Recommended Resources for Fall Sermon Series
This past Sunday, we launched our new Fall sermon series, where we are addressing the question, “Does Faith in God make sense for thinking people today?”
As we spend the next several weeks exploring this important topic, we want to recommend several books and other resources that you might find helpful as you explore this question further.
Recommended Reading:
Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion
by Rebecca McLaughlin
Channeling state-of-the-art research, personal stories, and careful biblical study, Confronting Christianity explores 12 questions that keep many of us from considering faith in Christ. Look more closely, McLaughlin argues, & the reality of suffering, the complexity of sexuality, the desire for diversity, the success of science, and other seeming roadblocks to faith become signposts. Jesus becomes not a relic from the ancient world, but our modern world’s best hope (238 pages)
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
by Tim Keller
Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics, and even ardent believers, have about religion. Using literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one. (293 pages)
Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World
by Tim Keller
In this thoughtful book, Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives. (336 pages).
Note – This is an advanced level text.
Other Helpful Books:
The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, and the Hope of Holy War
by Joshua Ryan Butler
There are some questions no Christian wants to be asked. Many today believe hell, judgment and holy war are “skeletons in God’s closet,” tough topics that, if looked at closely, would reveal a cruel, vindictive tyrant rather than a good and loving God. And we aren’t comfortable with the answers we’ve been given. In this book, Butler pulls these bones out into the open to exchange popular caricatures for the beauty and power of the real thing. (356 pages)
Why Believe: Reason and Mystery as Pointers to God
by C. Stephen Evans
C. Sephen Evans, a philosopher from Baylor University, has written a pointed and personal book directed to those who want to have faith but whose thinking has been obscured by the static of prevailing philosophies, illuminating the attraction and reasonableness of Christianity. (168 pages)
Is the Bible Intolerant? Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic? Outdated? Irrelevant?
by Amy Orr-Ewing
Amy Orr-Ewing, who is is a senior vice president with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and Joint Director of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, discusses questions old and new that challenge the Bible’s capacity to speak to us with authority. With a fresh voice and a healthy respect for the Bible’s critics, she presents a compelling case for the Bible’s trustworthiness.(143 pages)
Is Believing in God irrational?
by Amy Orr-Ewing
Amy Orr-Ewing addresses key questions and objections that many people today have about God. She explores whether our understanding of God is delusional or merely a psychological crutch, as many today claim, and whether Christianity’s claim to a unique personal relationship with God is plausible. (142 pages)
Websites & Podcasts:
The ReGeneration Project exists to encourage church leaders and new generations, equipping them with ways to respond to the difficult questions being asked today about theology, the Bible, church and Christianity in general. This website includes helpful articles, video’s, and podcasts.
This website includes several helpful resources that provide thoughtful answers to difficult answers from Ravi Zacharias and his associates.
