India Calling by Anand Giridharadas – You can read my review here.
4. Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen – Incredibly interesting glimpse into a part of our nation’s history that we most certainly did NOT learn about in school. Jacobsen’s descriptions of the nuclear tests that the U.S. conducted are horrifying. Also, (spoiler alert) Jacobsen completely and compellingly debunks any/all alien myths… yet the reality is somehow just as amazing.
3. The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson – You can read my review here.
2. Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer – You can read my review here.
1. Love Wins by Rob Bell – Deserves a place on this list if only for the controversy it stirred among the Christian community. I deeply and genuinely enjoyed Rob Bell’s latest, and rather than add to the already overflowing collection of commentary on this work, I’ll simply repost the promotional video.
So we’ve been through this many times, and I’ll understand if you are not in the mood to rehash this old dispute, but I’m itching to have a debate about religious moderation. Rob Bell seems like a profound and admirable man, and maybe I should read his book before taking issue with the thesis of his book. But on the question of whether non-Christians burn eternally in a place called hell, I think it is vital to point out that though the fundamentalist conception of hell may not be the only plausible interpretation of the Bible, it is very obviously one plausible interpretation.
The man or woman who posted that note on Gandhi’s quote was not mean-spirited or sadistic. Rather, they sincerely believed people risk eternal damnation when they praise the viewpoints of non-Christians without the accompanying awareness that unbelief will have terrible consequences in the after-life. The problem here is not that many Christians have been misled on the question of salvation. The problem is that many people believe the Bible is in some sense the word of God, and some of those believers will inevitably emphasize the Bible’s more toxic elements. I don’t consider religious moderation to be an effective response to Biblical literalists. The best response is admitting that the Bible is one book among many that contains insights on love and the good life, and not nearly the best.