Here are 100 books that When God Talks Back fans have personally recommended if you like
When God Talks Back.
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I grew up in a secular home, but when I got to college, it dawned on me that religion is an incredibly important framework for understanding the world. So I started to take classes and read books about religion—and I never stopped. After spending my whole adult life sidling up alongside religion but never quite getting it at a personal level, I accidentally let myself get evangelized three years ago, became a Christian, and now attend a Baptist megachurch. I guess I am like a scientist who fell into my own experiment. I still find religious beliefs and practices completely bizarre, even though I’m now a believer myself!
I read this one when I was trying to check out the best arguments for the existence of God—at a time when I was skeptical that any of them could convince me.
A pastor named Tim Keller told me to read this book. Hart is an Eastern Orthodox theologian, and he operates at a pretty hardcore level; this one is not exactly beach reading. But I have to admit, I found it oddly gripping—it’s unusual that I can listen to dense theology on audiobook, but I did with this one.
Hart’s basic point is that most atheists make a category error when they attack the existence of God because they have totally the wrong idea of the God that most religious people believe in.
He shows why they have it wrong, and along the way he gives you this brilliant account of the history of Western science and how it…
From one of the most revered scholars of religion, an incisive explanation of how the word "God" functions in the world's great faiths
Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion-God-frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word "God" functions in the world's great theistic faiths.
Ranging broadly across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Hart explores how these great…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a retired psychotherapist and teacher, but if someone asked me what the purpose of life is, I’d say, “to become aware.” Awareness is the capacity to see without prejudice, bias, or conditioning. I don’t like being in the dark, and so I have been on a lifelong journey to become aware. I have stepped into seeing several times in my life, so now my task is to teach others. It’s who I am—my essence is to continue teaching, to set people free from societal conditioning and their upbringings. Growing up means losing certain comforting illusions, but greater understanding fills their place.
This is one of the most powerful religious books I’ve ever read. It’s difficult work, and it took me a couple of days to understand the concept. Buber articulates that you can deal with people either as things or as souls. Many of us unconsciously place people in relation to ourselves as an “it.” But if you see past what a person appears to be, your relation to them becomes “I-Thou” rather than “I-it.”
I read it in my early 20s and am still impacted by how it teaches us to treat people as their inner selves.
Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: [1] that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; [2] that of the 'I' towards 'Thou', in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
Considered a landmark of twentieth-century intellectual history, this is Martin Buber's classic treatment…
I grew up in a secular home, but when I got to college, it dawned on me that religion is an incredibly important framework for understanding the world. So I started to take classes and read books about religion—and I never stopped. After spending my whole adult life sidling up alongside religion but never quite getting it at a personal level, I accidentally let myself get evangelized three years ago, became a Christian, and now attend a Baptist megachurch. I guess I am like a scientist who fell into my own experiment. I still find religious beliefs and practices completely bizarre, even though I’m now a believer myself!
That’s a major reason I love this book: Francis Spufford raises profanity to a high art, and he does it in a book that is, ostensibly, about Jesus.
A Christian friend recommended this one to me, and I bought it and let it sit on the shelf for a long time before I finally picked it up. Then I read it in maybe three sittings, because it’s silly and profound at the same time. (Also it’s short and carries you along—this is a good one to stick in your bag and read a couple pages at a time whenever you are at a bus stop.)
Spufford is mainly a novelist, and his aim here is not to convince you that Christianity’s fact claims are true. (Although he does think it’s all true.) Instead, he’s explaining the way the Christian picture of God and…
"Unapologetic" is a brief, witty, personal, sharp-tongued defence of Christian belief, taking on Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great". But it isn't an argument that Christianity is true - because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? It's an argument that Christianity is recognisable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore. It's a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised, for non-believers curious…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I grew up in a secular home, but when I got to college, it dawned on me that religion is an incredibly important framework for understanding the world. So I started to take classes and read books about religion—and I never stopped. After spending my whole adult life sidling up alongside religion but never quite getting it at a personal level, I accidentally let myself get evangelized three years ago, became a Christian, and now attend a Baptist megachurch. I guess I am like a scientist who fell into my own experiment. I still find religious beliefs and practices completely bizarre, even though I’m now a believer myself!
I read this book during a very intense summer a few years ago when I was trying to figure out if Christianity could possibly be true, and how a nerdy secular academic like myself could even begin to ask that question.
I found a kindred spirit in Sheldon Vanauken. In this memoir set mainly in the 1950s, he tells the story of how he took a sabbatical from his teaching job at a little college in Virginia to go to Oxford with his wife. Neither of them was religious at the time. In fact, the first part of the book is a very intense (some might say: cloyingly sentimental) account of their romance, when they basically worshipped each other instead of a deity.
If you’re like me, you’ll want to shout “get a room already” and throw the book at the wall during the first few chapters. But I’m glad…
A heart-rending love story described by its author as “the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers” about the author’s marriage and search for faith.
Vanauken chronicles the birth of a powerful pagan love borne out of the relationship he shares with his wife, Davy, and describes the growth of their relationship and the dreams that they share.
A beloved, profoundly moving account of the author's marriage, the couple's search for faith and friendship with C. S. Lewis, and a spiritual strength that sustained Vanauken after his wife's untimely death. Replete with 18 letters from C.S. Lewis,…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
Have you ever wished you could read the mind of someone you love? Medieval theologians liked to speculate about heaven, but only Dante dared to imagine its social life. I’m especially struck by how he represents telepathy as a celestial way of life. The blessed not only see God; they also see him in one another, so their minds are completely open to each other’s thoughts.
In a realm where envy is impossible, purity of soul enables a spiritual intimacy that models what community might look like in the city of the redeemed.
With his journeys through Hell and Purgatory complete, Dante is at last led by his beloved Beatrice to Paradise. Where his experiences in the Inferno and Purgatorio were arduous and harrowing, this is a journey of comfort, revelation, and, above all, love-both romantic and divine. Robert Hollander is a Dante scholar of unmatched reputation and his wife, Jean, is an accomplished poet. Their verse translation with facing-page Italian combines maximum fidelity to Dante's text with the artistry necessary to reflect the original's virtuosity. They have produced the clearest, most accurate, and most readable translation of the three books of The…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
Charles Williams is one of my guilty pleasures. The most esoteric of the famous Inklings, he wrote supernatural thrillers in which marvels take place in the midst of present-day London. This book, his last and, in my view, his best novel, is set near the end of WW II.
Two young women, killed instantly when a plane crashes onto them, find that they must work out their salvation—or its opposite—in a world where the living and the newly dead can still interact. The gestures of ordinary friendship and everyday cruelty turn out to have eternal stakes in this eerie, unforgettable novel, which I’ve reread more times than I can count.
First published in 1945, "All Hallows' Eve" is a fantasy novel by British writer Charles W. S. Williams. Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886 - 1945) was a British theologian, novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic. He was also a member of the "The Inklings", a literary discussion group connected to the University of Oxford, England. They were exclusively literary enthusiasts who championed the merit of narrative in fiction and concentrated on writing fantasy. He was given an scholarship to University College London, but was forced to leave in 1904 because he couldn't afford the tuition fees. Other notable works by…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
I was excited to discover that coinherence, the medieval Christian idea of personhood I explore, has a close parallel to the African concept of Ubuntu. A Zulu word for “humanity,” Ubuntu offers a refreshing corrective to the excessive individualism of the West. In Ubuntu the source of identity is not individuality, but community; not “I think, therefore I am,” but “we are, therefore I am.”
Michael Battle, a disciple of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, explores what an Ubuntu notion of personhood means for everything from peacemaking to the struggle against racism and apartheid. Yes, philosophical ideas can have real-world consequences!
As defined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
The African spiritual principle of Ubuntu offers believers a new and radical way of reading the Gospel and understanding the heart of the Christian faith, and this new book explores the meaning and utility of…
I grew up in a secular home, but when I got to college, it dawned on me that religion is an incredibly important framework for understanding the world. So I started to take classes and read books about religion—and I never stopped. After spending my whole adult life sidling up alongside religion but never quite getting it at a personal level, I accidentally let myself get evangelized three years ago, became a Christian, and now attend a Baptist megachurch. I guess I am like a scientist who fell into my own experiment. I still find religious beliefs and practices completely bizarre, even though I’m now a believer myself!
When I picked up this book, I was vaguely aware that a lot of people pray when someone they know gets sick, and I had read that there’s interesting social science research on how religion helps people lead healthier, happier lives. But I had never really thought about whether prayer actually works.
Candy Gunther Brown takes up this dicey question of what scientists should do when people say that prayer cured cancer, restored sight to the blind, or even raised someone from the dead. She gets into the history of how people in the medical world and the church world have thought about whether it’s possible to “test prayer”—and, if it is, whether it’s a good idea to try.
I came to the subject of miraculous healing in a skeptical frame of mind, but Brown is so meticulous in going through medical records, clinical trials, a zillion surveys and…
When sickness strikes, people around the world pray for healing. Many of the faithful claim that prayer has cured them of blindness, deafness, and metastasized cancers, and some believe they have been resurrected from the dead. Can, and should, science test such claims? A number of scientists say no, concerned that empirical studies of prayer will be misused to advance religious agendas. And some religious practitioners agree with this restraint, worrying that scientific testing could undermine faith.
In Candy Gunther Brown's view, science cannot prove prayer's healing power, but what scientists can and should do is study prayer's measurable effects…
I’m a scholar of religion who was trained in the History of Christianity at Rice University, and I’m endlessly fascinated by the monsters that people create, demons being one of the most often invoked and feared. I’ve been particularly interested in how people make use of ideas of demons throughout history, and much of my teaching and research has revolved around this subject. While I began as a medievalist, the contemporary United States is–believe it or not–equally, if not richer, in its materials on demons. More and more, I find myself drawn to researching the demons that pop up in an unlikely area: politics.
Gagné’s work is specifically focused on the 2016 and 2020 elections and the influence of American Evangelicals on both elections.
One of my favorite things in the book is Gagné’s attention to the different news cycles and how Spiritual Warfare motifs emerge, sometimes in unexpected places. Moreover, he sets the record straight on how some of these same Spiritual Warfare motifs are misunderstood or misrepresented. More often than not, when we wade through the inflammatory, we find something even more terrifying.
This book introduces the American Evangelical movement and the role it played in the support of Donald Trump. Specifically, it focuses on the Neocharismatic-Pentecostal (NCP) leaders, their beliefs, and their political strategies. The author examines why 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and why he still received between 76% and 81% of their vote in 2020 despite losing the presidency. Additionally, the book discusses how NCP leaders are part of the Christian Right, a religious coalition with a political agenda centered on controversial issues such as anti-abortion activism, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, and the protection of religious…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a mom of four busy kids in grade school, middle school, high school, and college, reading a novel is my reward at the end of a hectic day. I’ve read hundreds of novels, many of them Christian romances, while sitting at my children’s bedsides. They have to be well-written, no smut, and if the characters are Catholic Christians like me, all the better.
The hilarity of this book drew me in from the first pages, as the author finds (good-natured) humor in Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity alike.
Beyond the humor, so much in this story resonated with me, including Julia’s infatuation with musician Dylan. The humor melds perfectly with the deeper themes in this story, and the whole thing is beautifully underpinned by God’s unfailing, patient, perfect love.
Armed with a floral-print Bible cover, Julia must pretend to be “born again” for her Christian housemates—cute EMT Mark and his church-lady mom. Their place is walking distance (cough, stalking distance) from Dylan, her latest musician crush. Mark knows she’s faking her faith. But he needs someone like her to crash his dull routine. So he protects her secret and brings her to his Evangelical church. Hiding her Catholic past, she bumbles her way through hand-raising worship. Other times she sneaks into Mass. Meanwhile, Mark explains how to be “saved.” (Sure, she needs saving—from her alcoholic dad, her copier-jamming job,…
