The Institute for Faith and Culture is pleased to share our third annual summer reading list!
This year, we looked for books that help Christians live with clarity and conviction in a culture that often pulls in the opposite direction—from the habits that shape our souls to the convictions that shape our public witness. With America celebrating its 250th anniversary, several selections also look back on our nation’s founding and the Christian convictions that shaped it. A few are classics worth revisiting, and many are new contributions from today’s leaders. Each one equips readers to think biblically and engage faithfully with today’s cultural moment.
Several of these authors are friends of the Institute for Faith & Culture and have spoken at Kingdom Come in previous years, while others are scheduled to speak at next year’s conference. No matter where your summer plans take you, we hope you’ll consider taking one or more of these books with you as you rest, recharge, and refocus on engaging the culture for Christ.
The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Borrowing his title from Churchill, Mohler surveys nine fronts—from marriage and gender to religious liberty—where secularism is reshaping both the culture and, more dangerously, the church itself.
Foundations of Freedom: A 250 Year Experiment in Liberty by Dr. George Grant
Marking America’s 250th anniversary, Grant offers a brief but rich anthology of the historical and civic resources that shaped the American creed, recovering the kind of citizenship education once common in schools and homes—and largely lost today.
Under the Liberty Tree by Dr. Jerry Newcombe and Dr. Peter Lillback
Co-authors Newcombe and Lillback use the iconic liberty tree to trace the Christian convictions that shaped America’s founding generation, recovering a history too often flattened or ignored.
Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World by Eric Metaxas
In this sweeping account released for America’s 250th birthday, Metaxas tells the full story of the Revolution, with particular attention to the providential and religious convictions that animated the founders. His past works, Bonhoeffer and Letter to the American Church, have appeared on previous summer lists.
King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government by James Baird
In a short, accessible volume, Baird draws on scripture, the Reformed confessions, and the American founders to argue that civil government has a duty to promote the public good—and that the public good is found in Christianity. A clear primer on a debate many Christians shy away from.
Politics & the Kingdom of God by Dr. Robert J. Pacienza
IFC’s president examines how Christians should engage the political sphere without collapsing the Kingdom of God into any earthly platform, offering a framework for principled, non-idolatrous civic engagement.
Just Thinking About the State by Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker
Harrison and Walker, co-hosts of the Just Thinking podcast, work through government, justice, and politics with an unapologetically biblical lens, tackling subjects many Christians are hesitant to address head-on.
The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life by Justin Whitmel Earley
Earley makes the case that spiritual formation isn’t just a matter of belief but of practiced, embodied habit. Drawing on neuroscience and ancient Christian disciplines alike, he offers ten concrete rhythms for forming a life that is both healthy and holy in a culture of distraction and exhaustion.
Consider the Lilies: Finding Perfect Peace in the Character of God by Jonny Ardavanis
Ardavanis turns to Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount to address the anxiety so common in modern life, grounding peace not in circumstance but in a right understanding of who God is.
Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture by Natasha Crain
Crain, whose When Culture Hates You appeared on last year’s list, digs into why Christian belief increasingly looks strange — even offensive — to the surrounding culture, and how believers can hold convictions with clarity rather than apology.
The Last Stand: Christ or Chaos: The War for the West by Seth Gruber
Gruber traces the Church’s long history of confronting cultural evils—from child sacrifice to sexual chaos—and calls the modern Church away from negotiating with the darkness of the present moment and toward remembrance and tradition.
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
This slim but foundational work warns us about what happens when a society severs morality from any transcendent source—a fitting companion to the more contemporary titles on this list. Lewis’s Mere Christianity appeared on the 2025 list.
