First, beyond naming winners in our ten regular categories, we’ve christened from among those winners our first-ever CT Book of the Year: God’s Forever Family, Larry Eskridge’s history of the Jesus People movement. Now, this is no exact science. And really, we wouldn’t have gone wrong laying the extra laurel atop any of the competitors, or a dozen other books besides. You may have your own favorite to recommend. But we can’t see any harm in generating buzz””or provoking debate””around a book our judges praised for its originality, meticulous research, and colorful character sketches.
Second, speaking of those judges, we’ve lifted the veil of anonymity from their comments on the winning books. Our judges””best-selling authors, experts in their fields, and simply thoughtful people””have strained their eyes and brains reading and evaluating a thousand or more pages. They deserve to have their labors recognized. And you deserve to have your curiosity satiated.
And third, we’ve introduced a new awards category targeted at readers of Her.meneutics, CT’s popular women’s blog.
Julia Duin commented that only four women are recognized – it should also be noted that CT rarely if ever considers books written by Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox writers. Rather strange behavior for a magazine that calls itself Christianity Today – oops, forgot: only Protestants are “Christians”.
As an RC, I’m not offended by Christianity Today at all. For one thing, it was started by Billy Graham, already a friend to Fulton Sheen, and soon to include Catholics as a presence in his crusades. Moreover, the magazine addressed itself as an evangelical alternative to mainline Protestantism.