Copan, Paul. 2007. Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion. St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press.

Copan has written a user-friendly, Scripture-engaging Christian philosophy of religion book — a kind of launching pad for Christian leaders, students, and teaching in philosophy of religion as they think critically, instruct others, engage with non-Christians, and live their lives in God’s presence. Loving Wisdom reflects the themes Copan has found important and fruitful in his own spiritual and intellectual pilgrimage and in his interaction with those outside the faith in open forums and coffee shops.

Groothuis, Douglas. 1996. Jesus in an Age of Controversy. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Best-selling books challenge us to rethink our ideas about Jesus. The Jesus Seminar makes headlines with its systematic attempts to undermine the accuracy of the Gospel accounts. New Age teachings about Jesus have found their way into many pulpits.

In response to this confusion, Jesus in an Age of Controversy provides a straightforward, easy-to-understand study of the questionable foundations and faulty conclusions of these new views.

This important book provides the historical and logical evidence that confirms biblical teachings about Jesus. It will enable you to defend your faith against attack, help those struggling with questions and doubts, and encourage you with the overwhelming weight of evidence that confirms that Jesus is the only Savior and Lord.

Komoszewski, J. Ed., M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace. 2006. Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You. Grand Rapids: Kregel.

From the worldwide sensation The Da Vinci Code to the national best-seller Misquoting Jesus, popular culture is being bombarded with radical skepticism about the uniqueness of Jesus and the reliability of the New Testament. Reinventing Jesus cuts through the rhetoric of extreme doubt to reveal the profound credibility of historic Christianity. Meticulously researched yet eminently readable, this book invites a wide audience to take a firsthand look at the primary evidence for Christianity’s origins. Reinventing Jesus shows believers that it’s okay to think hard about Christianity, and shows hard thinkers that it’s okay to believe.

Lindsley, Art. 2004. True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

Conventional wisdom holds that any belief in absolutes, especially of a religious nature, leads inevitably to the oppressive absolutism of such movements as the Inquisition, the Crusades, and even Nazism. As a result, Christian apologists have been hard-pressed to make a case for the rational absolutes that are a necessary part of belief in Jesus.

While maintaining the indispensability of absolutes, Lindsley ably demonstrates that faith in Christ is necessarily opposed to and incompatible with the abuses of oppression, arrogance, intolerance, self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and defensiveness. Surprisingly, Lindsley shows that it is relativism that often harbors dangerous, inflexible absolutisms. Here is a book that actively challenges the dismissal of truth, preparing the way for more effectively proclaiming the gospel and living Christianly in a postmodern world.

McGrath, Alister, and Joanna Collicutt McGrath. 2007. The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

Alister McGrath, along with his wife Joanna, are ideal to evaluate Dawkins’ ideas. Once an atheist himself, Alister gained a doctorate in molecular biophysics before going on to become a leading Christian theologian. He wonders how two people, who have reflected at length on substantially the same world, could possibly have come to such different conclusions about God.

McGrath subjects Dawkins’ critique of faith to rigorous scrutiny. His exhilarating meticulously argued response deals with questions such as:

• Is faith intellectual nonsense?
• Are science and religion locked in a battle to the death?
• Can the roots of Christianity be explained away scientifically?
• Is Christianity simply a force for evil?

This book will be warmly received by those looking for a reliable assessment of The God Delusion and the many questions it raised — including all the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.

Stetson, Brad, and Joseph G. Conti. 2005. The Truth About Tolerance: Pluralism, Diversity, and the Culture Wars.Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

There is a widespread feeling today that something is very wrong with the way we think about tolerance. We have an intuition that in our diverse society tolerance is very important to practice, but at the same time we are unable to agree on what it means to be tolerant. Does tolerance require the acceptance of all views on a given subject as equally true? Does it mean that I must not believe too strongly that my views are right about a given subject? Can I be tolerant and still believe in objective truth about religion, ethics, and politics?

The importance of this topic cannot be overestimated. The deep diversity of American life, and many other societies across the globe, demands a vigorous and proper understanding and practice of tolerance as a value. Without tolerance, pluralism and diversity dissolve into nothing more than tyranny and chaos.

The fundamental aim of this book is to stimulate reflection and writing on tolerance (both social and personal), particularly from a Christian point of view, and to affirm that personal and political commitments to truth are not averse to genuine tolerance. Indeed, truth and tolerance are inseparable. In their symbiosis, tolerance gives to truth the cognitive freedom it needs to be authentically recognized, and truth gives to tolerance the parameters and purpose it needs to function as it is intended — to serve people and communities in their quest for meaning and ultimately the knowledge of the One in whom alone lies their fulfillment.

White, James Emery. 2006. A Mind for God. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

The apostle Paul calls us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). But James Emery White fears that Western Christians are failing in this task. Because we have not developed good intellectual habits, our minds instead have been captured by our culture.

A Mind for God is written to help us break free from this cultural captivity through the spiritual and intellectual disciplines of reading, study, and reflection. This inspirational and practical “rule for the mind” encourages and enables us to develop our minds for God.