Recommended Reading

Easy to Read

Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion (Crossway, 2019).

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Harper SanFrancisco, 2009).

Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense (HarperOne, 2013).

John C. Lennox, Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target (Lion, 2011).

Tim Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Dutton, 2008).

Tim Keller, Making Sense of God (Viking, 2016).

John Stott, Basic Christianity (Inter-Varsity, 2012).

Topical Reading

How Christianity Makes Emotional Sense

G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 5 - “The Flag of the World”, in Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (Doubleday, 1990). Also see excerpt in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp.159-163.

Issa, “The World is Dew” in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp.148-149.

Dick Keyes, Beyond Identity: Finding Yourself in the Image and Character of God (Destinee, 1998).

T. Keller, The Prodigal God (Dutton, 2008).

T. Keller, Counterfeit Gods (Dutton, 2009).

C.S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age”, in Present Concerns (Mariners Books, 2002).

C.S. Lewis, “De Futilitate” in Christian Reflections, W. Hooper, ed. (Eerdmans, 1967).

C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” [Available online]

Thomas Morris, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Eerdmans, 1992).

Rebecca Pippert, Hope Has Its Reasons (Harper, 1990).

Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (Harcourt and Brace, 1949).


How Christianity Makes Cultural Sense

Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Allen Lane, 2014).

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2007 and Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity Harvard University Press, 1992.

Kyle Harper, “Christianity and the Roots of Human Dignity in Late Antiquity”, in Shah and Hertzke, Christianity and Freedom , pp.123-148

Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights. Studies on Nat Rights, Natural Law and Church Law, Atlanta, GA: Emory University Press, 1997

W.H. Auden, “The Fatal Flaw of Liberalism”, in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp.75-78.

Luc Ferry, Chapter 3 – “The Victory of Christianity over Greek Philosophy” in A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living (Harper, 2010).

David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale, 2009).

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp.125-131.

C.S. Lewis, “The Poison of Subjectivism”, in Christian Reflections, W. Hooper, ed. (Eerdmans, 1967).

C. John Sommerville, The Decline of the Secular University (Oxford, 2006).

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, (Harper, 1997).

Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon, 1996).

Why Christian Belief Is Rational

Christian Smith, Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can’t Deliver, (Yale, 2018).

J.P.Moreland, Scientism and Secularism (Crossway, 2018)

James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky, Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality, (Yale University Press, 2018)

Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist, NeoDarwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, (Oxford University Press, 2012).

G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 3 - “The Suicide of Thought” in Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (Doubleday, 1990).

Also in Francis S. Collins, Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith (HarperOne 2010), pp. 281-288.

John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002).

Aldous Huxley, “Excerpt from Ends and Means” in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp. 214-216.

Michael J. Murray, “Reason for Hope (in the Postmodern World)”, and Caleb Miller “Faith and Reason”, in Reason for the Hope Within, Michael J. Murray ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

Blaise Pascal, “The Wager” in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp. 186-196.

Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, (Eerdmans, 2015)

Can we believe in God?

C. Stephen Evans, Natural Signs and Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments (Oxford, 2010)

W.L. Craig and J.P. Moreland, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, (Blackwell, 2011)

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Crossway, 2008).

William C. Davis, Chapter 2 - “Theistic Arguments”, in Reason for the Hope Within, Michael J. Murray, ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (Yale, 2014)

Science & God

Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2006).

Robin Collins, “A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God: The Fine-Tuning Design Argument”, in

Reason for the Hope Within, Michael J. Murray, ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

W. Christopher Stewart, Chapter 13 – “Religion and Science” and J.A. Cover, Chapter 14 - “Miracles and Christian Theism” in Reason for the Hope Within, Michael J. Murray, ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

Moral Law & God

Arthur Allen Leff, “Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law”, Duke Law Journal (Dec, 1979). [Available

David Skeel, True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World, (IVP Books, 2014).

Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Is A Secular Grounding of Human Rights Possible?”, and “A Theistic

Grounding of Human Rights”, in Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, 2008).

Evil and God

Daniel Howard-Snyder, Chapter 4 - “God, Evil, and Suffering” in Reason for the Hope
Within, Michael J. Murray, ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

T. Keller, Chapters 1 through 5 in Walking with God through Pain and Suffering (Dutton, 2013).
Christianity & Other Religions

Timothy O’Connor, “Religious Pluralism”, and Robin Collins “Eastern Religions”, in Reason for theHope Within, Michael J. Murray, ed. (Eerdmans, 1999).

The Bible

Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018)

Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford, 2010)

Paul R. Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament (Broadman and Holman, 2016)

Tremper Longman, Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, Violence (Baker Academic, 2019)

F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 6th ed. (Eerdmans, 1981).

C.S. Lewis, “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” in Christian Reflections, W. Hooper, ed
(Eerdmans, 1967).

Mark D. Roberts, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John (Crossway, 2007).

Can we have faith in Jesus?
John Dickson, A Doubter’s Guide to Jesus: An Introduction to the Man from Nazareth for Believers and Skeptics

Paul Barnett, Finding the Historical Christ (Eerdmans, 2009).

T. Keller, Encounters With Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions, (Dutton, 2012).

C.S. Lewis, “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ” from God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1972).

C.S. Lewis, “Excerpt from Surprised by Joy” in G. Koloszyc, The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (NavPress, 2001), pp.200-205.

Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Inter-Varsity,
2010).