Our Favorite Books and Films of 2021, Part 2

By Paul Copan and David Baggett | Bulletin Roundtable

Today we conclude our roundup of our favorite books and movies of 2021. In part 1, Paul Gould and Melissa Cain Travis shared their picks, and below Paul Copan and David Baggett share theirs.

Happy New Year from The Worldview Bulletin team!

Paul Copan

Movies

Both my wife Jackie and I gravitate toward movies portraying events related to World War II in Europe. Part of the reason for this is that she and I are first-generation Americans with thoroughly European backgrounds. My wife’s parents came from Holland. My own mother was born in Latvia and grew up speaking German; my dad was born in Ukraine. Both sets of parents went through World War II in Europe.

My maternal grandfather died as a result of the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor) after having spent a year in a labor camp. My father, separated from his mother and brother because of the war, would eventually make his way to Germany, where he ended up ministering to Slavic displaced persons in Munich. My mother’s relatives in Lithuania and Latvia left for Germany to flee the Communists, and my mother and maternal grandmother eventually ended up in Munich as well. My mother survived the bombing of Berlin, and two great-aunts (“Tante Vody” and “Tante Lorchen”) and a great-uncle (“Onkel Walter”) survived the bombing of Dresden, Germany. Another great-aunt (“Tante Lilly”) had been instrumental in rescuing Jews and other refugees in Lithuania, which led to a six-month imprisonment.

Likewise, my wife’s parents lived through the harsh conditions under Nazi-occupied Holland, with her father having been part of the Dutch resistance even as a teenager in Rotterdam. Her mother in Amsterdam lived through starvation conditions, resorting to eating tulip bulbs to survive. My wife’s great-aunt and great-uncle, Adriana (“Jaan”) and Cornelis Jiskoot (siblings), were also part of the resistance, and their most notable acts of heroism involved protecting and helping Jews to safety. In fact, in 2014 both were posthumously honored at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem along with other “Righteous Among the Nations.” And it was a moving experience for Jackie and me to visit there in October 2019 and see their inscribed names to commemorate their heroism.  

**Note: If you’re interested, you can read a bit about Adriana Jiskoot in this Dutch article (you can use the “Translate English” function). In the photo below, you’ll also see some members of a Dutch resistance group, including Jackie’s then-teenaged father (Johannes Marinus van Tol), who is in the back row all the way to the right.

All of that backdrop is a lead-up to a powerful, sobering World War II-era movie Jackie and I watched recently. A Hidden Life focuses on the courage of a devout Austrian Catholic, Franz Jägerstätter. He rightly believed the Nazi war cause to be unjust, and because of this, he was a conscientious objector, which meant great sacrifice for himself and his family. I’m tempted to tell more of his story, but I’ll leave it to you to discover the quality of his life.

The film’s cinematography is superb, having been filmed (mostly) in the breathtakingly beautiful town of Sankt (St.) Radegund in Upper Austria (Oberösterreich).

The film is nearly three hours long, but it is so well worth the investment.

Incidentally, the title of the film—A Hidden Life—is taken from the closing lines of George Eliot’s Middlemarch. These highlight the heroine Dorothea, a woman of outstanding character and quiet service to others: “But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” 

I’ve quoted this line in my biblical ethics book, and over the years our family has enjoyed the accurate BBC film adaptation of Middlemarch.

Another similarly powerful World War II-era movie—one that our family has watched a number of times—is Sophie Scholl. This is a moving story about Sophie and others who belonged to the anti-Nazi resistance movement, the White Rose. The film portrays their courage and personal sacrifice as well as their deep Christian faith.

I’ve devoted a good deal of space to the “film” section. Let me say something briefly about books.

Books

One of my dear sisters—Lil Copan—has written a very well-received novel, Little Hours—her first. What is unique about this book is that it is an “epistolary novel”—a novel that takes the form of letters—involving nuns, birding, the Boston Red Sox, and more. Lil’s book was even a recent finalist in Christianity Today’s 2022 Book Awards. Lauren F. Winner, author of Girl Meets God, writes this review of Lil’s book:

I read it straight through. I'm not confident that I even breathed while reading it. The novel is a wonder! Formally, literarily, and spiritually, it's just staggering. Wise and absorbing. Reading LITTLE HOURS, I had the all too rare experience of losing the self-conscious awareness that I was reading; I was, instead, simply and suddenly placed in a world that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. What a gift.

You can read the reviews at Amazon. It’s a great choice to read in the new year!

My philosopher friend J. P. Moreland has likewise written a terrific book in another genre, A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles. From a number of angles, this book encourages us to set our minds on things above, to step into life in the supernatural realm—when it comes to prayer, miracles, divine guidance, standing against the demonic, and much more. I wrote this endorsement for J. P.’s book:

J. P. Moreland’s unique book sparkles with spiritual vibrancy, fresh insight, and seasoned wisdom. Not only will readers find their hearts strangely warmed, but also greatly encouraged to trust more fully in God’s power, to become more fervent and expectant in prayer, and to view life in this world with a renewed kingdom vision. This book is a gem!

I’m presently enjoying another book along these lines—another friend Craig Keener’s Miracles Today. It is a treasure trove of well-documented miracles performed in the name of Jesus, including healings, demonic deliverances, and raisings from the dead. Yes, the dead are still being raised!

Read these books (and give them away as gifts!), and may your faith be strengthened and encouraged in the new year.

David Baggett

Marrying an English professor is bound to have its effects, and in my case it certainly has. I rather doubt I would have gotten around to the quirky writings of Kurt Vonnegut as soon as I did, if at all, without Marybeth’s deep interest in the fellow. But recently I made it through what may be his best book, in the estimation of many, Slaughterhouse-Five.

It is quite a prodigious literary achievement, integrating a largely real-life heart-breaking account of war and tragedy (culminating in the firebombing of Dresden, which even Winston Churchill in its immediate aftermath expressed grave doubts about) with elements of time travel, science fiction, and plunger-looking aliens for whom a human’s urination habits are the stuff of endless entertainment. The book has several laudable features worth noting—from its reflections on free will to the dignity of persons, and from its delicious humor to its deft playfulness with the mysteries of time—but it’s the juxtaposition of the serious and silly, in particular, that struck me as especially intriguing. The farcical and fun elements make the medicine go down smoother; the overall effect is a powerful, fascinating, and memorable one.

As much as Vonnegut’s book mesmerized my attention, it isn’t the one I’m conferring top honors on for the year, but I mention it because, surprisingly enough, it was what led me to the book that gets the nod. In many of his books, and certainly in this one, one of Vonnegut’s charms is his penchant for a nonlinear way of telling a story. After reading Slaughterhouse-Five, as a result, I found myself with a hankering for something a bit more straightforward.

In years past I had tried my hand at Jane Austen’s work, but had never quite been able to sustain my interest long enough, so I thought it might be the occasion to try again. This time did the trick. I started reading Pride and Prejudice, and just couldn’t stop. As Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings eventually drew me in with its lush descriptions of nature and scenery, Pride and Prejudice enchanted me with its marvelous dialogue, each piece of which strikes me as a miniature artwork, their exquisite assemblage a masterpiece. It takes more than a modicum of patience, and a little getting used to, but once immersed in it, the book becomes an irresistible page-turner and aesthetic delight. The taste for it, once acquired, becomes a voracious hunger for more. The protracted love story it tells is also, though doubtless reflective of another time, as timeless as it is unspeakably romantic, until at long last it matures and comes to fruition.

There is just ever so much about Austen’s marvelous novel deserving accolades and appreciation—the breathtaking dialogue, the masterful use of language, its rich motifs of appearance versus reality and value versus price, its implicit Christian themes that are never heavy handed, including infusions of grace from unexpected places. The 1995 BBC mini-series is a wonderful adaptation, but, for no fault of its own, cannot compare with the novel itself punctuated with its priceless and comedic, ironic and opinionated narrative voice.

It is an interesting phenomenon the way some books may fail to appeal to us at one point in our lives, but veritably leap off the pages at another time. I remember having that experience years ago with C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. After a few unsuccessful efforts to read it, a time came when it simply burst to life before my eyes. It was there to be discovered all along, waiting patiently for me to develop the ears with which to hear it. Likewise with Pride and Prejudice. I might suggest, if there’s a great book you’ve tried in the past to get through but to no avail, you might be ready to give it another shot.

As for the best movie, I’ll mention a film I saw recently that I found very moving: King Richard. It’s the story of the father of Venus and Serena Williams, and how, against impossible odds, he pursued a dream of his daughters becoming the best in the sport. Knowing the end of the story, we can hardly call his animating vision nuts, but it certainly seemed so at the time. Against all odds, it happened. Tennis fans the world over would eventually see these two sisters go head to head in the finals of Grand Slam tournaments like the U. S. Open, the Australian Open, and on the fabled lawns of Wimbledon. The movie is a remarkable underdog story about the power of persistence and of a dream.

I relished one line perhaps most of all. As she was a bit older, Venus was the first to break through to the pros. Serena watched from the sidelines, biding her time, and celebrated as Venus met with success. Discerning some of the challenge this posed to her, Richard walked over to Serena at one point and offered this prophetic encouragement: “Venus is going to be the best in the world. You are going to be the best ever.”

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