Beliefs are complicated and sometimes strangely resistant to facts. I don't mean religious beliefs in particular, but everyday beliefs about how the world works and how it is that we come to hold them. That's what I took away from a recent reading of Lewis Wolpert's Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief (W. W. Norton, 2006).
Now Reading
Terryl L. Givens: Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Church and Praxis
The second volume in Givens' Foundations of Mormon Thought series on Mormon theology and doctrine.
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Greatest Hits 2015
Greatest Hits 2014
Greatest Hits 2013
Greatest Hits 2012
- Assessing the Optimal Degree of Religious Certainty
- Can Books Cause Problems? Reflections on Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet
- Getting Past the KJV
- Help, I want to go back to church
- Looking for Middle-Earth
- Mormon Boundaries
- Mormon Doctrine: Confusion or Clarity?
- The Book of Mormon as Narrative
- The Not-So-Great Apostasy
- The Real World of the Book of Mormon
- Troubling Dreams
- Volcanism, Mormonism, and Historical Contingency
- Walls Around Sacred Places
Greatest Hits 2011
Greatest Hits 2010
Greatest Hits 2009
- Being Orthodox in the Modern World
- Confronting Modernity
- Do We Need A Fifth Mission?
- God and Robots
- History and Identity
- I've Seen All Good People
- Middle-Way Mormons
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- On "Safety for the Soul"
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Greatest Hits 2008
Greatest Hits 2007
Greatest Hits 2006
- A Scientist, Two Popes, and a Prophet
- A Spectre Haunting Mormonism
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- Good Exmos, When They Die, Go To Colorado
- Internet Mormonism: Threat or Opportunity?
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- The Real Jesus
- What I Have Learned as a Mormon Blogger
Greatest Hits 2005
- A Tough Year in Massachusetts
- City on a Hill
- Correlation: Blessing or Curse?
- Discussion Groups
- Faking It, Round Two
- Hanging Witches
- Knowing Mormon History
- LDS Revenues and Assets
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- The End of Mormon History
- The Shadow of Abraham
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- Where's All That Tithing Money Going?
Greatest Hits 2004
- A Great Disturbance in the Force
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General Books 09-12
The Lost History of 1914: Reconsidering the Year the Great War Began
How the Great War quickly came to overshadow other major events that preceded it. In my post The Lost History of 1844 I suggest the assassination of Joseph Smith in 1844 did much the same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale.All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age
Two noted philosophers use Homer, Dante, Descartes, Kant, and Melville to find meaning in our disenchanted modern world. • My PostAmerica's Three Regimes: A New Political History
We're in the populist-bureaucratic regime, hopefully not a precursor to systemic breakdown and anarchy. • My PostA Brief History of History: Great Historians and the Epic Quest to Explain the Past
Reviews the great historians of the past, including those writing problematic religious and church history. • My PostVictor Hanson: Ripples of Battle
How wars of the past still determine how we fight, how we live, and how we think. • My PostEdward Abbey: Desert Solitaire
An early prophet of environ-mentalism muses on the beguiling landscapes of the arid West. • My PostEvil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy
How the problem of evil framed the project of modern philosophy. • My ReviewAfter Theory
Terry Eagleton on whatever it is that comes after postmodernism.
My PostExperiments in Ethics
A moral philosopher's surprisingly entertaining critique of traditional philosophical ethics using modern experimental data. • My postThe Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart
Is residential self-sorting driving polarized politics and associated changes in society and religion? • My postDamon Linker: The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege
All about the vast right-wing religious conspiracy, by a former conspirator. • My post
General Books 06-08
Daniel K. Richter: Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America
A terribly good book.
Pub Note • My ReviewNiall Ferguson: The War of the World
How the decline of empires and the rise of ethnic conflict defined our violent 20th century.
Pub Note • My ReviewSimon Baron-Cohen: The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism
Presents research that, even at birth, female brains are predisposed toward empathy and figuring out "other minds," whereas male brains are inclined to systematize and classify.
My ReviewKaren Armstrong: A Short History of Myth
Outlines the modern predicament: too many facts, no compelling myths to live by. • Post 1Civilization: A New History of the Western World
Better than 300. • PostThe Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
Companion volume to the PBS series.
My ReviewThe American West: A New Interpretive History
A modern perspective.
Part 1 • Part 2American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
200 years of public religion.
My ReviewAncient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times
Marathon, Thermopylae, and all that.
My ReviewChanges in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England
Property law conquers New England.
My ReviewA War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
Outstanding! • My ReviewA Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History
Mind-expanding. • My ReviewStorm from the East: The Struggle Between the Arab World and the Christian West
A guide for the perplexed.
Pub Note • Part 1 • Part 2The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy
One book to rule them all.
The Full Series • Post 1 • Post 2
General Books 04-05
1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Up-to-date survey. My ReviewThe Basics of Western Philosophy
Fine topical intro. ReviewEvolutionary Psychology
A new paradigm? ReviewThe Sociopath Next Door
Meet Joe Black. ReviewThe Cruise of the Snark
At sea with Jack London. ReviewDershowitz: America on Trial
Great trials in US history.
Intro | Part 1Refuge : An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Utah's land and people. ReviewHill: The Salem Witch Trials
A sobering account. Intro | 1 | 2
Witches: 1 | 2 | 3Blackburn: Think: A Compelling Intro to Philosophy
It will make you think. Part 1Himmelfarb: The Roads to Modernity
The neglected British Enlightenment.
Part 1Shippey: The Road to Middle-Earth
The greatest story ever told.
Part 1A Very Brief History of Philosophy
Reason and Truth in 128 pages.
Part 1A Short History of Modern Philosophy
Scruton's fine intro to philosophy.Beowulf: Trans. by Seamus Heaney
Never sounded better.Part 1How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Help for the metaphorically impaired.Solomon: What Nietzsche Really Said
And he said it so well. Part 1McGinn: The Making of a Philosopher
His intellectual journey. Part 1Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm
Men at sea facing the end. And we're all at sea, really. Part 1Faking It
Ethics, honesty, and the ironic pose.
Part 1 | Part 2Literary Theory: A Very Short Intro
Crisp introduction to literary theory.
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Mormon Books 2015-16
Fresh Courage Take: New Directions by Mormon Women
LDS writers and scholars provide fresh and courageous perspectives on being a Mormon woman in the 21st century. My ReviewFirst Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple
Doctor and scholar Sam Brown provides deep and personal reflection on faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost.
My ReviewRevelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy: The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853
Merina Smith provides a detailed review of how Joseph Smith developed a wide variety of justifications for the practice of polygamy, which started as part of "secret Nauvoo" and only slowly became part of "public Nauvoo." My ReviewJoseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding
Brian and Laura Hales summarize and defend Joseph Smith's private practice of polygamy. My ReviewFor the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013
Russell Stevenson surveys the history, plus a hundred pages of annotated source documents.
My ReviewDoing the Works of Abraham, Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise
B. Carmon Hardy's extensive collection of source documents related to Mormon polygamy, with introductory explanations.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3
Mormon Books 2013-14
The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History
A review of available documentary sources, giving a fairly complete view of this shadowy Mormon institution and its 19th-century history. My ReviewThe Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South
LDS historian Patrick Mason recounts the challenging Mormon experience in the 19th-century South. My ReviewThe Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception
The title says it all. My PostLDS in the USA: Mormonism and the Making of American Culture
Two non-LDS authors give an excellent short history of Mormonism in popular American culture. My ReviewMormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn From the Latter-day Saints
Stephen H. Webb, a Protestant-turned-Catholic theologian, takes a serious look at Mormon doctrine and theology. Intro • My ReviewParley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism
Givens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My ReviewArmand L. Mauss: Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport
The intellectual and spiritual journeys of a Mormon academic. Post 1 • Post 2Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology
Adam Miller tackles Mormon theology.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3
Science Books
Neil Shubin: The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
A follow-up to Shubin's Your Inner Fish, this time emphasizing the cosmic rather than the terrestrial story of the development of human anatomy. We are star dust.Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique
The prolific astrophysicist and science writer John Gribbin reviews where Earth came from, why it is here, and how it will end (in a rain of cometary chunks from the Oort Cloud in about a million years). Read all about it in my post The Fate of the Earth.The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
Robert M. Hazen gives a geologist's fascinating review of earth history. Magma is a lot more interesting than you thought. In my post Volcanism, Mormonism, and Historical Contingency I note the connection between the stupendous eruption of Tambora in 1815 and the relocation of Joseph Smith's family from Vermont to Palmyra, New York.The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Working in the EP paradigm, Jonathan Haidt shows there is more to morality than harm and fairness (add liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity). My ReviewThe Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions
Karl Giberson and Francis Collins on evolution, the age of the earth, and other faith-science issues.
Post 1 • Post 2Karl Giberson: Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
He went to college a fundamentalist Christian and graduated as a Christian (but no longer fundamentalist) physicist.
My PostMichael Ruse: The Evolution-Creation Struggle
A philosopher surveys the origin and history of the clash between scientific and Christian worldviews.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Carl Sagan, of Cosmos fame, talks about astronomy and his own views on God and religion. • Post 1 • Post 2John Polkinghorne: Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion
A scientist-theologian looks at physics, human nature, ethics, and evil. • My PostJohn Polkinghorne: Belief in God in an Age of Science
How does God act in a world governed by natural laws? • My PostSix Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief
Biologist Lewis Wolpert investigates how we form our beliefs about the natural world and religion. • My PostFrancis S. Collins: The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
A geneticist on theism. • My PostOwen Gingerich: God's Universe
An astronomer on theism. • My Review
Bible Books
How to Read the Bible
Harvey Cox gives a short but helpful guide to modern readers of the ancient Bible. My PostDid Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
Bart Ehrman makes it clear that there is no question Jesus of Nazareth existed and that the small but vocal group claiming otherwise has little evidence to support their claim. • My PostThe Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture
Conservative scholar N. T. Wright on the Bible and authority. • My PostE. P. Sanders: The Historical Figure of Jesus
Jesus the Christ for the 21st century.Steven L McKenzie: How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature
Stressing genre, this Bible scholar shows how modern readers often force biblical writings into modern categories and thereby misconstrue what the biblical writer was trying to say. • My PostAncient Israelite Religion
Susan Niditch explores myth, ritual, experience, and ethics in the Hebrew Bible and using surviving archeological artifacts, revealing a surprisingly diverse ancient Israelite religion. • My PostJames M. Robinson: The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News
Trust in God and show compassion for others — that's what Jesus advocated in the Sayings Gospel Q. • My PostThe Bible: A Biography
Karen Armstrong reviews the origin and history of the Bible for the general reader. • My PostJesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
Bart D. Ehrman's depiction of the historical Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet. • My PostThe Real Jesus : The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels
Defending the faith side of the "faith versus history" debate. • My ReviewBart Ehrman: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot
All about the newly discovered gnostic gospel of Judas. • Part 1 • Part 2Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
Textual criticism and the Bible "as far as it is translated correctly."
Pub Note • Backstory • Review
Posts on higher criticism:
Part 1 • Part 2 • EssaysThe Literary Guide to the Bible
For a very close reading of the Bible as a received text.The Old Testament : A Brief Intro
A German scholar's radical statement of the Documentary Hypothesis.
My ReviewFriedman: Who Wrote the Bible?
J, E, P, and D did, according to the Documentary Hypothesis.Friedman: The Disappearance of God
God's retreat from human affairs.
My ReviewMaking Sense of the Bible
Eight literary types in the Bible.
My Review
Mormon Books 2012
Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet
John G. Turner's candid treatment of Brigham Young's life and work.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3 • 4An Other Testament: On Typology
Joe Spencer digs into how typology is used in the Book of Mormon. My PostIn Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death
Sam Brown delves into Joseph Smith's doctrines of sealing and salvation as means to overcome the downside of death. My ReviewReeve and Parshall: Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia
A very helpful overview of LDS historical topics. A reference work that can be profitably read from cover to cover. My ReviewThe Book of Mormon Girl
Joanna Brooks tells her stories from an American faith. My ReviewA Different Jesus?: The Christ of the Latter-day Saints
Another Bob Millet interfaith special, this time on LDS Christology, with a foreward and afterword by Richard J. Mouw. My Post
Mormon Books 2009-11
Robert L. Millet: LDS Beliefs: A Doctrinal Reference
It's the new improved Mormon Doctrine: not quite as zingy but no bitter aftertaste. My ReviewUnderstanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide
Grant Hardy's close literary reading of the Book of Mormon.
My Review • 12Qa • 12QbRevisiting Thomas F. O'Dea's The Mormons: Contemporary Perspectives
Fifteen essays revisiting O'Dea's 1957 classic with the benefit of 50 years of Mormon Studies scholarship.Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives
Not just LDS history — these social scientists construct models and test them with real data.
Post 1 • Post 2All Abraham's Children
Armand Mauss examines changing Mormon conceptions of race and lineage from 1830 to the present. • My PostJoseph Smith, Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries
A fine collection of essays including contributions by Bushman, Givens, and others.
Part 1 • Part 2Glen M. Leonard: Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise
The rise and fall of Nauvoo, 1839-1846.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction
Terryl Givens' scholarly but readable introduction. A fine gift for any student of the Book of Mormon. • My ReviewMormonism: A Very Short Introduction
Richard Bushman's short survey of LDS history and beliefs.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3 • Post 4Blomberg & Robinson: How Wide the Divide?: A Mormon & an Evangelical in Conversation
The classic book on LDS-Evangelical interfaith dialogue. | Post 1 • Post 2
Mormon Books 2008
Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America
Claudia Bushman's fact-filled survey of the culture and practices of the modern LDS Church and its membership.Steven C. Harper: Making Sense of the Doctrine & Covenants: A Guided Tour Through Modern Revelations
An excellent one-volume section-by-section survey and commentary on the D&C.
Pub Note • BCC post • My postTerryl L. Givens: People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture
The history of LDS architecture, music, dance, theater, literature, cinema, and scholarship in light of four "paradoxes" in Mormon culture: authority vs. autonomy, certainty vs. searching, sacred vs. banal, and election vs. exile.
Post 1 • Pub Note • T&S intvwJared Farmer: On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape
A revealing history of the settlement of Utah Valley and Mormon-Indian relations.
Pub Note • JI-1 • JI-2 • My RvwWalker, Turley, & Leonard: Massacre at Mountain Meadows
This long-awaited book gives the definitive account of the events leading up to the occurrence at Mountain Meadows.
Pub Note • BCC Review • Post 1
Mormon Books 2007
Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith
Nibley's daughter takes swipes at BYU, Utah, Mormons, and her family, while creating pages of dialogue out of thin air and a caricature of LDS history. No footnotes, no index, no credibility.
Notes and Links • Rebuttal- O. Kendall White: Mormon neo-orthodoxy: A crisis theology
A controversial examination of a move within Mormonism away from liberal views toward neo-orthodox views: the absolute sovereignty of God, human depravity, and salvation by grace. This text of this book is available online.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3
Offsite notes Claudia L. Bushman: Building the Kingdom: A History of Mormons in America
Claudia and Richard Bushman's fine short history of the LDS Church.
Pub Note • PostEric Eliason: Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion
A collection of scholarly essays by a variety of LDS and non-LDS scholars, edited by Eric Eliason.
Pub Note • PostOn the Road With Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary
Richard L. Bushman's reflections on the year he spent promoting his biography of Joseph Smith.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3A Mormon in the White House?
Hugh Hewitt's political biography of Mitt Romney. • PostArmand L. Mauss: The Angel and the Beehive
Armand Mauss uses sociology and history to look at the 20th-century LDS stuggle to be accepted as mainstream while retaining a unique Mormon identity.
Pub Note • My Review
Mauss interview • 12Qa • 12QbThe Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family
LDS CEOs on how to succeed in business without selling your soul.
Pub Note • My Review
Mormon Books 2006
Kathleen Flake: The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
How a generation of Mormons learned the art of politics and became full-fledged Americans again.
My Review • 12QBetween the Testaments: From Malachi to Matthew
Fill in that puzzling 500-year gap between the Old and New Testaments.
Pub Note • Part 1 • Part 2Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons
A collection of essays by Jan Shipps giving her reflections on 40 years as a sympathetic scholar of Mormonism.
Pub Note • Intro • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3Prince & Wright: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
Winner of MHA's 2006 Turner-Bergera award for Best Biography. Surprising new perspectives on many of the key events of the McKay era and the decade following. A must read for any Church history buff.
Intro • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3Hardy: Solemn Covenant
The classic treatment of post-Manifesto LDS polygamy.
Pub Note • Part 1"God Has Made Us a Kingdom"
James Strang & the Midwest Mormons.
Pub Note • My Post • SidenoteProving Contraries
A collection honoring Eugene England.
Pub Note • Part 1 • Part 2
Mormon Books 2005
Davies: The Mormon Culture of Salvation
Uses a variety of models to look at LDS doctrine and cultural practice related to death and salvation, with a lengthy consideration of the "world religion" question.
My Post • Pub NoteBushman: JS: Rough Stone Rolling
Get to know your Prophet.
T&S Posts • 12Q • M* Intvw • CT Rvw
My Posts 1 • 2 • 3Adventures of a Church Historian
An insider's view of Church history.
My ReviewBradley: Pedestals And Podiums
LDS women and the ERA.
Pub Note • Offsite ReviewThe Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship
Pleasantly informative.
Pub Note • Excerpt • My ReviewOSC: The Folk of the Fringe
Post-nuke Mormons rock. My ReviewQuorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845
A detailed documentary history.
Pub Note • My ReviewAlexander: Mormonism in Transition
The emergence of the modern Church from 1890 to 1930.- The Prophet Puzzle
A collection of 15 interpretive essays on Joseph Smith.
Pub Note • Part 1 • Part 2 Brigham Young: American Moses
Best bio of Brigham Young.
Intro • Part 1 • 2God and Country: Politics in Utah
"Outsiders" share their views.
Pub Note • Intro • Part 1 • 2Barlow: Mormons and the Bible
A quiet classic.
12Qa • 12QbRemini: Joseph Smith
Short, objective. Post • Review
Online JS bios: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6Arrington: The Mormon Experience
Best 1-vol. history of the LDS Church.
Part 1 • 2 • 3 • 4Givens: By the Hand of Mormon
BoM scholarship in a nutshell.
12Q • Intro • Part 1An Insider's View of Mormon Origins
A candid if uneven retelling of Mormon history; not for the LDS history newbie.
Pub Note • My Review
Palmer Posts: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
Best bio of Mormonism's First Lady.
Intro • Part 1 • 2 • 3 • 4
FMH Posts: 1 • 2- Marvin Hill: Quest for Refuge
• Online book! • The Mormon flight from American pluralism and the failed quest for a Mormon Kingdom.
My Review
Religion Books 09-12
Garry Wills: Head and Heart: American Christianities
Puritans, Deists, and Evangelicals battle for American hearts and minds. My PostChristianity: A Very Short Introduction
An enlightening little book, with emphasis on understanding what is happening in modern Christianity.
Post 1 • Post 2The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion
Author Herman Wouk contrasts the scientific and literary modes of apprehending God. • My PostC David Grant: Thinking Through Our Faith: Theology for 21st Century Christians
A professor of religion opines on tough questions for 21st-century Mormons: historicity, cosmology, evolution, feminism, postmodernism. • My PostMarilynne Robinson: Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self
A Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist weighs in on science and religion. She favors religion. • My PostAmerican Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
A detailed empirical look at what has happened in American religion, including Mormonism, over the last fifty years.Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church
For most American teens, religion is so 20th century. But Mormon teens seem to be bucking the trend. • My PostGod Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World -- and Why Their Differences Matter
Stephen Prothero's religions of the world book. • Post 1 • Post 2Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
Terry Eagleton contra Ditchkins and the New Atheists. | My PostNathan O. Hatch: The Democratization of American Christianity
How the raging democratic spirit of early 19th-century America influenced the doctrine and practice of young religious movements such as Methodism and Mormonism. | My PostGod After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution
A theologian explores theology through the lens of evolution. • My PostWilliam Lobdell: Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace
A long-time LA Times religion reporter unburdens his soul.
My ReviewDavid F. Ford: Theology: A Very Short Introduction
It's not easy to get started in theology, but this short book should do the trick. | My post
Religion Books 2008
Stephen Prothero: Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't
Noted scholar of religion laments the religious ignorance of Americans (first half of book) and provides a 90-page "dictionary of religious literacy" to help solve the problem.
Post 1 • Post 2 • Post 3Martin Marty: The Christian World: A Global History
An insighful continent-by-continent history by a superb scholar of Christianity.
My ReviewBart D. Ehrman: God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer
Ehrman examines five biblical explanations for suffering and evil: divine punishment, human action, redemptive suffering, inscrutable mystery, and apocalyptic dualism.
Pub Note • My ReviewF. E. Peters: The Voice, the Word, the Books: The Sacred Scripture of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Great scholarly overview of scripture as a general category. Jacket blurb: "Brings the latest Biblical and Quranic scholarship to a general audience."
Religion Books 2004-07
M. Borg: The Heart of Christianity
The liberal view of Christianity.
Post 1 • Post 2Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome
Stark on Christianity • My PostThe Soul of Christianity
Huston Smith on the Great Tradition.
Pub Note • My ReviewFrom Jesus to Christianity:
How Four Generations of Visionaries and Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith.Kung: Great Christian Thinkers
Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, Barth.
Post 1 • Post 2Pagels: Beyond Belief
The fate of the Gospel of Thomas.
Part 1 | Part 2Bloom: The American Religion
Enter the "post-Christian nation."
Part 1 | Part 2McGrath: The Twilight of Atheism
The decline of atheism in the postmodern world.
Intro | Part 1Stark: The Churching of America
Churches stagnate, "sects" grow.
Part 1Holifield: Theology in America
How Calvinism became Arminian, and much more.
Post 1 • Post 2Olson: The Story of Christian Theology
Theology for the rest of us.Armstrong: The Battle for God
Fundamentalism in modern society.
Fundamentalism 1 | 2Butler: Religion in American Life
New Social History perspective.Stein: Communities of Dissent
Mormonism as an "outsider" sect.Concise History of the Catholic Church
Update of Bokenkotter's classic text.
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