Reading List for Curious Seekers and Skeptical Christians
Books that Address the Major Objections to Christianity and Theism
Greg Boyd, Letters from a Skeptic Boyd’s letters to his agnostic father—who eventually found his way to Christ.
Francis Collins, The Language of God This overview of the major cosmological arguments for an intelligent, omnipotent designer (with a defense of Christianity thrown in) helped get me over the theism hump. Collins’ personal account of his conversion—in medical school, from a totally secular background—was nearly as powerful for me as the arguments he makes.
Ross Douthat, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious What sets this book apart from the usual “case for Christ” is Douthat’s ability to put himself in the position of an agnostic seeker who is curious about religion but doesn’t know where to start, and is skeptical of any special pleading for a particular faith (although he gets to Jesus at the end).
David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss Far denser than the other titles in this section, this book is a great explanation of why the deity against whom the New Atheists argue is not, actually, the deity in which most religious people believe—and why the God of monotheism is quite plausible.
Tim Keller, The Reason for God Keller was the greatest Protestant apologist of his generation. This is his classic intervention. I love his humble tone. He’s basically saying: no single one of the arguments I’m offering in this book is a slam-dunk case for Christianity, but if you hang with me and give each one a fair shake, you may find them interesting, and by the end of the book, just ask yourself if they don’t have a cumulative effect on your skeptical mind. (They did on mine!)
Keller, Making Sense of God If Reason for God is Keller’s defense of the basic factual claims of Christianity, this one is his book for the more postmodern seeker who feels vaguely curious but does not yet see enough problems in the 21st-century relativistic worldview to start asking questions about facts.
Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering The problem of evil and suffering is the biggest stumbling block for many seekers, and the biggest reason why believers leave the faith. Half this book is fairly dense theology, and the other half is more prayerful and pastoral.
Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus A great overview of the big topics. Pitre takes up some issues that other books in this category ignore, like prophecy and the evidence for early dating of the Gospels.
Neil Shenvi, Why Believe? A Reasoned Approach to Christianity Shenvi has serious academic chops (a PhD in theoretical chemistry from Cal Berkeley); he’s also a homeschooling dad who is very good at clear explanations. He hits all the major topics here.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ The premise and style of this book will either charm you or irritate you, but it’s a classic for a reason.
Podcasts on Doubt, Faith, Mystery
Tim Mackie on Psalm 73
Gavin Ortlund on the problem of divine hiddenness
Rowan Williams and Richard Dawkins on human origins
Rowan Williams and Paul Kingsnorth on Kingsnorth’s recent conversion to Orthodoxy after trying many non-Christian spiritual paths
Great debates on all the classic apologetic questions
I love this Tim Keller sermon on what it means to “turn aside” from the relentless distraction of everyday life and actually consider the possibility that God is there.
Holly Ordway’s path is a lot like my own, and Vanessa James has a gift for asking all the right questions
Why You Should Take Miracles Seriously
Candy Gunther Brown, Testing Prayer A balanced overview of the research on whether prayer makes any difference, and whether it’s even a legitimate question for scientists to ask. Her methodical investigation of healing miracles that she witnessed in Mozambique made a big impact on me. I wrote about Brown and her husband in my NYT article, “How Would You Prove That God Performed a Miracle?”
I included Brown’s book and a few others on a related reading list: The Best Books To Help a Secular Person Understand the Weirdest Parts of Religion.
Craig Keener, Miracles Today The first title is exhaustive and scholarly; the second is a more accessible overview of modern-day miracle testimonies, some of which are more persuasive than others.
More scholarly books that are crucial and challenging
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses I found his account of the transmission of oral history and the likely authorship of the gospels pretty persuasive.
Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament Comprehensive and written in a non-dogmatic tone; really helpful to me, even if I was not persuaded by every single smaller argument.
Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus A more accessible summary of recent scholarship on the historical claims of the New Testament. Not as hardcore as some of the other books on this list, but a much quicker read. Some scholars seem to be more critical of Habermas’s and Licona’s methodology than of Bauckham, Blomberg or Wright.
Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View McGrew is a fascinating player in these debates. Her PhD is in English literature and she is an autodidact in philosophy and biblical criticism. The woman has read pretty much everything and lets no one off the hook. She is not dogmatically committed to inerrancy, which for me lends more credibility to her defense of the Gospels as trustworthy primary sources. This book is an extremely methodical examination of undesigned coincidences in the New Testament that enhance the case for historical reliability.
Lydia McGrew, The Eye of the Beholder This is a long, meticulous examination of the Gospel of John’s historical reliability.
Lydia McGrew, The Mirror and the Mask Did I mention that McGrew is meticulous? Another long and detailed analysis of the various ways that biblical scholars, even evangelical ones, have overzealously adopted certain literary frameworks and genre analyses for reading the Gospels without interrogating them. Mike Licona posted a YouTube video series rebutting her arguments, and that’s worth watching too.
Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ Rutledge is writing to correct a certain type of liberal, sentimental Christianity and (to a lesser extent) she also challenges inerrantists at points. She argues for a broader view of the Crucifixion than the penal substitution theory to which many evangelicals subscribe. Rich, challenging theology on every page; witty and opinionated footnotes.
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection and the Son of God This was the central intervention for me. This is not light reading. Its exhaustiveness is part of its power.
[all these books are fruitfully read alongside some of Bart Ehrman’s counterpoints]
Memoirs that straddle Christian faith and secular academia
C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy The Ur-memoir. Lewis is a master of metaphors that bring elusive theological concepts into focus. His conversion was more aesthetic than rationalist, though, and won’t resonate with everyone.
Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy An underground hit; I had never heard of it before I started seriously investigating Christianity, and then suddenly I was hearing about it from lots of people. The first part is a very intense account of Vanauken’s “pagan” romance with his wife. If you find it tiresome, stick it out til they get to Oxford. I rely often on his metaphor of contemplating the leap of faith ahead, and then suddenly looking backward and realizing that another chasm has opened up between oneself and one’s old worldview—so it’s a leap in either direction.
The Best C.S. Lewis
[in general, the Audible versions of CSL books are outstanding]
Space Trilogy Personally, I think this is his most effective apologetic work. The first volume helped me think in new ways about Original Sin and angels; the second one contains the most disturbing portrait of Satan written in the English language; the third is a biting take-down of modern academia that really hit home.
