Check out Dr. Mohler’s excellent post on “Ten Great Christian Biographies.” His list of biographies include men like Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Whitefield, Edwards, Machen, and Lloyd-Jones. Personally, I love biographies, especially missionary biographies (Carey, Judson, Martyn, Studd, Taylor, Muller, Elliot, etc.). I was a bit surprised to see that the biographies on his top 10 lists were all great Christian thinkers but no missionaries. If I could put two missionary biographies on the list, I would have added The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards and John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides. It also goes without saying that some of the greatest biographies will never be written in this lifetime but will only be revealed in light of eternity.
With that said, do you have any favorite biographies? Are there any that you would recommend to others?
I have some biographies that I love but I don’t know if they belong on the top 10 list because I haven’t read all of the ones on Dr. Mohler’s list. I would recommend everyone read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret and The Hiding Place.
The key, I think, is for people to read biographies whether they are missionaries or not. It seems like even Christians today are reading biographies of sports heroes and not missionaries or theologians. Christians today need to put down books on Reggie White and Orel Hershiser and start reading books about David Brainerd and Hudson Taylor. Books on contemporary heroes are not inherently bad but a steady diet of them is unhealthy.
I need to go read some biographies.
Man yeah. You are so right. The stuff filling the “biography” section is filled with people who are famous first and Christian second. It’s a tribute to our celebrity culture where we are so enamored with a celebrity turned Christian rather than a Christian turned martyr. To put David Brainerd on the same shelf as much of the contemporary biographies is like putting Sanjaya next to Beethoven.
Here’s a timely quote from David Wells:
“In this culture of contemporaneity, for example, publicity takes the place filled by public monuments and state edifices in the old culture. Such monuments were once the permanent records of individual achievement or the declarations of official function, but they belonged to time and place, and the new culture transcends them both. In the new culture it is publicity not perception or knowledge, that reveals the new achievement and in some cases creates mythical achievement. . . . In this new world, the statues are made of celluloid, not of stone; here the achievements are those of personality, seldom of character; here the clicking of the cameras and the lights of television crew are the tip-off tha a Big Event is underway, even if it is only a brief shot of Zsa Zsa Gabor leaving the courtroom after having been convicted for slapping a policeman.”
– David F. Wells, No Place for Truth, 50.
With the news focusing on the Zsa Zsa’s of today’s culture, we desperately need to read the lives of men and women who actually attempted great things and accomplished great things for the glory of God. They knew no cameras or stage lights, but they were aglow as the great lights of history. May God give us historical vision to see through the contemporary fog with the piercing legacies of great men and women of God who did not make a name for themselves but rather upheld the name of Jesus.
I guess my education is failing me because I haven’t read any of Dr. Mohler’s list.
Well, I have read four on Mohler’s list. Good observation on no missionary biographies although I would consider Whitefield a missionary of sorts. Brown on Augustine is okay, but since it is only the really critical biography on such a great thinker it tends to stand out. However, it certainly could be better. Bainton on Luther is one of the best on the list hands down. Much better than Oberman in my opinion. McGrath on Calvin is again okay, but I am enjoying Cottret much more than McGrath. I love Machen so Hart’s book is a good one although I prefer the more sentimental biography of Machen by his co-laborer Stonehouse.
It is interesting that Paton is not on there. What an incredible story. “I am with you always to the end of this age…” And no Spurgeon? There is his autobiography (does that count) and a good short volume by Dallimore and then Drummond.
Two more contemporary ones that I enjoyed (although had disagreements with) are No Compromise (Keith Green) and Bruchko. And lastly, War and Grace by Don Stephens has some excellent short biographies from WWII.
Tony,
You are reading too many Google feeds. That’s your problem. 😉
William,
Thanks for the input and suggestions. Yeah, what about ole’ Spurgeon? Prince of preachers gets no props. Talk about downgrade!
Perhaps the key phrase to why many of the biographies y’all’ve mentioned aren’t on this list is “in recent decades” (although Bainton’s and Chesterton’s works tend to stretch this boundary). What’s really surprising to me is that neither Mohler nor anyone in these comments so far has mentioned Elliot’s “Shadow of the Almighty” (though Timmy did mention Elliot in his list of missionaries).
Let me add two more
To the Golden Shore
Through Gates of Splendor
Also (and this was certainly written “in recent decades”), Michael Haykin’s “Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach,” offers three mini-biographies that are very important to anyone from a Particular Baptist perspective today.
Thanks Andrews. Yeah man, I really appreciate the work Haykin has done in bringing to light a bunch of great Baptists who have been kept in obscurity. I also think of what Steve Weaver under Haykin’s leadership on Hercules Collins. Hopefully more work can be done with regards to the lives and works of such great Baptist men and women.
May I suggest three new Christian biographies at http://www.ronowensbooks.com. They are on the lives of Iris Urrey Blue, Manley Beasley, and Georgy Slesarev.