First off, my usual disclaimer and explanation.
This list is not meant to assess the thousands of good books published in 2020. There are plenty of worthy titles that I am not able to read (and lots I never hear of). This is simply a list of the books (Christian and non-Christian, but all non-fiction) that I thought were the best in the past year. “Best” doesn’t mean I agreed with everything in them; it means I found these books—all published in 2020 (or the very end of 2019)—a strong combination of thoughtful, useful, interesting, helpful, insightful, and challenging. For more discussion on some of these books, check out my podcast Life and Books and Everything with Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor.
Instead of trying to rank the books 1-10 (always a somewhat arbitrary task), I’ll simply list them in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.
Andrew J. Bacevich, ed., American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition (Library of America)
For many people “conservative” is whatever Fox News says or the Republican Party does. For others “conservative” is the easy reason another person’s views can be quickly dismissed. Across the spectrum—whether you are for it or against it—Americans would do well (and American Christians in particular) to understand that conservatism is its own political tradition. As is always the case in a book like this, some chapters are better than others (the first chapter from Russell Kirk is very good), some chapters don’t agree with each other (e.g., the hawkish and the non-interventionists strands of conservative thought), and some probably don’t belong in this volume (like the one from Teddy Roosevelt, who was not a conservative). But taken as a whole, this collection of essays, drawn from the past hundred years, is a good place to start in understanding the conservative intellectual tradition.

Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy, Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting (Cato Institute)
A fascinating look at the state of the world and why things are much, much better than you think. Want to know about trends in work, in population, in violence, in farming, in technology, in health, and in natural resources? This book has the graphs you need. The big knock on the book, however, is that it is not nearly big enough. The trim size and font should have been twice as big to make a proper coffee table read.

James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Baker Academic)
A lecturer in Reformed theology at the University of Edinburgh, Eglinton proves with this book that he is an excellent historian as well as a superb systematician. Eglinton demonstrates a mastery of Dutch sources and Bavinck’s Dutch context. The result is an astute and readable biography of a man who not only excelled as a theologian but also made his name as an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a campaigner for women’s education, and the progenitor of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.

Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Princeton University Press)
With admirable self-awareness and an obvious love for literature and learning, Hitz has written a book that celebrates the intellectual life without coming across as snobbish or elitist. Quite the opposite, Hitz argues that the joy of being “lost in thought” is a pleasure available not for the few but for the many.

Philip Jenkins, Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions (Baylor University Press)
The most important things happening in the world are not always the things that make for breaking news. Case in point: the falling fertility rates across the globe. “For the foreseeable future—for several decades at least—most of the non-African world does face the prospect of a contracting and steeply aging population” (185). Surely, this is big news, and Jenkins writes about the phenomenon with scholarly precision and clarity.

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody (Pitchstone Publishing)
This is not a Christian book, which means there are elements of the analysis that cannot be accepted (e.g., the approval of homosexuality). On the other hand, it also means that the critique of postmodernism and its many attendant theories comes from insiders (academics, classic liberals) rather than from outsiders. If you want to know where Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Critical Race Theory, and intersectionality come from—and why they are massively problematic—this a book to answer many of your questions.

Mark Regnerus, The Future of Christian Marriage (Oxford University Press)
“This is a book about how modern Christians around the world look for a mate within a religious faith that esteems marriage but a world that increasingly yawns at it” (2). Regnerus argues that marriage is a public matter affecting all of society and that for Christianity the importance of faith and family usually rise and fall together. His suggestions for revitalizing Christian marriage provide good advice for parents, pastors, and Christian leaders.

Amity Schlaes, Great Society: A New History (Harper)
Part politics, part economics, and part cultural history—Shlaes covers the key ideas and personalities behind the programs meant to alleviate poverty in America. The book ends in 1976 with the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, a metaphor for Shlaes’s largely negative assessment of what the Great Society accomplished.

Scott Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Crossway)
There may be doctrines as important as the doctrine of Trinity for the existence and wellbeing of the Christian faith, but surely there are none more important. In less than 140 pages, Swain introduces (or reminds) us of the grammar of Trinitarian theology: relations of origin, personal properties, divine simplicity, person, essence, paternity, filiation, and spiration. This book is a great read for the Christian who knows that God is three-in-one and is eager to learn how systematic theology defends and explains this precious truth.
Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway)
First, the self was psychologized, then psychology was sexualized, and finally, sex was politicized. This is the history Trueman tells with great verve and sophistication. Tracing the rise of the modern self from Rousseau to the romantic poets, to Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Nietzsche, to the triumph of the erotic and the therapeutic in our own day, Trueman has produced a dense (400 pages), but well-written and remarkably insightful, book that helps us understand why “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” came to be seen as coherent and meaningful.

Honorable Mentions:
Conrad Mbewe, God’s Design for the Church: A Guide for African Pastors and Ministry Leaders (Crossway).
Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Biblical Impurity within First Century Judaism (Baker Academic).
Paul Tripp, Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church (Crossway).
Paul W. Wood, 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (Encounter Books).

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Salvation is the great theme of Scripture. If we can plot the biblical storyline as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, then clearly it is that third act which dominates the pages of special revelation. Strictly speaking, the Bible details creation in two chapters (Genesis 1-2), the fall in one chapter (Genesis 3), and consummation in two chapters (Revelation 21-22). The other 1,184 chapters are about redemption.
Of course, in saying Christianity is about salvation, we do not mean that Christianity is about nothing but sin and salvation. The Bible is a big book full of many ideas, many promises, and many commands. And yet, if we are to do justice to the death and resurrection of Jesus—and to the apostolic preaching about that death and resurrection—we must affirm that Christianity is chiefly, firstly, ultimately, and amazingly a message about God’s gracious initiative to save sinful human beings.
The Story We Are Telling
What is the driving theme throughout the Bible? What is the point of Holy Week? What is the story we have to tell to the nations? How we assess the central plotline of redemptive history will define the Christianity we live and the Christ we proclaim. Is the Christian faith mainly the story of a cosmos to be renewed? A God to be obeyed? A mystery to be explored? A journey to be experienced? Or is the good news of the Bible most consistently, most frequently, and most significantly the story of sinners to be saved?
In a day where emphasizing the salvation of sinners is sometimes denigrated as too narrow and too unconcerned with the real needs of the world, we must not lose sight of the soteriological shape of the biblical storyline. Christ’s work to save helpless, hell-bound sinners is at the heart of the gospel and is the irreducible minimum of the apostolic message of the cross.
There is a reason that all four Gospels culminate with the death and resurrection of Jesus. No other biography spends a third of its time detailing the subject’s last week. But the Gospels are no ordinary biographies. They tell the story of victory in defeat, of triumph through tragedy. Make no mistake: the point of Jesus’s life was to die, the point of his death was to rise again, and the point of his resurrection was to justify believing sinners (Rom. 4:25). Upon seeing Jesus, John the Baptist announced, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). From even before his birth, the mission of the Christ was to save sinners. “You shall call his name Jesus,” the angel told Joseph, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). No wonder Jesus understood his own mission as coming “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). “The Son of Man did not come to be served,” he told his disciples, “but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark. 10:45).
Christ and Him Crucified
To be sure, the work of Christ on the cross was multifaceted. In the death of Jesus, we have the conquering of evil, the defeat of Satan, and the example of perfect love. We can talk about more than sin and salvation when we talk about the cross, but we must not talk about less. For there is no good thing accomplished by the cross that was accomplished apart from the satisfaction of divine justice, the expiation of sin, and the propitiation of wrath.
If “evangelical” means anything worthwhile at all, it means that we are people who live and breathe and love and share the evangel. It means that our preaching never strays from Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 1:23). It means that the most important thing about the most important message in the world is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3).
The problem in the world is (and always has been) sin. The need of the hour is (and always has been) salvation. We believe in ethics. We believe in discipleship. We believe that salvation is unto holiness and for good works (Titus 2:14). And we also believe with all our might that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
We do not teach correctly about Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Christ if we do not say something about the point of Christ’s passion week as an atoning sacrifice for sin. His death was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God for our sins (Eph. 5:2; cf. Lev. 1:9, 13, 14). Christ gave himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4). He became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5-6). The work of the high priest was to offer gifts and offer sacrifices for sin (Heb. 5:1; 8:3), and Christ is the best and true and final high priest because through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without blemish to God (9:14).
The death of Christ is enough to win for us cleansing and appeasement, forgiveness and redemption. Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), but because of Christ’s death, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1:19). Christ’s sacrifice on the cross made purification for sin (Heb. 1:3), put away sin (9:26), and was a propitiation for sin (1 John 2:2). The One who loves us, the one who makes us a kingdom and makes us priests, is, we must always remember, the one who has freed us from our sins by his blood (Rev. 1:5-6).
God’s Salvation Story
We will not be Bible people—or Jesus people, or gospel people—if we are not salvation-for-sinners people. Though some may call it a soterian gospel or an individualistic gospel, the unavoidable reality of Scripture is that at the heart of the message of the cross is the simple, wonderful, glorious good news that Christ saves sinners like you and me. And if this message, and all that took place to accomplish what it announces, represents the climax of redemptive history—indeed, if all of history is about redemption—then we are right to conclude that this soteriological emphasis must shape the sound of our preaching, the priority of our ministry, and the mission of the church.
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). That is the preaching that God blesses. That is that ministry that God uses. That is the mission that God has given us in the world. The mercy of God is the theme of our song because the salvation of sinners is the story of Scripture. Let us sing it, say it, and savor it—this week and for eternity.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Abuse, of any kind, is an egregious sin by those who commit it and an immensely difficult and heavy burden to bear by those who are victims of it. As with any sin, abuse is, worst of all, an offense against a holy God. Those who perpetuate abuse must be confronted in their sin, called to faith and repentance, and offered the one true hope that can be found in Christ alone. Those who are sinned against must be comforted in their suffering, helped to put away misplaced shame, and offered the one true hope that can be found in Christ alone.
So far, I trust that every Christian is in agreement with these affirmations.
But beyond these foundational truths, the current discussion about abuse—as it is being played out online, in articles, in books, and in churches—gets quickly twisted and tied up in knots. To some degree, this is simply what happens when emotionally charged issues get talked about online (especially on Twitter). Social media has not been known to foster a spirit of charity or cultivate an intellectual atmosphere interested in careful distinctions and patient deliberation. The other difficulty is that depending on a whole host of factors—one’s personality, position, experience, or context—we tend to see the present dangers leading in different directions. For some, the most pressing concern is obviously that abuse is perpetrated, minimized, and covered up in the church. For others, there is another concern, that abuse is becoming a totalizing category and that even the accusation of abuse takes down everyone and everything in its path.
I admit I am concerned that correcting the church’s failures when it comes to abuse has given way in some places to an unhealthy overcorrection. Of course, in one sense, you cannot correct an error too much. And yet, you can correct one error in a way that produces new errors. That’s what I see at times in the current discussion about abuse.
I realize there are important points that need to be made on both sides. I have several points below warning against the overcorrection, but I don’t want to minimize the need there has been (and continues to be in many places) for the initial correction. So let me do my best to sincerely voice the correction and warn against the overcorrection.
What Needs to Be Said
Here are five things we need to say about abuse.
One, abuse is in the church. As much as we strive to be different from the world, there is still worldliness in the church. Children have been abused by adults. Wives have been abused by husbands (and sometimes the other way around). Congregants have been abused by leaders. Subordinate staff members have been abused by senior staff members. We in the church have not always done a good job protecting the vulnerable or holding the powerful to account. Predators, narcissists, and sinners of various stripes have too easily found the church a place to hide, and sometimes a place to flourish, in their deeds of darkness.
Two, the church has not always handled abuse well. Even when church leaders have not been guilty themselves of abusive behavior, and have not sought to cover up abusive patterns, they have sometimes failed to handle abuse situations with biblical fidelity, pastoral sensitivity, and Christian grace. These failures may include: failing to put proper safety measures in place, failing to act in a timely manner, failing to warn others and share information with pertinent parties or assemblies, failing to include women (when appropriate) in matters of domestic abuse, applying Matthew 18 in a wooden fashion, treating abuse situations as straightforward matters of personal reconciliation, being slow to listen, and being ignorant of proper reporting procedures.
Three, there are many devastating ways we can sin against one another. We should all know by now that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a lie. We can be deeply hurt by words as well as actions, by emotional pain as well as physical harm, by subtly manipulative leaders as well as by obviously tyrannical ones.
Four, victims need our help. Victims often deal with misplaced shame and need to be reassured of their innocence and of God’s grace. The cries of victims have sometimes gone unheard; they need people in positions of influence to listen to them and to speak for and with them. Often they need people in power to step in and protect them from harm.
Five, the first instinct of Christian leaders should be to help genuine victims. There can be a sinful tendency in those who are in positions of authority to view abuse victims as threats to be neutralized rather than sufferers to be helped and comforted. Of course, institutional boards and presidents and pastors cannot cease to be wise, responsible leaders. But being a good steward of the organization is no excuse for treating situations of abuse as strictly legal matters or as public relations disasters to be mitigated. We must think about victims before we think about our own institutional liabilities.
What We Need to Be Careful About
All of the points above are important. They cannot be assumed. They should not be minimized. I lead with these five points because they need to be said.
At the same time, there are other things that need to be said, lest in our zeal to care for victims we end up making new victims. Let me, then, make five additional points.
One, there is almost no room to say anything besides the first five points without some people accusing you of not really caring about the first five points. At times, the topic of abuse gets put into a category by itself where—unlike other pastoral or theological topics—any efforts at nuance or dispassionate analysis are completely off limits. As a result, people are often pushed to opposite sides: You either get it and are 100% on the right side, or you are an oppressor and part of the problem.
Along with this all-or-nothing mindset comes an unrealistic expectation that every discussion of abuse must proceed as if one was in an intimate counseling setting. That is, no matter the platform (book, blog, tweet) and no matter the genre (scholarly article, theological inquiry, cultural analysis, exegetical exploration), the writer or speaker must communicate with a commitment, seemingly above all else, that the most aggrieved person or eager critic could not possibly misunderstand or misappropriate what is being said. Too often there is an unrealistic expectation that every internet article or podcast comment or pulpit sermon must speak as you would in a one-on-one counseling situation. We do not produce balanced thinking by making the internet a counseling office, nor will victims be helped in the long run by giving them the expectation that the care they need can be found from strangers online.
Two, sometimes there is an unwillingness to distinguish between the abuser and anyone else in “the system.” It’s true, the system—and those in it—can fail victims and cover tracks for the abuser. And yet, we should be cautious about charging “the culture” with producing iniquity—a charge that is usually impossible to prove or disprove. We must not impute guilt to anyone and everyone who is somehow connected to “the system.”
Likewise, we must be careful to distinguish between high handed sin, unintentional sin, honest mistakes, and simply being connected to a sinful person or a tragic situation. It is far too easy—whether from a sincere zeal to ameliorate injustice or from a desire to seem virtuous—to malign others without evidence or due process. A commitment to helping victims should not necessitate second-degree (let alone third- or fourth-degree) separation from anyone deemed “controversial” or from those who have been accused of abuse without due process.  “Guilty until proven innocent” is not a Christian way to pursue justice, nor is it loving our neighbors as we would want to be loved.
Three, abuse has become an ever-expanding term. Because “abuse” is such an explosive term, bringing shame to the accused and bringing power to the offended, we must not throw around the word haphazardly. Not too long ago, if you said “abuse” everyone would have assumed you meant physical harm or the sexual exploitation of a minor. As I said earlier, it is important to realize that there are ways we can be powerfully sinned against that don’t involve anyone laying a finger on our bodies. The problem is not in recognizing the many ways we can sin and be sinned against. The problem is in forestalling further questions and conversations by simply mentioning the word “abuse.” The danger of verbal inflation is real. The language of violence and trauma are now used for everyday interactions. When hurt feelings, gruff personalities, ill-conceived jokes, run-of-the-mill staff disagreements, and the ordinary misunderstandings of life get labeled as “abuse,” we not only run the risk of slandering the accused, we also make it more difficult for the genuinely abused to get the help and attention they need.
Four, when it comes to allegations of abuse, it is sometimes communicated (implicitly or explicitly) that the only acceptable stance is immediate and unquestioned advocacy. Again, let me try to make clear what I am not saying. I am not saying that advocacy is wrong. There are certainly many times where the most helpful, most courageous, and most Christian thing to do is to make sure the victim knows, “I am on your side, and I will fight for you.” What I am saying is that we should not expect that immediate and unquestioned advocacy is the only appropriate response—indeed, it may sometimes be the wrong response—when serious allegations are made. No matter how much we want to listen to and sympathize with people in their pain, there must be a place for fact-finding, for hearing from both sides, and for objective analysis—whether from journalists, boards, pastors, investigators, or whomever.
We are all capable of misinterpreting the facts—even the facts that form our story. None of us passively experience life. We actively interpret what happens to us, and sometimes we interpret our experiences incorrectly. Abusers can be blind to their abusive behavior, and those who consider themselves victims can misread what actually transpired. We must allow for the possibility that sheep can mislabel as “abuse” what is, in fact, necessary pastoral correction and oversight. After all, “for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).
Five, the abuse discussion can forget that all of us are both sufferers and sinners. There are real oppressors and real victims. People don’t all suffer the same amount. People don’t all sin in the same ways or to the same degree. And yet, we must remember that hurting people often hurt people. They may not mean to. They may be trying to deal with genuine pain as best as they can. We must be patient with those who have been egregiously sinned against. But the sinned against are still sinners. Suffering does not make us sovereign. Our pain does not make us infallible. Sometimes our sense of trauma is misplaced. Sometimes we are less fragile than we think.
And finally, and somewhat controversially I know, we must acknowledge that even when we were sinned against, we are still responsible for the sins we commit. The existence of a power disparity, for example, does not automatically eliminate personal agency. Clearly in some situations—when dealing with minors, for example, or when one is physically overpowered—there is complete exoneration of guilt. But in other situations, the one with lesser power can still bear moral responsibility, even if the one with greater power is guilty of a much more heinous transgression (see Westminster Larger Catechism 151). If Joseph had slept with Potipher’s powerful, conniving, and threatening wife, she would have had the greater sin, but Joseph’s actions would still have been a great wickedness and sin against God (Gen. 39:9).
Conclusion
We have heard a lot in the last couple years about the danger of authority, and understandably so. We have seen some utterly terrible abuses of power in the Christian world. Power dynamics are real. Narcissism is insidious.  Siding with the gifted abuser and ignoring the oppressed victim happens. Authority is sadly, tragically, too often used for diabolical ends.
But the response to a fire in the kitchen must not be to burn the whole house down. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, so we must not be suspicious of all authority. The abuse of authority is a profound distortion of God’s own character, for He is the one who sovereignly rules over all things. In my experience over twenty years of ministry, I believe most pastors deserve the benefit of the doubt. Most are doing their imperfect best to lead and serve and teach in increasingly difficult days. To help people see God for who he is, we must correct abuse where it exists, without overstating the problem, without calling all authority into question, and without damaging the reputations of those who don’t deserve to be pilloried.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.