These books influenced my healing journey and spiritual reconstruction. Inclusion on this list doesn’t indicate endorsement, but I found ideas in these books that challenged, affirmed, and/or commiserated with my lived experience. I’ve highlighted the ten titles I’d recommend most.
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A Church Called Tov by Laura Barringer and Scot McNight
A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans
All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore
American Idolatry by Andrew Whitehead
Analog Church by Jay Kim
Asking Better Questions of the Bible by Marty Solomon
Bad Faith by Randall Balmer
Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets by Andy Stanley
Better Together by Danielle Strickland
Beyond an Angry God by Steve McVey
Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown
Bully Pulpit by Michael J. Kruger
Celebrities for Jesus by Katelyn Beaty
Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar, Derick Dillard, and Craig Borlase
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Cultish by Amanda Montell
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
Everybody Always by Bob Goff
Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) by Kate Bowler
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Finding God’s Life for My Will by Mike Donehey
Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa TerKeurst
Fortune by Lisa Sharon Harper
From Lost to Found by Nicole Zasowski
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
Get Your Life Back by John Eldredge
Good Baggage by Ike Miller
Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa TerKeurst
Grace in the Gray by Mike Donehey
Help Thanks Wow by Anne Lamott
How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns
How to Heal Our Racial Divide by Derwin Gray
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet by Shauna Niequist
I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn
Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Lament for a Father by Marvin Olasky
Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
Live in Grace, Walk in Love by Bob Goff
Love Does by Bob Goff
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien
Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud
No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler
Not in It to Win It by Andy Stanley
Orphaned Believers by Sara Billups
PreachersNSneakers by Ben Kirby
Prey Tell by Tiffany Bluhm
Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley
Redeeming Power by Diane Langberg
Reorganized Religion by Bob Smietana
Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas
Shrinking the Integrity Gap by Jeff Mattson and Terra Mattson
Something’s Not Right by Wade Mullen
Soul Care to Save Your Life by Manda Carpenter
Tell Her Story by Nijay K Gupta
Testimony by Jon Ward
The Blue Parakeet by Scot McNight
The Cost of Control by Sharon Hodde Miller
The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas
The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz
The Genius of Jesus by Erwin Raphael McManus
The Gift of Being Yourself by David G. Benner
The God Who Sees by Karen Gonzalez
The God-Shaped Brain by Timothy R. Jennings
The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky
The Liturgy of Politics by Kaitlyn Schiess
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
The Men We Need by Brant Hansen
The Religion of American Greatness by Paul D. Miller
The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns
The Thing Beneath the Thing by Steve Carter
The Truth About Us by Brant Hansen
The Very Worst Missionary by Jamie Wright
The World’s Largest Man by Harrison Scott Key
Tribe by Sebastian Junger
Unoffendable by Brant Hansen
Unsettling Truths by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
Until Unity by Francis Chan
Untrustworthy by Bonnie Kristian
We the Fallen People by Robert Tracy McKenzie
What If Jesus Was Serious? by Skye Jethani
What If Jesus Was Serious about Prayer? by Skye Jethani
What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven? by Skye Jethani
What Made Jesus Mad? by Tim Harlow
When Faith Fails by Dominic Done
When Narcissism Comes to Church by Chuck DeGroat
When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough by Taylor S. Schumann
Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Image purchased from iStockPhoto.com
