I just wanted to put out a collection of writings about Christians and Christianity by a mix of secular and Christian scholars. I don't pretend that I've read all of these books, but I'm hoping to get to them eventually.

This thread does not have any large aspirations. It's just a collection that I hope others would add to. However, I do not wish to see this thread turn into a collection of Christian books. That is, I don't want to suddenly see a bunch of contemporary Christian authors writing TO Christians like Hybels and Ortberg. I really do want to restrict it to scholarly books ABOUT Christians and Christianity.

That being said, if you have books like these that you want to add, please do so. Also, commentaries, critiques, reviews, and links to these are welcomed in response to these books.

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The Next Christendom, by Philip Jenkins (History)

Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark Noll (History/Cultural Commentary)

Becoming Sinners, by Joel Robbins (Ethnography of New Guinean Christians)

Words Upon the Word, by James Bielo (Ethnography of American Evangelicals)

Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education, by George Yancey (Sociology)

The Soul of the American University, by George Marsden (History)

When God Talks Back, by T. M. Luhrmann (Anthropological study)

It is about doubt in many religions not just Christianity, and it is not academic (although written by an academic), but I am currently quite enjoying Doubt: A History, by Jennifer Hetch

Lots to recommend but in the spirit of the OP I'll just go with the pretty neutral historical books 'A History of God' by Karen Armstrong and 'Misquoting Jesus' by Bart Ehrman.

Does Dante's Inferno count? That's one of my all time literary favourites.

I actually found Dantes Inferno to be quite a chore to get through.

I've been reading Christian history the past year or so and recommend the following two works by Christian scholars - somewhat biased in favor of Christianity in their interpretative passages but accurate on the facts:

In 8 volumes, by Phillip Schaff
History of the Christian Church
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/About.htm

In 2 volumes, by Kenneth Scott Latourette
A History of Christianity

+1 on Karen Armstrong. I read it years ago and it was illuminating.

I agree. I guess it needs to be read in the "original hebrew" in order to be appreciated.

Ehrman's books are not even close to being neutral. I've read them all.
And, "Misquoting Jesus" is Ehrman's diatribe against the authenticity of
the Bible.

For an opposing view, see Dr. Craig Evan's debates with Ehrman on
youtube, or his book on how modern scholars distort the gospels:
http://www.amazon.com/Fabricating-Je...=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Ehrman readily admits that he didn't leave Christianity and theism because
of any issues with Christians or the Bible. he left because he couldn't
resolve the issue of theodicy in his mind - that is the problem of there
being a good God with such evil in the world.

I think Geisler and Zukeran's The Apologetics of Jesus is an important work because it's the only one that explains Jesus' Apologetic method and it makes an Apologetics case from the Evidentialism school of Apologetics.

Currently, I'm reading Why I Am A Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe
by Norman L. Geisler and Paul K. Hoffman. It's a collection of contributors essays that include contributions from: Francis J. Beckwith, Walter Bradley, J. Budziszewski, Winfried Corduan, William Lane Craig, John S. Feinberg, Norman L. Geisler, R. Douglas Geivitt, Gary Habermas, Paul K. Hoffman, Peter Kreeft, Barry Leventhal, Josh McDowell, J. P. Moreland, Hugh Ross, Ravi Zacharias, Ergun Mehmet Caner and possibly others too numerous to list.

On my queue list to read in the future. If Wesley thought it was a major work then it most probably is.

Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law available online free here:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/serious_call.toc.html

Quotes on Law and this book:

Dr. Samuel Johnson said (Boswell's Life of Johnson, ch. 1): "I became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not think much against it; and this lasted until I went to Oxford , where it would not be suffered. When at Oxford , I took up Law's Serious Call, expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational inquiry."


John Wesley calls it one of three books which accounted for his first "explicit resolve to be all devoted to God." Later, when denying, in response to a question, that Methodism was founded on Law's writings, he added that "Methodists carefully read these books and were greatly profitted by them." In 1744 he published extracts from the Serious Call, thereby introducing it to a wider audience than it already had. About eighteen months before his death, he called it "a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equalled, either for beauty of expression or for depth of thought."

Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Henry Venn, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Scott each described reading the book as a major turning-point in his life. All in all, there were few leaders of the English Evangelical movement on whom it did not have a profound influence. - end quotes

quotes above from Gary Amirault's Tentmaker site

Law was a believer in Christian Universalism. A list of some of the famous universalist believers here: http://www.tentmaker.org/tracts/Universalist.html

Is there an unbiased book about the historical Jesus? I know there are looks of books about Jesus out there but finding an unbiased historical account could be tough.

Apparently not.

What to you would make it "unbiased"? I think Bart Ehrman has a book about the historical Jesus.

It's hard to stay unbiased. You'll find if you spend a lot of time around God accepting his light that it'll make you more good natured and good natured is a bias worth having.

Why would anyone want to kick out/reject the bias and not receive the blessing of God's higher nature?

Written by a respected historian that is only interested in facts, and someone without an agenda on either side. I'll check out Ehrman, thanks.

Because I want to learn about Jesus from an objective point of view. Your post is the type of bias I would be trying to avoid in a potential book. But I'm not looking for atheist propaganda, either.