Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I second the novels by Maria Doria Russell. She is a cultural anthropologist with a Catholic background. And has written three novels.

1. The Sparrow- a novel about a bunch of people who are selected by the Catholic Church to be sent to another planet. They respond to the music that the other planet sent out as a signal. The novel explores various issues: 1) Clash of Cultures, 2) Limits of Language, 3) Belief in God.

The main character of the novel is a Jesuit, who believes deeply in God and has lost his faith because of what happened on the planet. The book is in a way a mystery novel - telling us why he has lost his faith, why he feels the way he does. It discusses how we relate to God or faith and how we may or may not blame god for what happens to us in our lives. Very haunting book.
I read it 10 years ago. Can't forget it. And everyone I've loaned it to, has been equally haunted by it.

Children of God is the sequel. The main character of the first novel returns to the planet but because of the time delay, returns years after the events of the first. It shows how, without meaning to, we can change a culture. A much better book about the ethics of being a missionary to another culture than Poisonwood Bible since unlike Poisonwood Bible, it refuses to answer any of our questions, just poses them.

Thread of Faith? I don't remember the title exactly. Just came out in paperback - it is about the Italian Resistance work within the Church during WWII to help the Jews escape the Nazis. Worth looking up. Based on real events. Haven't read it myself yet. Got that from looking at it in a bookstore.

Also seconding His Dark Materials - highly controversial and in a way a critique of Chronicles of Narnia. Also of CS Lewis other two novels, worth looking into, which in my view are more interesting than Narnia, Till We Have Faces - the Psyche/Eros Myth told from the point of view of an older ugly sister, and The Screwtape Letters. Then there's Terry Pratchette and Neil Gaiman's toure de force Good Omens which is a nice follow-up to Pullman's books. All these works deal more with the fundamentalist view of religion or literal.

Ship of Fools by Russell - I think, I'm bad at remembering author's names, sorry. This work I read last year and deals very strongly with faith, god, and the universe.

Finally, a book I'm not overly fond of, but is worth looking at for it's recent popularity - The Lovely Bones - the story of girl who was killed, which is told in her voice after she is dead.