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These are some of my favorite books. Some warn of false paths. Others trace the ways ideas shape civilizations. Still others tell the story of God’s people across the centuries. Some are straightforward, others a little more complex. Together, they've proven especially durable.

NOTE: This is a work in progress, started in the fall of 2025. Please check back soon for a more thorough list.

Theology & Doctrine

The Bondage of the Will – Martin Luther
Written in response to Erasmus, Luther insists that human will is bound by sin and utterly dependent on God’s grace for salvation. It remains one of the clearest statements of the Reformation’s central conviction: that salvation is by grace alone, not the product of human effort.

Institutes of the Christian Religion – John Calvin
Calvin’s magnum opus is both a defense of Reformation theology and a guide to Christian living. With clarity and pastoral depth, he lays out the majesty of God, the authority of Scripture, and the grace of Christ, making it one of the most enduring works of theology ever written.

Confessions – Augustine of Hippo
Part autobiography, part prayer, Augustine’s Confessions traces his restless search for truth and his conversion to Christ. It is a profound meditation on sin, grace, memory, and desire—and a timeless testimony to the God who made us for Himself.

The Holiness of God – R.C. Sproul
Sproul’s most influential work, this book confronts readers with the majesty and awe of God’s holiness. Many have testified that it reshaped their entire understanding of God, moving them from casual belief to reverent worship.

The Reason for God – Timothy Keller
Written for skeptics and seekers, Keller tackles the most common objections to Christianity with intellectual rigor and pastoral warmth. It models how to engage modern doubts with patience, clarity, and hope.

Generous Justice – Timothy Keller
Keller demonstrates that concern for justice is not an optional add-on but flows directly from the gospel itself. Rooted in Scripture, the book shows how grace produces both compassion and action in the Christian life.

Counterfeit Gods – Timothy Keller
Keller exposes the idols that so often capture human hearts—success, love, wealth, and power—and shows how they can never deliver what they promise. With pastoral warmth and biblical clarity, he calls readers to turn from false saviors to the only true hope: the living God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Worldview and Philosophy

How Should We Then Live? – Francis Schaeffer
Schaeffer traces the flow of Western thought, showing how philosophy, art, and culture reveal the heart of a civilization. He challenges Christians to recognize that worldviews always shape history and everyday life.

Escape from Reason – Francis Schaeffer
A concise diagnosis of the modern “split” between rationalism and spirituality. Schaeffer calls us back to the truth of Scripture as the only foundation strong enough to unite reason and meaning.

Total Truth – Nancy Pearcey
Building on Schaeffer’s insights, Pearcey explains how modern culture fractures knowledge into “sacred” and “secular.” She urges believers to embrace a whole-life faith that integrates truth, calling, and culture under Christ.

The Universe Next Door – James W. Sire
A classic introduction to the study of worldviews, Sire surveys the major belief systems of our age and shows how each answers life’s fundamental questions. It equips Christians to discern cultural assumptions and engage others with clarity and charity.

A Little History of Philosophy – Nigel Warburton
Written with clarity and charm, Warburton introduces key thinkers from Socrates to contemporary philosophers in short, accessible chapters. While not written from a Christian perspective, it provides a helpful map of Western ideas that believers can engage with biblically.

Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
Originally wartime radio talks, this classic sets out the core truths of the Christian faith with clarity and wit. Lewis’s ability to speak both to skeptics and believers makes it a perennial introduction to the reasonableness of Christianity.

The Abolition of Man – C.S. Lewis
A prophetic warning against the denial of objective truth and values, Lewis shows how relativism erodes humanity itself. His insights remain strikingly relevant in a culture where “truth” is often treated as personal preference.

Cultural Engagement

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society – Lesslie Newbigin
A classic work of missional theology, Newbigin argues that the gospel is not just private belief but public truth. His vision of the church as a missionary community offers vital wisdom for engaging our secular and pluralistic age.

The Twilight of the American Enlightenment – George Marsden
Marsden explores mid-20th century America and the unraveling of its cultural consensus. His account shows that today’s fragmentation is the long fruit of eroded intellectual and moral foundations.

Bad Religion – Ross Douthat
Douthat shows how American Christianity lost its doctrinal core, giving rise to cultural distortions both left and right. His critique is sharp, but his call is pastoral: a return to historic orthodoxy rooted in Christ.

To Change the World – James Davison Hunter
Hunter offers a penetrating sociological analysis of how cultures are actually transformed. He critiques shallow Christian strategies and proposes instead a model of “faithful presence,” where believers influence culture by embodying the kingdom of God in every sphere of life.

The Origins of Totalitarianism – Hannah Arendt
Arendt’s landmark study examines how fascism and communism emerged in the 20th century, exposing the dynamics of ideology, propaganda, and dehumanization. Though not written from a Christian perspective, it provides a sobering cultural analysis that complements Orwell and Huxley by showing how totalitarian systems take root in real history.

The Technological Society – Jacques Ellul
Ellul’s classic work analyzes how technology, once unleashed, develops with its own momentum—reshaping culture, politics, and even morality. He warns that without transcendent grounding, society risks surrendering to “technique” as the highest good, a prophetic concern for our digital age.

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism – Michael Novak
Novak argues that a healthy democracy depends on a threefold foundation: political liberty, economic freedom, and a moral–cultural framework. He makes the case that capitalism, rightly ordered, flourishes only when rooted in virtue, religious conviction, and a respect for human dignity. Though written during the Cold War, his insights remain relevant for thinking about the moral and spiritual conditions that make freedom sustainable.

History and Church History

Modern Times – Paul Johnson
A sweeping history of the 20th century told with clarity and conviction. Johnson demonstrates how ideas and leaders shaped the century, often tragically, when societies forgot God.

Church History in Plain Language – Bruce Shelley
Perhaps the most accessible single-volume overview of church history. Shelley’s engaging style makes the story of God’s people across the centuries both readable and deeply instructive for the church today.

The Story of Christianity, Volume 1 – Justo L. González
The Story of Christianity, Volume 2 – Justo L. González
Highly accessible yet rich narratives of the church from its beginnings to the modern era. González writes with clarity and warmth, making complex history understandable, and offering readers a deeper appreciation of how God has guided His people through the centuries.

Literature

Animal Farm – George Orwell
A deceptively simple allegory that exposes how revolutions often collapse into new forms of tyranny. Orwell reminds us that when God is displaced, power and propaganda rush in to fill the void.

1984 – George Orwell
A chilling portrait of totalitarianism at its most oppressive, where truth, language, and even thought are policed by the State. Reading it is a sobering reminder of how fragile freedom is without transcendent truth.

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Huxley warns of a softer but equally dangerous tyranny—not through oppression, but through engineered pleasure and distraction. It is a powerful caution against trading away genuine humanity for comfort and control.

Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Golding’s haunting novel tells the story of schoolboys stranded on an island whose fragile order collapses into violence and chaos. It starkly illustrates the reality of original sin—the thin veneer of civilization cannot restrain the darkness within the human heart.

The Call of the Wild – Jack London
London’s tale of a domesticated dog thrust into the brutal Yukon wilderness explores themes of instinct, survival, and the pull of primal loyalty. It raises haunting questions about what it means to be truly alive and whether civilization refines us or only restrains us.

The Pearl – John Steinbeck
A simple story of a poor pearl diver who strikes sudden fortune, Steinbeck turns it into a parable of greed, envy, and the fragility of human dreams. Its beauty lies in its stark reminder that wealth without wisdom often destroys what we most hoped to save.

Closing

While an admittedly eclectic list in some respects, I benefitted from reading these books. My hope is that if you read any of them, you too will be sharpened, challenged, and encouraged to live more faithfully for Christ in our time.

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Disclaimer: The resources listed here have been selected because they offer particular value for Christian growth and understanding. Their inclusion does not imply full agreement with every statement or position taken by the authors. As with any book outside of Scripture, readers should exercise discernment, testing all things by the Word of God (Acts 17:11).