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To a large degree the saying is true that "you are what you read." I was reminded of this recently when Christianity Today published a list of the "top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals." The report began: "People and movements can be defined by the books they read and remember. The time it takes to read and digest a book requires us to engage someone else's ideas with more seriousness than almost any other activity" (Christianity Today, Oct. 2006).

This is certainly true, and it is a loud warning to fundamentalists. Many have become New Evangelicals by reading New Evangelical literature non-critically. I have often been amazed when visiting bookstores on the campuses of fundamentalist schools to see the same compromising New Evangelical (or worse) authors that you find in the typical ecumenical bookstores, and there is no warning. Christianity Today's book nominations were made by "dozens of evangelical leaders" who submitted their suggestions.

The titles that were selected reflect the broad, ecumenical, non-judgmental, doctrinally and morally confused nature of today's evangelicalism.

No. 3 on the list is C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity", which teaches that Christianity is like a house with many rooms (e.g., a Baptist one, a Methodist one, an Anglican one, a Roman Catholic one, etc.) and that the individual Christian is free to choose the room that most pleases him but he should not criticize those who live in different rooms

No. 6 is "The Living Bible" by Kenneth Taylor, who took frightful liberties in creating his paraphrase and who broke the ground for the slew of inaccurate "dynamic equivalency" versions that flood the market today.

No. 7 is "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" by Ron Sider, one of the many voices that have convinced today's evangelicals that the Great Commission has a broad socio-political aspect.

No. 11 is "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster, a Quaker who is at the forefront of the current evangelical frenzy over Catholic style spiritual disciplines.

No. 12 is "Power Evangelism" by John Wimber, who taught the delusion that to be truly effective, evangelism must be accompanied by signs and wonders.

No. 19 is "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the fathers of the heresy of neo-orthodoxy.

No. 20 is "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle, librarian and lay preacher at the wretchedly apostate Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

No. 23 is "All We're Meant to Be" by Letha Scanzoni, a feminist who advocates the ordination of women and approves, under certain conditions, of lesbianism and sex outside of marriage.

No. 30 is "Roaring Lambs: A Gentle Plan to Radically Change Your World" by the late Robert Briner, one of the father's of the Christian rock philosophy that advocates that Christians embrace the culture as a way to reach the unsaved: e.g., become a rapper to reach rappers and a sports fanatic to reach the sports fanatic and a ballerina to reach ballet lovers.

No. 32 is "The Cross and the Switchblade" by David Wilkerson, who has greatly popularized the unscriptural Pentecostal doctrine and practice among evangelicals.

No. 34 is "This Present Darkness" by Frank Peretti," a popularizer of the unscriptural charismatic-style spiritual warfare.

No. 39 is "Desiring God" by John Piper, and the Christianity Today editor says it all when he observes, "Who expected a Calvinist Baptist to redeem hedonism for Christ?"

No. 42 is "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren, who has promoted the New Evangelical "judge not" philosophy to multitudes.

No. 44 is "The Gospel of the Kingdom" by George Ladd, who promoted the ancient heresy of amillennialism to large numbers of evangelicals.

These are indeed the types of books that have shaped evangelicalism over the past few decades, but if I were them I wouldn't admit it.


Author: David Cloud, Friday Church News Notes, October 20, www.wayoflife.org