For those interested in exploring some of the issues I touch on in my book or blog in more depth, below is a list of the books, authors, and websites which have had the most significant influence on my journey thus far. As a theological moderate with both conservative and liberal leanings in different areas, the books below tend to span a wide variety of perspectives and have all shaped my approach to the Christian life and worldview in a tremendous way…
Books
Authors
For a more substantial list of recommended books sorted by topic, see below.
*Difficulty Level: (B) = Beginner / (I) = Intermediate / (A) = Advanced
*Theological Leaning: (C) = Conservative / (M) = Moderate / (L) = Liberal / (S) = Secular Academic
Bibles, Commentaries, Dictionaries, and Reference Works
Bibles:
- Life Application Study Bible (B/C)
- NLT Illustrated Study Bible (B/C)
- Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (B/M)
- New Interpreters Study Bible (B/M)
- Common English Study Bible (B/L)
- HarperCollins Study Bible (B/S)
- New Oxford Annotated Bible (B/S)
Dictionaries:
Commentaries:
- Life Application Bible Commentary (B/C)
- New Bible Commentary (I/C)
- Bible for Everyone Commentary (B/M)
- Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (B/M)
- Story of God Commentary (I/M)
- New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (I/M)
- Fortress Bible Commentary (I/L)
- Anchor Yale Bible Commentary (A/S)
Reference Works:
Theology
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (B/M)
- Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (I/M)
- The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns (B/M)
- The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard (I/M)
- Christian Theology by Alister McGrath (I/M)
- The Christian Agnostic by Leslie Weatherhead (B/L)
- The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer (B/C)
- Evangelical Theology by Michael Bird (I/M)
- Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr. (B/L)
- Escaping Fundamentalism by James Barr (B/L)
- Faith and Belief by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (I/L)
- Christian Origins and the Question of God by N.T. Wright (A/M)
- Confessions by Augustine of Hippo (I/C)
- What do Christians Believe by Malcolm Guite (B/M)
- Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul (B/C)
- How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman (B/S)
- What is the Trinity? by Dale Tuggy (B/L)
- Small Faith – Great God by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight (B/M)
- Fides et Ratio by Pope John Paul II (I/M)
- Being Christian by Rowan Williams (B/M)
- Who Was Jesus? by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- Systematic Theology by Norman Geisler (I/C)
- Christianity in the Making by James D.G. Dunn (A/M)
- Creation Out of Nothing by Craig & Copan (I/C)
- The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- Fundamentalism by James Barr (I/L)
- Simply Christian by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell (B/M)
- Knowing God by J.I. Packer (B/C)
- The Anglican Way by Thomas McKenzie (B/M)
- Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- Salvation and Sovereignty by Kenneth Keathley (I/C)
- Simply Good News by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- The First Christmas by Borg & Crossan (I/L)
- Desiring God by John Piper (B/C)
- The Evangelical Universalist by Gregory MacDonald (I/M)
- Love Wins by Rob Bell (B/M)
- Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (B/M)
- The Meaning of Jesus by Wright & Borg (I/M)
- The Skeptical Believer by Daniel Taylor (B/M)
- After You Believe by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- Faith Unraveled by Rachel Held Evans (B/M)
- The First Paul by Borg & Crossan (I/L)
- After Christendom by Stanley Hauerwas (I/M)
- You’re Not as Crazy as I Think by Randall Rauser (B/M)
- A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren (B/M)
- Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- The Last Week by Borg & Crossan (I/L)
- Classic Christianity by Thomas Oden (I/M)
Apologetics
- Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (I/C)
- The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne (A/M)
- I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek (B/C)
- The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel (B/C)
- Tactics by Greg Koukl (B/C)
- The Reason for God by Tim Keller (B/C)
- On Guard by William Lane Craig (B/C)
- Christian Apologetics by Douglas Groothuis (I/C)
- Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (I/M)
- Letters from a Skeptic by Greg Boyd (B/M)
- Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey (I/C)
- Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler (I/C)
- The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology by Craig & Moreland (A/C)
- Five Views on Apologetics by Steven Cowan (I/C)
- Defending Your Faith by R.C. Sproul (B/C)
- True for You, But Not for Me by Paul Copan (B/C)
- The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel (B/C)
- When Skeptics Ask by Norman Geisler (B/C)
- God is Great, God is Good by William Lane Craig (B/C)
- When God Goes to Starbucks by Paul Copan (B/C)
- The Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel (B/C)
- Come, Let Us Reason by Norman Geisler (B/C)
- Without a Doubt by Ken Samples (B/C)
- Classical Apologetics by R.C. Sproul (B/C)
- Is the Bible True? by Josh McDowell (B/C)
- The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens (B/M)
- A Shot of Faith (To the Head) by Mitch Stokes (B/C)
- Is There a God? by Richard Swinburne (B/M)
- Reasons for Faith by Norman Geisler (I/C)
- Questioning the Bible by Jonathan Morrow (B/C)
- Did Jesus Rise from the Dead by William Lane Craig (B/C)
- Finding Truth by Nancy Pearcey (I/C)
Philosophy
- Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Craig & Moreland (I/C)
- Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga (A/C)
- Love Your God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland (B/C)
- Faith and Reason by Richard Swinburne (A/M)
- History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston (I/M)
- How to Think About the Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler (B/M)
- Great Books of the Western World by Mortimer Adler (I/M)
- Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity by Robert McKim (I/S)
- Pensées by Blaise Pascal (I/M)
- God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga (A/C)
- Time and Eternity by William Lane Craig (I/C)
- Good God by Baggett & Walls (I/C)
- The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (I/S)
- Does God Have a Nature? by Alvin Plantinga (A/C)
- Epistemology by Richard Feldman (I/S)
- The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor (B/M)
- Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes (I/M)
- Walking the Tightrope of Reason by Robert Fogelin (I/S)
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume (I/S)
- On the Genealogy of Morality by Frederick Nietzsche (I/S)
- Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (I/S)
- Proslogion by Anselm of Canterbury (I/M)
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (I/S)
- The Republic by Plato (I/S)
- The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (I/S)
- Inquiry and Essays by Thomas Reid (I/C)
- Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga (I/C)
- Disagreement by Bryan Frances (I/S)
- Knowledge and Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga (B/C)
- Religious Belief and the Will by Louis Pojman (I/M)
- The Consequences of Ideas by R.C. Sproul (B/C)
Biblical Studies
- Making Sense of the Bible by Adam Hamilton (B/M)
- Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman (B/S)
- Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- The Living Word by James Dunn (I/M)
- The New Testament in Its World by Wright & Bird (I/M)
- Biblical Inspiration by I. Howard Marshall (B/M)
- An Introduction to Biblical Ethics by McQuilkin & Copan (I/C)
- Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown (I/M)
- The Lost World by John Walton (I/M)
- What Do We Do With the Bible? by Richard Rohr (B/M)
- The Bible: An Introduction by Jerry L. Sumney (I/M)
- The New Testament: A Historical Introduction by Bart Ehrman (I/S)
- Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John Collins (I/S)
- A High View of Scripture? by Craig Allert (I/M)
- How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns (B/M)
- Scripture and the Authority of God by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- Models of Scripture by John Goldingay (A/M)
- Inspiration and Authority by Paul Achtemeier (I/M)
- Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns (I/M)
- God’s Word in Human Words by Kenton Sparks (I/M)
- The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark (B/M)
- Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism by Christopher Hays (I/M)
- Inspired Imperfection by Greg Boyd (B/M)
- The Bible and the Believer by Marc Brettler (I/L)
- How to Read the Bible by John Goldingay (I/M)
- The Divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture by William Abraham (I/M)
- Inspired by Rachel Held Evans (B/M)
- What is the Bible? by Rob Bell (B/M)
- Surprised by Scripture by N.T. Wright (B/M)
- The Birth of the Messiah by Raymond Brown (A/M)
- An Adult Christ at Christmas by Raymond Brown (B/M)
- The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns (B/M)
- Sacred Word, Broken Word by Kenton Sparks (B/M)
- The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith (I/M)
- The Nature of Biblical Criticism by John Barton (I/S)
- The Scope and Authority of the Bible by James Barr (I/L)
- The Word of God? by Keith Ward (B/L)
- Evangelical Theories of Biblical Inspiration by Kern Robert Trembath (I/M)
- The Living Word of God by Ben Witherington (I/M)
- Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy by Stanley Gundry (B/C-M)
Literature
Pretty much everything by C.S. Lewis 🙂