Books

What are the best books for ministry written in the 21st century? We asked seven pastors to pick their favorites.

The Deepest Human Life is an elegantly written, impassioned, and sometimes disjointed plea on behalf of philosophy. Scott Samuelson invokes poets, novelists, and theologians to defend the dialectical process that Socrates imparted.

Why do most white evangelicals vote Republican? How has this affected Republican politics? Matthew Sutton gives us our first good account of how and why evangelical political views developed the way they did. Three elements were crucial—premillennial eschatology, World War I, and the Puritan heritage. 

Why did northern whites support a limited set of rights for blacks during Reconstruction, but then abandon them in the 1870s, and do little to stop the racial violence of the 1880s and beyond? Two new books shed important new light on such questions.

"I suppose some liturgical types don't like our Amish novels, and some evangelicals are perplexed by our Catholic stuff. But it used to be worse."

Let it be said at once: this is the best book ever written about Billy Graham. I found this an absolutely captivating book and have read every word, including the footnotes.

This is a book about deep, protracted, unrelenting sadness, and it knows it.

Margaret Grubiak thinks elite university chapels have become white elephants. But some of them are cash cows—and all of them still speak.

Ian McFarland's book on the doctrine of creation is a book about nothing. It has a lot to say about it.

Jonathan Merritt writes books and articles that change people. He’s a senior writer for the Religion News Service and just last week, he won the 2014 Religion Commentary of the Year from the Religion Newswriters Association.  I had the pleasure of asking Merritt a few questions about books that have influenced him.