Recommended Reading

2022-2023

Note: Apologetics literature is vast. The sampling below is meant to give you suggestions in several different categories. If you’d like some help navigating the list, I’d be glad to help out. Just email me at rick.mattson@intervarsity.org.

Note about female authors: Unfortunately not as prevalent in apologetics, but women are on the rise! I have highlighted several, below, in blue. 

• I also recommend two theology/apologetics podcasts that regularly have female guests: Theology in the Raw and Language of God

Apologetics as a topic

• Across the Spectrum, Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy
• Dialogical Apologetics, David Clark
• Faith is Like Skydiving, Rick Mattson
• Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven Cowan
• Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli
• New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, eds. Gavin McGrath and W. C. Campbell-Jack
• Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion: 300 Terms Clearly and Concisely Defined, C. Stephen Evans
• Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age, Justin Bailey
• Thinking About Christian Apologetics, James Beilby
• (Women apologists are emerging)

Atheism and the existence of God

• Contending with Christianity’s Critics, Paul Copan and William Lane Craig
• Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith, Clifford Williams
• Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, Nancy Pearcey
• God and Morality: Four Views, ed. Keith Loftin 
• I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Norm Geisler and Frank Turek
• Is Believing in God Irrational? Amy Orr-Ewing
• Is there a God? Richard Swinburne
• Knowledge and Christian Belief, Alvin Plantinga
• Not God’s Type: An Atheist Lays Down Her Arms, Holly Ordway
• Seven Types of Atheism, John Gray
• The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel
• The Dawkins Delusion: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Alister McGrath and Joanna C. McGrath
• There Is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese

Case for Christianity

• Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, Douglas Groothius
• Christian Thought: An Historical Introduction, Chad Meister and J.B. Stump
• Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels, J. Warner Wallace
• Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion, Rebecca McLaughlin  
• Defending the Faith: Apologetics in Womens Ministry, Mary Jo Sharp
• Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell
• Faith Has its Reasons, Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman
• God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible, William Lane Craig and Chad Meister
• Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with his Father’s Questions about Christianity, Edward Boyd and Greg Boyd
• Making Sense of God, Tim Keller
• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
• Pensées, Blaise Pascal
• Philosophy of Religion: Thinking About Faith, C. Stephen Evans and Zachary Manis
• Rational Faith: A Philosopher’s Defense of Christianity, Stephen Davis
• Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael Murray
• Surprised by Faith: A Scientist Shares His Personal, Life-changing Discoveries about God, the Bible, and Personal Fulfillment, Don Beirle
• The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Questions of Christianity, Lee Strobel
• The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Tim Keller
• The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform, Roger Olson
• To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, eds. Beckwith, Craig, Moreland
• To Know and Love God: Method for Theology, David Clark
• What’s So Great About Christianity? Dinesh D’Souza

Cultural Apologetics: fairness, patriarchy, slavery, sexuality, suffering, violence

Christianity in the world

• Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, Paul Gould
• Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends, Jeffrey Burton Russell
• How Christianity Changed the World, Alvin Schmidt

LGBTQ

• People to be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue, Preston Sprinkle
• Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church, ed. Preston Sprinkle
• Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition, Donald Fortson and Rollin Grams
• Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, Wesley Hill

Old Testament Ethics

• An Introduction to Biblical Ethics, Robertson McQuilkin and Paul Copan
• Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric: Wrestling with Troubling War Texts, William Webb
• Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence, Tremper Longman III
• God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? David Lamb
• How Not to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anit-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and other crazy sounding parts of Scripture, Dan Kimball
• Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God,  Paul Copan
• Is the Bible Intolerant? Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic Outdated? Irrlelevant? Amy Orr-Ewing
• Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, William Webb
• The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament, Sandra Richter
  

Suffering, evil, hell

• Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud, Phillip Yancey
• Evil and the Justice of God, NT Wright
• Four Views on Hell, 2nd Edition, ed. Preston Sprinkle
• Is Hell for Real or Does Everyone Go to Heaven? Tim Keller, Albert Moeler, J.I. Packer
• God and Evil: The Case for God in a World Filled with Pain, eds. Chad Meister and James K. Dew Jr.
• The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis
• The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis
• Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue, Robert Peterson and William Fudge

Historical Jesus and reliability of the Bible

• Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, Craig Evans
• How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart
• Jesus and His World: The Archeological Evidence, Craig Evans
• Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”, Timothy Paul Jones
• The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, Lee Strobel
• The Historical Jesus: Five Views, James Beilby and Paul Eddy
• The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd
• The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon, Arthur Patzia
• The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Craig Blomberg
• The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant? Walter Kaiser
• The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate, Michael Kruger
• The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, Michael Licona
• The Resurrection of the Son of God, NT Wright
• (two short articles on hell)

Other Religions, Worldview studies

• Daughters of Islam: Building Bridges with Muslim Women, Miriam Adeney
• God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter, Stephen Prothero
• I Love Mormons: A New Way to Share Christ with Latter-day Saints, David Rowe
• Islam: A Christian Introduction, Winfried Corduan
• Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions, Winfried Corduan
• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, J.P. Moreland and W. L. Craig
• Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity, Nabeel Qureshi
• The Compact Guide to World Religions, Dean Halvorson
• The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalogue, James Sire

Science, Faith, Origins

• Can A Scientist Believe in Miracles? Ian Hutchinson
• Coming to Peace with Science – Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology, Darrel R. Falk
• Coming to Grips with Genesis, ed. Terry Mortenson, Thane Ury
• Confronting Old Testament Controversies, Tremper Longman III
• Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, Ronald Osborn
• Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. J.B. Stump
• Four Views on The Historical Adam, ed. Matthew Barrett and Ardel Caneday
• God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? John Lenox
• Mapping the Origins Debate: Six Models of the Beginning of Everything: Gerald Rau
• Mere Science and Christian Faith, Greg Cootsona
• Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Christopher Scheitle
• Science and the Mind of the Maker: What the Conversation Between Faith and Science Reveals about God, Melissa Cain Travis
• Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Views of Origins, Richard Carlson and Tremper Longman III
• Signposts to God – How Modern Physics & Astronomy Point the Way to Belief, Peter Bussey
• The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, eds. Alan Padgett and J.B. Stump
• The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Francis Collins
• Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, Alvin Plantinga