My book (Dis)Ordered: Lies about Human Nature and the Truth That Sets Us Free is available. Visit here to learn more or to order.

Currently Reading:

  • Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord’s Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective (Matthew C. Harrison, John T. Pless, eds.)

  • The Resurrection of the Son of God (N.T. Wright)

  • An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Johann Gerhard)

  • Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)

  • Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody (Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay)

  • Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (John Eliot Gardiner)

  • Healing Humanity: Confronting Our Moral Crisis (eds. Alexander F.C. Webster, Alfred K Siewers, David C. Ford)

  • The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Carl R. Trueman)

  • The Reformation: The Story of Civilization, vol. 6 (Will Durant)

  • The Possessed (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

  • What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves (Sam Allberry)

  • Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body (John W. Kleinig)

  • Kristin Lavransdatter (Sigrid Undset)

  • The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)

  • Luther’s Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications (eds. John Pless and Larry Vogel)

  • Love among the Chickens (P.G. Wodehouse)

  • Sermons for Advent and the Christmas Season (Bernard of Clairvaux)

  • Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany (St. Augustine)

  • N is for Nativity (Ruth E. Meyer)

  • The Lutheran Difference: An Explanation and Comparison of Christian Beliefs (Edward A. Englebrecht, ed.)

  • Antagonists in the Church: How to Identify and Deal with Destructive Conflict (Kenneth C. Haugk)

  • When God Becomes My Enemy: The Theology of the Complaint Psalms (Ingvar Fløysvik)

  • Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape (Andrew Stephen Damick)

  • Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms (Dennis Ngien)

  • The Psalms as Christian Lament: A Historical Commentary (Bruce K. Waltke, James M. Houston, Erika Moore)

  • The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. 1 (Philip Schaff)

  • History of Theology (Bengt Hägglund)

  • Theological Anthropology and Sin (Klaus Detlev Schulz)

  • The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Georgios I. Mantzaridis)

  • The Glory of the Invisible God: Two Powers in Heaven Traditions and Early Christology (Andrei A. Orlov)

  • On Creation, Predestination, and the Image of God (Theological Commonplaces VIII—XI) (Johann Gerhard)

  • Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person (Panayiotis Nellas)

  • The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Michael Connelly)

Books Finished (so far) in 2024:

  • The Brass Verdict (Michael Connelly)

  • God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) - reread

  • Ten Ways to Kill a Pastor (Christopher Ian Thoma)

  • Crossroads (Jonathan Franzen)

  • The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power (Lawrence Farley)

  • Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Patrick Henry Reardon)

  • Scarecrow (Michael Connelly)

  • 1776 (David McCullough)

  • Nine Dragons (Michael Connelly)

  • Blue on Black (Michael Connelly)

  • Meditations for Every Wednesday and Friday in Lent, on a Prayer of S. Ephraem (S. C. Malan)

  • Luther’s Large Catechism with Study Questions (Paul T. McCain, ed.) - reread

  • Red Rabbit (Tom Clancy)

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson)

  • Christ and Calamity: Grace and Gratitude in the Darkest Valley (Harold L. Senkbeil)

  • On the Apostolic Preaching (Irenaeus) - reread

  • The Reversal (Michael Connelly)

  • On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans (Melito of Sardis)

  • The Fifth Witness (Michael Connelly)

  • Call Sign Chaos (Jim Mattis)

  • The Infinite Game (Simon Sinek)

  • Suicide Run (Michael Connelly)

  • Angle of Investigation (Michael Connelly)

  • Christ in His Saints (Patrick Henry Reardon)

  • Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections (Mollie Hemingway)

  • Mending a Fractured Church: How to Seek Unity with Integrity (Michael F. Bird, ed.)

  • American Marxism (Mark Levin)

  • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Jonathan Haidt)

  • Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion (Richard Lints)

  • The Drop (Michael Connelly)

  • The Black Box (Michael Connelly)

  • Chasing the Dime (Michael Connelly)

  • The Gods of Guilt (Michael Connelly)

  • Morning after the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History (Nellie Bowles)

  • Switchblade (Michael Connelly)

  • The Burning Room (Michael Connelly)

  • The Crossing (Michael Connelly)

  • A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters)


Recommended Reading

Church History:

  • When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers (Marcellino D’Ambrosio)

  • Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries (Werner Elert)

  • The Church History (Eusebius)

  • The Democratization of American Christianity (Nathan O. Hatch)

Devotional:

  • Confessions (Saint Augustine)

  • God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

  • Meditations on Divine Mercy (Johann Gerhard)

  • The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis)

  • Words of Strength and Promise: Devotions for Youth (CPH, 2021)

Ethics:

  • What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (O. Carter Snead)

Fiction:

  • Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

  • Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)

  • The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)

  • The Old Man and the Sea (Earnest Hemingway)

  • Barchester Towers (Anthony Trollope)

  • The Inimitable Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)

  • Carry on, Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)

  • Thank You, Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)

History:

  • Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink (Anthony McCarten)

Money:

  • The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (John C. Bogle)

  • The Bogleheads’ Guide to the Three-Fund Portfolio: How a Simple Portfolio of Three Total Market Index Funds Outperforms Most Investors with Less Risk (Tyler Larimore)

Philosophy:

  • Mind and Cosmos: What the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Thomas Nagel)

Society and Culture:

  • The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (Rod Dreher)

  • Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (Rod Dreher)

  • Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution (Mary Eberstadt)

  • Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization (Os Guinness)

  • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Jonathan Haidt)

  • The War on the West (Douglas Murray)

  • Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman)

  • Technopoly (Neil Postman)

  • The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned the Pandemic into a Catastrophe (Jay W. Richards, William M. Briggs, Douglas Axe)

  • Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Abigail Shrier)

  • Intellectuals and Race (Thomas Sowell)

  • The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Thomas Sowell)

  • The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West (Michael Walsh)

  • The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West (Michael Walsh)

  • What Is a Woman? (Matt Walsh)

Theology:

  • Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

  • The Cost of Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

  • Worship in the Name of Jesus (Peter Brunner)

  • Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service (Arthur Just)

  • The Quest for Holiness (Adolf Köberle)

  • Law, Life, and the Living God (Scott R. Murray)

  • The Gates of Hell: Confessing Christ in a Hostile World (ed. Scott R. Murray)

  • Justification and Rome (Robert Preus)

  • Christ in His Saints (Patrick Henry Reardon)

  • Theology of the Lutheran Confessions (Edmund Schlink)

  • The Church and the Office of the Ministry (C.F.W. Walther; ed. M. Harrison)

  • Thank, Praise, Serve, and Obey: Recover the Joys of Piety (William Weedon)

War:

  • The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (Jake Tapper)

  • Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan (Sean Parnell)