Christians are most in need of building strong communities of faith and practice during times of cultural strife and alienation. Rod Dreher’s recent publication, Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, builds on his earlier work to argue this point well. Specifically, he reports that persecuted Christians in the Soviet Union clung desperately to good literature and historic theological works as they labored to remain faithful in the face of horrifying oppression. Perhaps even more important, reading as a family was essential for passing along the faith to the next generation and preparing their children to stand firm against the temptations of fear and ideological conformity.
Regardless of whether you agree with Dreher’s depiction of our current danger in America, his emphasis on reading good books individually and as families is wonderful advice. Below you will find numerous books that we have found particularly inspiring over the past few months, including Live Not By Lies. Some will clearly be more helpful for specific people and situations, but they are all good options for upcoming summer vacations and expanded time for family activities and conversations.
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Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019), 283 pages.
In None Greater, Matthew Barrett explores and commends a classical doctrine of God. Barrett discovered in his studies of theologians like Augustine and Anselm that they had a radically different conception of God than is often presented in most evangelical churches. Many sermons and Bible studies tend to present God as essentially like us but just much greater. In other words, we tend to start from our own experiences, emotions, and tendencies and read those things into our understanding of God. What we need instead is a top-down approach that begins with an understanding that God is wholly unlike us. We need a theology that maintains a strong Creator/creature distinction (to use a theological category). While I might not share every nuance of Barrett’s understanding of the doctrine of God, I highly recommend this book as a very helpful guide in recovering a classical, biblical doctrine of God.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Andy Crouch, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place (Grand Rapids: Barna Group, 2017), 210 pages.
While we recognize the many benefits of modern technology, we also should demonstrate care so that it does not interfere with our family lives. With such easy access to endless newsfeeds and entertainment, it is easy for family members never to engage with one another in the home. In The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Crouch helps families consider the most prudent ways to handle technology in the home. Some of his suggestions may seem extreme but, when put into practice, they will result in healthier families that focus on being present with one another.
—Recommended by Zach Vickery
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Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (New York: Sentinel, 2020), 256 pages.
Rod Dreher’s most recent book is a must-read. I enjoyed it so much that I published a recent review of it on the HSF. In Live Not By Lies, Dreher examines the phenomenon of soft totalitarianism and offers advice about how Christians can live for truth amid an age that is forsaking it—even punishing people for holding to it. He offers helpful analyses of the creed of progressivism, the cult of social justice, wokeism, surveillance capitalism, cancel culture, and more. However, the book is not all dire. It is also hopeful, offering a constructive vision forward: Live not by lies; strengthen the institutions of your family, church, and civic organizations; cultivate cultural, historical, and social memory; and prepare yourself for that which characterizes the lives of all who follow in the steps of Christ’s suffering. Live Not By Lies is simultaneously sobering and hopeful.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (New York: Sentinel, 2020), 256 pages.
Years ago, a good friend recommended I read Rod Dreher, suggesting that I was one of Dreher’s Crunchy Cons. After much procrastination, I finally read Crunchy Cons last summer, which set me to reading Dreher’s other works. He has quickly become one of my favorite modern authors. Dreher’s political and cultural analyses are spot-on, and he offers important, prudent prescriptions for how Christians should respond to our daunting cultural challenges.
His most recent publication, Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, shows that his cultural analysis and approach to Christian engagement remain excellent. Live Not By Lies is a collection of warnings from Christians who survived the brutality and persecution of the Soviet states during the twentieth century. These faithful brothers and sisters in Christ are disquieted by the echoes of ideological totalitarianism that they hear in American identity politics, cancel culture, and woke capitalism that remind them of the rise of Communism in their homelands. Dreher suggests that, though America will probably avoid the harsh totalitarianism of the Soviet Union, we may be headed for a softer iteration that looks disturbingly like modern-day China. With that in mind, we should offer full-throated resistance to the false ideologies of our day and prepare ourselves for the worst, just in case. This book is wonderful and timely.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 240 pages.
Surprisingly, only a handful of biographies exist in print on Francis Schaeffer—even though many laud his influence on evangelicalism in the middle and late twentieth century. Colin Duriez, like many other biographers of Schaeffer, was a close friend to the prominent evangelical philosopher and missionary. Yet Duriez brings a careful eye and an appreciative heart to his work, providing a wealth of interesting details about Schaeffer. One of the great strengths of this volume is Duriez’s ability to avoid hagiography, while, at the same time, not becoming overly critical of Schaeffer. The result is a fine balance of retelling Schaeffer’s life in all of its complexity. In many ways, this book is the standard for Schaeffer biographies.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Nancy Guthrie, What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts) (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016), 192 pages.
I first encountered Guthrie through her wonderful podcast, “Help Me Teach the Bible.” Then, I was fortunate enough to hear her teach the Bible in person (interspersed with the details of her own story) at the Forum 18 event at Welch College. So when I read her book, I was not surprised by how helpful, down-to-earth, and theologically sound it was. Guthrie dives into the details about what really is helpful to say to a grieving friend and what practical things you can do to help after a loss. She also briefly addresses several theological issues that tend to arise in the aftermath of loss, including how to handle the sentiment that the grieving person’s loved one is now an angel watching over them, among other common, though theologically inaccurate, beliefs. Guthrie can address these issues from a place of empathy and compassion, working from the experience of her own past and the work she has done in helping other grieving couples through the weekend retreats hosted by her husband and herself. I found her suggestions extremely helpful while I am still a grief “outsider” seeking to understand the grief of my brothers and sisters in Christ.
—Recommended by Rebekah Zuñiga
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John and Sheila Kippley, The Art of Natural Family Planning (Cincinnati: The Couple to Couple League International, 1979), 230 pages.
The ethics of artificial birth control has been a quintessential Roman Catholic topic for decades. More recently, the feminist movement has taken aspects of the Catholic method of “natural family planning” and rebranded it, with some modifications, into the “fertility awareness method,” as found in such books as Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler.
While Taking Charge is extremely helpful on a practical level and does point out valid injustices toward women in the movement toward artificial birth control, I found the moral and natural law arguments in The Art of Natural Family Planning (for which I seem to have found a rare first edition) to be extremely compelling. The Kippleys outline the tangible and intangible benefits of forgoing artificial birth control and then proceed to present several arguments (in birth control proponents’ own words) from the insidious history of the move toward artificial contraception, showing how they are diametrically opposed to Christian anthropology and sexual ethic.
The first half of the book presents a challenging argument that orthodox Protestants will find compelling as they wrestle with the Kippleys’s Catholic perspective. The second half of the book presents the “how-to” of natural family planning, which can now be learned from a variety of different sources, including classes from the organization that the Kippleys founded, Couple to Couple League. I appreciate the detailed attention that the Kippleys give to the natural family spacing often provided by exclusive breastfeeding (what they term ecological breastfeeding). They also draw a fascinating connection between the advent of the feminist movement, the advancement of infant formulas as a way to liberate women from their roles as mothers, and the rise of the use of artificial contraception.
I hope to go on to read other books by John Kippley that seem to be dedicated more to the ethical and theological components of this topic, but I highly recommend this book as the best of both worlds for couples wanting to explore the ethics of birth control and learn a way to plan for a family without the use of artificial contraceptives.
—Recommended by Rebekah Zuñiga
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Ralph Moody, Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers, illustrated by Edward Shenton (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1950), 260 pages.
Throughout my elementary and secondary school years, my mother daily read aloud books to my siblings and me as part of our homeschool curriculum. Many of those books have remained important to me, but few more so than Ralph Moody’s series of autobiographical books starting with Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers. Moody’s account of his family’s move from New England to the Colorado frontier in the late nineteenth century is filled with agrarian humor, adventure, and deep wisdom.
Eight-year-old Ralph learns about manhood from his ailing father as he helps his family build their new home and try to make a living on their small farm in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains foothills. As he meets and befriends colorful frontier settlers and cowboys, Ralph slowly begins to fashion his character under the care and instruction of men throughout his community (warning: Ralph’s frontiersmen speak like real frontiersmen with some strong language).
Little Britches has played a significant role in fashioning my moral imagination as I have read and re-read it several times in my youth. Ralph’s independence of mind and bravery have prodded me to pursue a more noble life since the day I first entered his world. Yet the story has gained new power for me recently.
In the past few months, I read it aloud for the first time to my own son, who is now eight years old. While Ralph remains the central figure in the tale and, as a father, I rejoiced in my son’s introduction to this unique child, I was deeply challenged by the quiet strength, loving patience, and profound wisdom of his father, Charlie. On more than one occasion, I fought through tears as I read to my little boy about how morally strong people respond to the hard things of life with virtue. Each night as we sat in our living room to read, I was humbled and convicted by Charlie’s servant leadership to his wife and children. When I was a child, I imagined myself as Ralph; but when I became a man, I hoped to live like Charlie. This is a wonderful book for children and adults alike, but even better for family reading.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Jesse Norman, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative (New York: Basic, 2015), 336 pages.
Jesse Norman is a politician belonging to the Conservative Party in Britain. His book, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative, is a helpful introduction to Burke, whom he (correctly) describes as “the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the past 300 years” (1). The book divides between the first half that summarizes Burke’s life and the second half that analyzes his thought. For readers who want to know what Burkean conservatism is, this book helps to answer that question. By no means was Burke perfect, but he offers a helpful and true vision for thinking about the social and political order, emphasizing the importance of imagination, moderation, and virtue.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 216 pages.
Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly has brought me great spiritual nourishment recently. Ortlund focuses primarily on the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers. Opening with a reflection on Matthew 11:28–30, Ortlund shows from Scripture how God’s perfection includes His gentleness. He writes, “When Jesus Christ sees the fallenness of the world all about him, his deepest impulse, his most natural instinct, is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it” (30). If your soul is weary, you can find rest in the One who is gentle and lowly. I highly recommend this book for those feeling weary or empty.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 224 pages.
Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly is a remarkable, well-written book that helps readers meditate on the heart of Christ. Ortlund’s work is premised on Jesus’ own presentation of Himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt. 11:29). Contrary to recent critiques, Ortlund does not diminish the fact that Jesus forcefully opposes the hypocrisy of the religious leaders in His own day or present some softer, unbiblical version of Jesus. Ortlund strengthens his point by reminding us that one day every knee will bow to Jesus, that His eyes are “like a flame of fire,” that He “has a sharp two-edged sword” coming out of His mouth, and that His face is “like the sun shining in full strength” (Rev. 1:14–16). For all of the ways in which Scripture presents Jesus as fierce and a man of war, Ortlund reminds us: “This is the one whose deepest heart is, more than anything else, gentle and lowly” (24). Ortlund’s tone and presentation of Christ as He appears in Scripture remind me in many ways of the writings of the Puritans. This is not some modern, softer, unbiblical Jesus—it is the Jesus of Scripture. Pick up Gentle and Lowly for yourself and meditate on the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020), 264 pages.
Ever thought about sharing a conversation around a table with Answers in Genesis, Reasons to Believe, and BioLogos? If so, whom else would you invite to join you? The answer, according to Gavin Ortlund, is none other than Augustine, early theologian of the church. In the midst of current debates about the age of the earth and the historicity of the Genesis account, Ortlund provocatively brings Augustine to the table to see how his views may shed light on our modern discussions. In doing so, Ortlund helps readers focus on under-emphasized areas of the Genesis narrative. While one may not agree with every conclusion that Ortlund draws, he is a careful writer and helps encourage a deeper discussion on these topics. In many ways, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation is the best kind of theological retrieval. It is practical (without being anachronistic), theological, and accessible.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Tim Patrick and Andrew Reid, The Whole Counsel of God: Why and How to Preach the Entire Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 256 pages.
This book is an excellent work for pastors on preaching and planning preaching calendars. Without good planning, pastors can easily preach their entire careers and unintentionally avoid large portions of the Scriptures. Tim Patrick and Andrew Reid provide a helpful division of the various genres and subgenres of Scripture that, when cycled through, will help us give equal weight to each genre in our preaching. They also suggest that pastors should attempt to preach through the entirety of the Scriptures over the course of their ministry. With this goal in mind, our congregations will reap the benefits of a more well-rounded diet as we preach the whole counsel of God.
—Recommended by Zach Vickery
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U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, End of Life: Helping with Comfort and Care (Bethesda: National Institute on Aging, 2016), 68 pages.
The intersection between faith and medicine can be overwhelming at times. This can be increasingly difficult during end-of-life moments. End of Life is a resource that I often recommend to families coming on to hospice services. This short booklet gives helpful explanations about palliative care and hospice, question prompts to ask physicians facing healthcare decisions, and resources for getting help in grief counseling. Being a caregiver for someone can be physically and emotionally exhausting. I recommend resources like End of Life to help provide needed comfort during times of caregiving.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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