Book picks similar to
Would You Believe? by Tom Harpur


religion
religion-christianity
secularism-religion
apologetics

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life


James Martin - 2010
    Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, this book will help you realize the Ignatian goal of “finding God in all things.” Filled with relatable  examples, humorous stories, and anecdotes from the heroic and inspiring lives of Jesuit saints and average priests and brothers, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything will enrich your everyday life with spiritual guidance and history.

When Heaven Invades Earth Devotional & Journal


Bill Johnson - 2005
    It focuses on walking in the divine as a lifestyle, shaping one's attitudes and worldview.

The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of Future Life


Charles Arminjon - 2008
    This marvelous book will show you how to read the signs of the times and prepare you to bear yourself as a Christian no matter what the future holds. "Reading this book was one of the greatest graces of my life!" St. Therese of Lisieux

The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe


Ilia Delio - 2011
    As Teilhard de Chardin did in The Divine Milieu, Ilia Delio reveals the sacrament of God at work in the world. She also explores the spiritual evolution within each of us and suggests that it will change the cosmos as well as the church. She shows that we are at a stage in evolution where our choices will determine what happens next. "Love," she writes, "always seeks the best for the beloved but God is a beggar of love who waits at the soul's door without daring to force it open. The question of Christ emerging as the personal center of the universe is not a question of yes or no but a question of how that love will evolve." She makes one thing perfectly clear: it is happening and the evidence is astounding.The Emergent Christ is an antidote to the new atheism that says there is no place in evolution for God, let alone a God of love. It is also a spiritual tonic for Christians interested in understanding their place and purpose in this evolving universe.

How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor


James K.A. Smith - 2014
    This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor's genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers. Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It's an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what's at stake.

God Is Great, God Is Good: Why Believing In God Is Reasonable And Responsible


William Lane Craig - 2009
    God's reputation has come under considerable review in recent days, with some going so far as to say that it's not we who've made a mess of things. Instead whatever it is we call God is to blame.But is such an opinion really a fair assessment?In this magisterial collection, the contemporary complaints against belief in God are addressed with intellectual passion and rigor by some of the most astute theological and philosophical minds of the day: J. P. Moreland, Paul Moser, John Polkinghorne, Michael Behe, Michael J. Murray, Alister McGrath, Paul Copan, Jerry Walls, Charles Taliaferro, Scot McKnight, Gary Habermas, Mark Mittelberg, Chad Meister, and William Lane Craig.Including an interview by Gary Habermas with noted convert to theism Antony Flew, and a direct critical response to Richard Dawkins's "God Delusion" by Alvin Plantinga, "God Is Great, God Is Good" offers convincing and compelling reassurance that though the world has changed, God has not.

Faith Undone: The Emerging Church...a New Reformation or an End-Time Deception


Roger Oakland - 2007
    Grounded in a centuries-old mystical approach, this movement is powerful yet highly deceptive, and it draws its energy from practices and experiences that are foreign to biblical Christianity. The path the emerging church is taking is leading right into the arms of an interfaith perspective that has prophetically profound ramifications. It is indeed a new way of being Christians, and in every conceivable manner, it is striving to bring about a new reformation. Without a doubt, it will have an impact on all churches in the Western world and far beyond. For behind this new kind of church is a well-designed strategy and maneuver by the prince of this world, the enemy of our souls, to literally take apart the faith of millions-it will be nothing less than faith undone.

Inspired Imperfection: How the Bible's Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority


Gregory A. Boyd - 2020
    Boyd adds another counterintuitive and provocative thesis to his corpus. While conservative scholars and pastors have struggled for years to show that the Bible is without errors, Boyd considers this a fool's errand. Instead, he says, we should embrace the mistakes and contradictions in Scripture, for they show that God chose to use fallible humans to communicate timeless truths. Just as God ultimately came to save humanity in the form of a human, God chose to impart truth through the imperfect medium of human writing. Instead of the Bible's imperfections being a reason to attack its veracity, these "problems" actually support the trustworthiness of Christian Scripture. Inspired Imperfection is required reading for anyone who's questioned the Bible because of its contradictions.

Meant for Good: The Adventure of Trusting God and His Plans for You


Megan Fate Marshman - 2020
    Dynamic Bible teacher Megan Fate Marshman will help you discover how to stop discounting yourself from a hopeful future, start living in active dependence on God, and find your way to the good plan He has for you. With authenticity and revelatory insights into the character of God, Megan shares an engaging and fresh look at the core themes within the well-loved scripture of Jeremiah 29:11-14. Through winsome and inspiring stories, Meant for Good will show you how to trust God in your daily life and, more importantly, how to trust God's definition of good above your own. You will discover:That your not-enoughness is exactly enough for God, and that in fact, you have everything you need to take that first step into the life God has for you.How to stop counting yourself out, because Jesus never has. God is up to something really good, and He's inviting you to join Him.How to hear and respond to God's voice, and intentionally grow a personal, intimate relationship with Him.How to defeat anxiety, trust God with all you're carrying and worrying about, and experience a life of freedom in relying on God daily.God has a good plan for you--a plan to give you a hope and a future. Are you ready to believe it?

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World


Tom Holland - 2019
    How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.

Why Christian? for Those on the Edge of Faith


Douglas John Hall - 1998
    Half familiar with superficial aspects of Christianity, hopeful of there being greater depth than has beenfound so far, she or he is curious, insistent, looking for something to believe in but not ready to leap without good reason. Such a person is asking, Why be Christian?In a passionate and personal way, Hall probes fundamental religious questions and wrestles with thecogency of basic Christian convictions about Jesus and God, about religious belief and the human predicament, about inauthentic forms of Christianity, about what is missing in human life today. QuotingUnamuno's dictum that Faith that does not doubt is dead faith, Hall's accessible and straightforward book helps readers to reclaim a Christianity of personal, intellectual, and moral integrity. This book maywell prove a modern religious classic.

Survey of the Old Testament


Paul N. Benware - 1988
    Benware also helps readers understand God's covenant promises to Israel.

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus The Christ


Levi H. Dowling - 1908
    It covers his travels and meetings with various masters and holy men in countries like India, Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Tibet. It also teaches many deeper truths not found in other books and sometimes clarifies or reinforces known teachings in the Bible. Includes chapters on Mary his mother, John the Harbinger, much on his travels and teachings, his betrayal, trail, execution and resurrection, plus a chapter on the materialization of his spiritual body. Said to have been retrieved from the �Akashic Records�, this popular gospel may not be historically accurate in its entirety, but the truths in its teachings are timeless.

One-Minute Aquinas: The Doctor's Quick Answers to Fundamental Questions


Kevin Vost - 2014
    Thomas wrote, then turn to The One-Minute Aquinas, the fast-paced book that provides busy readers with simple, readable explanations of the truths that, for 750 years now, have caused the works of St. Thomas to be sought out by kings and popes, scholars and saints, as well as by ordinary souls like you — hungry to know God and to love him more and more.In this book’s lucid pages, author Kevin Vost gives you small, digestible portions of St. Thomas’s life-giving wisdom that you can enjoy one minute at a time. Tables and graphics will help you grasp and remember St. Thomas’s key ideas with a minimum of time and effort.Best of all, in The One-Minute Aquinas you’ll find quick, sure refutations of the countless relativistic, secular, and pseudoscientific ideas that are so influential in our culture today — and so shallow, contradictory, and wrong!Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.” Now The One-Minute Aquinas enables even those with limited time and only a modest education to benefit from the wisdom of this great saint.Here, with minimal effort and among scores of other things, you’ll finally come to know and understand:--Why God permits evil--Heaven: what it is (and is not)--Five simple proofs that God exists--Why God became man--Why Jesus let himself be tempted--How you can grow quickly in virtue--Why all souls need the sacraments--Why Jesus let himself be crucified--The causes of lust--The natural law and the Commandments--The soul, free will, sin, and damnation--The angels, their ranks, and their powers--How God governs (and refrains from governing)--God’s power and its limits--The Bible: why didn’t Jesus just write it himself?--The surprising qualities of our resurrected bodies

Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life


Chad Bird - 2019
    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.