
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 spiritual journey thus far. As someone who doesn’t fit neatly into any particular theological camp, the resources below tend to span a wide variety of perspectives but have all shaped my approach to the Christian life and worldview in a profound and enduring 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
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)
- A Theology for the Twenty-First Century by Douglas Ottati (I/L)
- 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)
- 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)
- Love Matters More by Jared Byas (B/M)
- The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg (B/L)
- The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser (I/M)
- The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (B/S)
- 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)
- The Doubters’ Creed by Randall Rauser (B/M)
- The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr (I/L)
- Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans (B/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 New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce (I/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)
- The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg (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)
- The Consequences of Ideas by R.C. Sproul (B/C)
- 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)
Biblical Studies
- Making Sense of the Bible by Adam Hamilton (B/M)
- The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright (A/M)
- Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright (A/M)
- The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright (A/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 Series 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)
- Christ and the Bible by John Wenham (I/C)
- 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 (I/M)
- Four Portraits, One Jesus by Mark Strauss (I/C)
- Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham (I/M)
- The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus by Dale Allison (I/M)
- Better Ways to Read the Bible by Zach Lambert (B/M)
Study Bibles, Commentaries, and Reference Works
Study Bibles:
- Life Application Study Bible (B/C)
- NLT Illustrated Study Bible (B/C)
- ESV Study Bible (B/C)
- Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (B/M)
- New Interpreter’s Study Bible (B/M)
- New Oxford Annotated Bible (B/S)
- HarperCollins Study Bible (B/S)
Reference Works:
- Anchor Bible Dictionary (A/S)
- Synopsis of the Four Gospels (I/S)
Commentaries:
- Life Application Bible Commentary (B/C)
- Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (B/C)
- New Bible Commentary (I/C)
- Zondervan Exegetical Commentary (A/C)
- New International Commentary (A/C)
- Bible for Everyone Commentary (B/M)
- Story of God Commentary (I/M)
- New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (I/M)
- Fortress Bible Commentary (I/L)
- Oxford Bible Commentary (I/S)
- Anchor Bible Commentary (A/S)
