Folks undergoing what my friend Brad Jersak calls “faith renovation” often ask me to suggest books as companions on their journey.
What follows are thirty-five small(ish) books to heal hurting hearts and bewildered minds by introducing and inviting them to the older, deeper, authentic way of majority Christianity down the centuries.
These books point us to the beauty and wisdom of the Great Tradition, discussing distortions of Christian teaching only where necessary.
With exceptions they are under $15 and many of them are under 200 pages. The average reader will find no particular challenge in comprehending them.
With one exception the books are by living authors who have other published or pending books that one can turn to, and all but about a handful were published in the past five years.
The list is eclectic, because seeing all there is to see of Jesus Christ requires us to encounter his followers in as generous a company of orthodox Christians as possible.
These books will reorient readers to the classic Christian consensus on creation care, the cross, solidarity with the poor and the broken, death and evil as negations of the good with no origin in God, what the end of the world means, hospitality, the Scriptures, the creeds, enemy love, the created goodness of humanity and the material world, the sacraments and practices of the church, contemplation, the ancient church’s multi-faceted understanding of salvation, and the much-neglected doctrine of the incarnate God who truly sets our faith apart from every philosophy and religion that projects a god that looks and sounds like the worst imaginations of the fallen human heart.
A person who makes it through even some of these will understand that Jesus Christ is the most vital human and the most humble God and that he alone is truly the savior of the cosmos.
Note: A few of these books address the contemporary Christian trying to navigate our inherited authentic faith in the complex reality of the churches and our culture here in the United States. My apologies if you are an international reader.
It would be good to make a similar list of primary sources from the Tradition and another from literary fiction, for Christian faith engages our imagination in the concrete world God has made, and some (not all!) fathers and mothers among the first Christians should be read as often as and alongside contemporary authors, but those lists are for another day.
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A list of contemporary non-fiction books for folks undergoing faith renovation:
Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Images by John Behr
Jesus of Nazareth (three volumes) by Benedict XVI
Our Only World: Ten Essays by Wendell Berry
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays by Wendell Berry
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Taylor Brown
Surprised by Jesus Again: Reading the Bible in Communion with the Saints by Jason Byassee
Love Anyway: An Invitation Beyond a World That’s Scary as Hell by Jeremy Courtney
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe by Stephen Freeman
Surprised by God: How and Why What We Think About the Divine Matters by Chris E.W. Green
Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practice in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by David Bentley Hart
The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father by Wesley Hill
A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel by Brad Jersak
A More Christlike Way: A More Beautiful Faith by Brad Jersak
Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird
How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here by Jonathan Martin
A Spiritual Evolution: Rediscovering the Greatest Story Ever Told: John MacMurray
Prayer: Forty Days of Practice by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson
The Apostle’s Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism by Ben Myers
The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us from Drowning by Aaron Niequist
In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann
O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? by Alexander Schmemann
You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith
Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer by Rowan Williams
Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief by Rowan Williams
Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to the Life of Spiritual Discipline by Lauren F. Winner
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News by Brian Zahnd
Water to Wine: Some of My Story by Brian Zahnd