In his introduction to Athanasius' On the Incarnation, C.S. Lewis encourages readers to read at least one old book for every three modern ones. This is good advice, both because (as Lewis points out) the old books are so accessible, and because modern books tend to be infinitely more complex and specialized than they have any need or right to be.
This is particularly true of Christian books (precisely the kinds of books Lewis is talking about, actually). As he says in the introduction, a Christian book must stand the test of time before it can be widely accepted, not because years equal truth, but because Christians must hold it against the Bible and the rest of accepted orthodox Christian doctrine.
One of the most important reasons to read old books in the Christian tradition, however, is that they are much clearer than most of the books published in the last two hundred years. The farther back we go, the clearer the writing: the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds are models of clarity and brevity, as well as some of the oldest Christian documents we have.
It's not just that the writing is clearer, but that the ideas expressed are so much simpler and Gospel-oriented. Modern writers fall over themselves responding to critics, clarifying their highly specialized use of language, cutting away the baggage of centuries of scholarship, or simply adding to it with their own assertions and ideas.
Of course, there's nonsense among the older works, too. Not everything the Church Fathers wrote is worthwhile, there's plenty of bad Medieval theology, the Renaissance and Enlightenment were largely too man-centered, and so on. But you're also far more likely to find excellent Christian writing in the literature of these periods than in our own era.
I would argue that it wasn't primarily because those writers were smarter, or better stylists, or anything temporal like that: they were simply more in love with Christ's true Gospel and its application to the life and thought of every believer. The Puritans in particular (here I'm betraying my own bias) are able to balance incredibly deep theological reflections and baldly practical applications of that knowledge.
We often somehow think that the more complex something is, the deeper it is; John Calvin and Martin Luther ably disprove this as a matter of course in their writings. Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is one of the deepest doctrinal works you'll ever encounter, but on every page he shows how the concepts he explores are important for our life in Christ. The same goes for Luther's The Bondage of the Will and John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.
Theological scholarship is important: it would be disingenuous of me to suggest otherwise. At the same time, it must always be balanced by serious reflection on the core doctrines of our faith: Christ's work, death, and resurrection; God's sovereignty; the universal curse of sin and death under Adam; the justification and sanctification of the saints through Christ; the life everlasting. Without an unbreakable anchor in these truths, the scholarship is meaningless and even harmful.
Even (especially?) popular works aren't free from the trend I've identified. While they aren't scholarly, authors of these books find anything to talk about but the Gospel, appealing to socio-economic analysis, social gospel concerns, psychology, postmodern ideas of "story," etc. to connect their message to a modern audience. The truths a modern audience needs to understand and affirm, however, are the same as they were 2000 years ago, and so is human nature.
We could read all the modern books, mindful to cut through the dross, looking for the kernel of truth or insight in each one; or we can read the old books, the ones focused on Christ alone, and be genuinely enriched and quickened to better service. The message hasn't changed, after all; we've simply invented more ways of getting around its incisive and convicting truth.
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