Spirituality and Christian Belief: Positive Christianity, with all the bad bits taken out by Keith Ward (Cascade Books, £15 (£13.50); 979-8-3852-0482-3).

“Christianity is not the only true faith. The Bible is not inerrant. Jesus is not God walking on the earth. Hell is not eternal. What’s left? Everything important. The ultimate reality is cosmic mind, which generates the physical universe. Its goal is to liberate all beings from evil and suffering and to unite all beings to itself. God sets the goal, Jesus shows and attains the goal, and the Spirit guides the way to the goal. This is a spiritual path to God, to which the Bible testifies, from a specific cultural background, the Abrahamic way.”

God the Child: Small, weak and curious subversions by Graham Adams (SCM Press, £19.99 (£15.99); 978-0-334-06500-5).

“In this experimental theological adventure, Graham Adams imagines what might flow from a more thorough ‘be-child-ing’ of God. Aware that the Child can be idealized, he selects particular characteristics of childness in order to disrupt God’s omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.”

Hearing Our Prayers: An exploration of liturgical listening by Juliette J. Day (Liturgical Press, £39.99 (£35.99); 978-0-8146-6941-9).

“Juliette Day draws upon insights from liturgical studies, philosophy, psychology, acoustical science, and architectural studies to investigate how acts of audition occur in Christian worship. The book discusses the different listening strategies worshippers use for speech, chant, and music, as well as for silence and noise: why paying attention in church can be so difficult and how what we hear is affected by the buildings in which worship takes place.” 

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