Queer Holiness: The gift of LGBTQI people to the Church by Charlie Bell (DLT, £16.99 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £14.99); 978-1-913657-92-5.

LGBTQI people in the church have spent a long time being told what God expects of them and how they should behave. From prohibitions on who they might love or marry, to erasure and denial, the theological record is one in which LGBTQI people are far too often objectified and their lives seen as the property of others. In no other significant religious question are “theological” arguments made that so clearly reject overwhelming scientific and experiential knowledge about the human person. This book seeks to find a better way to do theology — not about, but with and of LGBTQI people — taking insights from the sciences and personal narratives as it seeks to answer the question: What does human flourishing look like?

God is not a White Man: And other revelations by Chine McDonald (Hodder, £10.99 (£9.89); 978-1-529-34908-5). New in paperback.

“These are the urgent questions Chine McDonald asks in a searing look at her experience of being a Black woman in the white-majority space that is the UK church — a church that is being abandoned by Black women no longer able to grin and bear its casual racism, colonialist narratives and lack of urgency on issues of racial justice. Part memoir, part social and theological commentary, God Is Not a White Man is a must-read for anyone troubled by a culture that insists everyone is equal in God's sight, yet fails to confront white supremacy; a lament about the state of race and faith, and a clarion call for us all to do better.”

Unknowing God: Toward a post-abusive theology by Nicholas Peter Harvey and Linda Woodhead (Cascade Books, £17 (£15.30); 978-1-6667-1033-5).

“This is a book about God and gods, Spirit and spirits, prayer and sacraments, ghosts and resurrection, Jesus and the church. It grows out of immersion in Catholic and Anglican traditions and acute awareness of abuses in their name. It is an honest and personal exploration of what still holds up and what has had to be discarded.”

Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.