Welcome to the 16th annual So What Faith’s Top 10 Books of the Year. This year I read 84 books published in 2024. The top ten are listed below in alphabetical order by author’s last name: Top Ten Top Two The two books on this year’s top ten that had the greatest impact on me are Prior Lists There are so many great books published in recent years. Two of this year's top authors appeared on prior lists: Incredibly this marks Diana Butler Bass' fifth Read More …
Christian Smith
5 Star Books Published in 2025 (#2278)
Welcome to the seventh annual edition of So What Faith’s 5 Star Books of the Year! This list is comprised of books rated 5 or 5+ on a scale of 1 to 5. To be eligible the book must have been published in 2025 and I must have read and rated it this year. This year, just 14.4% of all books rated received a rating of 5 or 5+ to earn this honor (in prior years the percentage has ranged from 15% to 17%). Past Years Be sure to check out prior lists Best of the Best Stay Read More …
Great New Books for May 2025 (#2221)
The best new books I’ve read in the last month are 5+ Rating Why Religion Went Obsolete is the first book published in 2025 to receive a 5+ rating here on So What Faith. This distinction has been awarded to just three to five books a year in recent years: Why Religion Went Obsolete I have lost count of the number of books I have read that examine the decline of religion in the United States. While each offers its own particular insights, it takes only a few to Read More …
Review of The Bible Made Impossible (#0568)
Meet the Author Christian Smith is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. His research areas include "religion in modernity, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture." Smith has written several books, including The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (2011), Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults Read More …