Authors to Read Deeply

The books listed below are by various authors that I’ve found to be very helpful over the years. I’ve categorized each entry by my perception of their level of difficulty as follows:

  • Popular Level *
  • Mid-level **
  • Difficult ***

By – Jurgen Moltmann:

  • The Crucified God ***
  • The Spirit of Life **
  • The Way of Jesus Christ ***
  • The Source of Life ***
  • Ethics of Hope ***

By – Hans Kung:

  • Infallible: An Unresolved Inquiry **
  • The Church ***
  • Does God Exist ***
  • Theology for the Third Millennium ***
  • A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics **
  • Why I am Still a Christian **

By – Miroslav Volf

  • Exclusion and Embrace **
  • Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace *
  • After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity ***
  • Allah **
  • The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World ***
  • Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities **

By – N.T. Wright

  • The New Testament and the People of God ***
  • Jesus and the Victory of God ***
  • The Resurrection of the Son of God ***
  • Paul and the Faithfulness of God ***
  • Surprised by Hope **
  • Evil and the Justice of God **
  • After You Believe **
  • How God Became King **
  • Justification **
  • The Day the Revolution Began ***
  • Simply Christian **
  • The Challenge of Jesus **
  • Paul **
  • The Last Word **
  • What Saint Paul Really Said **
  • The Climax of the Covenant ***
  • The Resurrection of Jesus **
  • The Meal Jesus Gave Us *

By – Stanley Hauerwas

  • Resident Aliens *
  • Where Resident Aliens Live *
  • In Good Company ***
  • The Peaceable Kingdom ***
  • A Community of Character ***
  • Sanctify Them In the Truth: Holiness Exemplified***
  • Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering***
  • Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America **
  • Hannah’s Child: A Theological Memoir **
  • Living Gently in a Violent World **
  • War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity **
  • A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity ***
  • The Work of Theology ***
  • Prayers Plainly Spoken *

By – Leslie Newbigin

  • The Gospel in a Pluralist Society **
  • The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission **
  • Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture **
  • Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship **

By – Richard Hays

  • The Moral Vision of the New Testament ***
  • Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul **
  • The Art of Reading Scripture **
  • The Conversion of the Imagination **
  • Reading Backwards **
  • Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels ***

By – Walter Bruggemann

  • Theology of the Old Testament ***
  • The Unsettling God **
  • Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes **
  • Cadences of Home: Preaching Among the Exiles **
  • The Word Militant: Preaching a Decentering Word **
  • Texts That Linger Words That Explode: Listening to Prophetic Voices **
  • Deep Memory Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post Christian World **
  • Materiality as Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World**
  • Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age**

By – Parker Palmer

  • A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life **
  • The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life **
  • To Know as We are Known **

By – Richard Beck

  • Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality **
  • The Authenticity of Faith: The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience **
  • The Slavery of Death **
  • Reviving Old Scratch *
  • Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise*

By – Rene’ Girard

  • I See Satan Fall Like Lightning ***
  • The One By Whom Scandal Comes ***
  • Reading the Bible with Rene’ Girard***