Recommended Reading
The world is full of rage, hate, and wars.
– ERASMUS, FROM A LETTER TO SIR THOMAS MORE
What will be the end if we employ only bulls and the stake?…
It is no great feat to burn a little man.
It is a great achievement to persuade him.
HOMOSEXUALITY
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
By Rosaria Butterfield
“Rosaria, by the standards of many, was living a very good life. She had a tenured position at a large university in a field for which she cared deeply. She owned two homes with her partner, in which they provided hospitality to students and activists that were looking to make a difference in the world…In the community, Rosaria was involved in volunteer work. At the university, she was a respected advisor of students and her department’s curriculum. And then, in her late 30s, Rosaria encountered something that turned her world upside down–the idea that Christianity, a religion that she had regarded as problematic and sometimes downright damaging, might be right about who God was, an idea that flew in the face of the people and causes that she most loved. What follows is a story of what she describes as a ‘train wreck’ at the hand of [God]. These are her secret thoughts about those events, written as only a reflective English professor could.”
– Amazon
A Change of Affection: a Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption
By Becket Cook
“This short book is a very healthy mixture of candid self-disclosure and rigorous thought. It combines good storytelling with careful handling of the Bible. It is always honest and never glib.”
– D. A. Carson
What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?
By Kevin DeYoung
“This book provides a short, accessible, and pastoral toolbox for all Christians to navigate the shifting cultural landscape of sexuality and find confidence and hope in how the Bible directs our steps. DeYoung responds to the pivotal and often heart-wrenching questions of our day: can we trust God’s Word on the subject of homosexuality or are we misreading Jesus and standing on the wrong side of history? These accusations, like the serpent’s question to Eve in the garden, must be addressed through wise apologetics. DeYoung offers wise and readable apologetics here, providing his readers with both motive and model for how to think and talk about homosexuality and the Christian faith in a way that honors Christ and gives hope to a watching world.”
– Rosaria Butterfield
HISTORY
The Long March:
How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America
By Roger Kimball
“The extent of the cultural revolution we have lived through since the Sixties is still not clear to us, nor is its meaning. Roger Kimball has produced a searching and comprehensive study that brings it all together, high and low, from Herbert Marcuse to Monica Lewinsky. His well-told story is equal to the amazing event. It shows the routinization of exciting ideals, and the power and impotence of ideas.”
– Harvey C. Mansfield
Live Not by Lies
By Rod Dreher
“In this remarkably prescient book, Dreher sets Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s timeless appeal to ‘live not by lies’ as the cornerstone of his own bold warning. His suggestion of a dawning post-Christian, ‘pre-totalitarian’ society is impossible to dismiss in light of the patient case he builds for his passionate, if provocative, thesis.”
– Ignat Solzhenitsyn
For a Continuing Church: the Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America
By Sean Michael Lucas
“This is about far more than the PCA. This book is nothing less than a history of Presbyterianism in the twentieth century—with all its theological wrangling, all its political maneuvering, all its failings, and all its faithfulness. This is certainly a story worth telling, and Sean tells it very well.”
– Kevin DeYoung
PROGRESSIVE-ISM | LIBERALISM | ATHEISM
The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self
By Carl Trueman
“Carl Trueman explains modernity to the church, with depth, clarity, and force. The significance of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self . . . is hard to overstate.”
– Rod Dreher
“This is the most important book of our moment.”
– Ben Shapiro
Dark Agenda: the War to Destroy Christian America
By David Horowitz
“An eye-opening account of the left’s 60-year war against America’s Christian foundations. If you want to understand the political crisis our country is facing, read this book.”
– Gary Bauer
Unbelievers, an Emotional History of Doubt
By Alec Ryrie
“How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.”
– Charles Taylor
Christianity and Liberalism
By J. Gresham Machen
“This classic defense of orthodox Christianity, written to counter the liberalism that arose in the early 1900s, establishes the importance of scriptural doctrine and contrasts the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God and man, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church. J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism has remained relevant through the years ever since its original publication in 1923. It was named one of the top 100 books of the millennium by World magazine and one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today.”
– Amazon
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Fault Lines
By Voddie Baucham
“This book is, among many things, a plea to the Church. I believe we are being duped by an ideology bent on our demise. This ideology has used our guilt and shame over America’s past, our love for the brethren, and our good and godly desire for reconciliation and justice as a means through which to introduce destructive heresies.”
– Voddie Baucham
Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice
By E. Calvin Beisner
“In his booklet, Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner exposes the sad and unintended consequences of redistribution. He also goes to the heart of the issue: the meaning of justice itself and whether, in fact, justice requires the sort of equality Progressives claim…”
– The Christian Worldview
Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America
By Noah Rothman
“An elegant and thoughtful dismantling of perhaps the most dangerous ideology at work today. Modern social justice thinking tears away at our most cherished ideals and institutions. Noah Rothman has done a tremendous service in cutting through the sloganeering and getting to the heart of the matter—the elevation of crude identity politics at the expense of decency, merit, and truth.”
– Ben Shapiro
TIM KELLER
Engaging with Keller:
Thinking Through the Theology of an Influential Evangelical
By William H. Schweitzer, ed.
“Dr Keller is committed to a culturally-contextualized version of the Christian faith designed to attract urban intellectuals. He frankly acknowledges that he has, at least in the cases of the doctrines of creation, sin and hell, come to an alternative rendering with the objective of making it less offensive. On one hand, this strategy in the hands of such a highly gifted man means that his writings have become among the most popular and influential in Christendom. On the other hand, the resulting teaching in his writings is predictably at variance with Scripture on a number of important points.
This being the case, the need for this book unfortunately remains. The contributors of this book do not relish this kind of work and would much prefer to devote ourselves to purely positive pursuits. Nonetheless, the need to clarify the truth for Christ’s flock is unequivocal and so we have been urged to publish this second edition. It is my hope that there will be no need for a third edition. Rather, I pray that Dr Keller would retract the aspects of his teaching that are identified in the chapters of this book. This would be best for the church and best for his legacy.
Finally, in this age of growing divergence between progressive and conservative schools within Reformed denominations, please join with me in praying for the unity of the church—a unity based on our common Head and his eternal truth. ‘…till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph 4:13).”
– William M. Schweitzer, ed.
TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN FAMILY
The Christian Family
By Herman Bavinck
“Neither a ten-step guide nor a one-sided approach, this book embodies a Christian theology of marriage and the family. Accessible, thoroughly biblical, and astonishingly relevant, it offers a mature and concise handling of the origins of marriage and family life and the effects of sin on these institutions, an appraisal of historic Christian approaches, and an attempt to apply that theology.”
– Amazon
THE CONFESSIONS
The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as Adopted by the Presbyterian Church in America with Proofs Texts
“This is the official document of the PCA. Contains the Westminster Confession, Larger and Shorter Catechisms and Scripture proofs on each page.”
– Amazon
The Westminster Confession:
a Commentary
By A. A. Hodge
“The younger Hodge was gifted with the ability to communicate the best theology in a satisfying and pleasant style. His Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith demonstrates these qualities magnificently. Professor Francis Patton of Princeton Seminary called this volume, ‘a very useful book, full of clear thinking and compact statements. It reveals Hodge’s strong convictions, his power of analysis and his ability to make sharp and discriminating definitions.'”
– Amazon
THE GOSPEL
Ashamed of the Gospel
By John MacArthur
Today, Christians are told that if you can make sinners comfortable, they’ll be more open to the gospel. If you can convince them that the Bible’s message poses no threat to their way of life, perhaps they’ll believe. Remove the offense of the gospel, and maybe they’ll accept it—and you. This dangerous nonsense isn’t new. Charles Spurgeon battled the same pragmatic philosophy more than a century ago, faithfully arguing that the Word of God alone is sufficient to penetrate sin-hardened hearts.
