Christian fundamentalism is an anathema Jesus’ teaching, yet it is slowly smothering that teaching as growing numbers of people mistake it for the real thing. These books focus on showing what Jesus actually taught –- a life based on our relations with one another, not a life based on rules – and what must be done to save the religion.
Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age. 2020. By Robin R. Meyers. If the church is to survive, Christians must focus less on what they believe and more on what they should do, and they must stop looking for God “up there” and begin looking for God where God exists, which is in our relations with one another.
Why Christianity Must Change or Die. By John Shelby Spong. 1998. Jesus never wanted to be worshiped; he only wanted to be followed. But fundamentalists masquerading as Christians and are destroying the Christian faith.
Living Buddha, Living Christ. 2oth Anniversary Edition. By Thich Nhat Hanh. A portrait of how the teachings of the Buddha and Jesus coincide.
Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity. 1997. By Bruce Bower. Bower delves into the heroes of Christian fundamentalism – Falwell, Robertson, Reed, Dobson – and, using their own publicly uttered words, shows how they used prejudice, greed and hatred to turn Christianity into a political movement.
The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. 1998. By Lee Strobel. A devout atheist and Yale Law School-trained investigative reporter asks the hard questions to a series of Bible experts.
The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe. 2019. By Richard Rohr. Humanity has never been separate from God except by its own choice, and once that is recognized faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God and more about recognizing God’s presence around us and in everyone we meet.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. 1997. By Don Migel Ruiz. This international best seller, based on ancient Toltec wisdom, outlines a code of conduct that is designed to rapidly transform one’s life to new experiences of freedom, happiness and love.
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. 2024. By Sarah McCammon. The author was a strict evangelical Christian until she covered the Trump presidential campaign for PBS and witnessed first-hand how closely the evangelicals are tied to the white supremist political extreme right. Her book names the massive social movement of people leaving the church, which she names the exvangelicals.
