If you own a librarian action figure or if you are just a verified librophiliac I have a link that may interest you from Australian Ben Myers: Twelve theses on libraries and librarians. It’s worth a read. While you’re there read the comments and see the proposed script lines for a new action film: “Librarian: the Movie.”
Reading
That New Book Smell
As you may know I suffer from abibliophobia, the fear of running out of good reading material. And of course this means that I love getting new books. Thankfully I have a job, and some associations, that ensure that I get new books on a very regular basis. And in one of those new books—Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letters to John Ryland Jr.—I came across a letter about receiving new books.
Here’s the background.
In 1779 John Newton published a 3-volume collection of hymns titled Olney Hymns. It contained 348 hymns, including Amazing Grace, and were mostly written by Newton himself (William Cowper pitched in 68). Upon hearing of the book’s release John Ryland Jr., a friend of Newton’s, wanted a set for himself. Ryland wrote Newton to express his anticipation. Newton mailed him a free set. But ahead of the books Newton sent the following letter:
The hymn books will be with you soon, how soon I know not. Your hungry curiosity will not be long in appeasing. When you have read the preface, twirled over the pages, run your eye down the tables of contents, and have the book by you, you will feel much as you do about any other book that has been lying by you seven years. At least I have often found it so (but perhaps your heart is not just like mine). I have longed for a book, counted the hours till it came, anticipated a thousand things about it, flew to it at first sight with eagerness as a hawk at its prey; and in a little time it has been as quiet, as if placed upon the upper shelf in a bookseller’s shop. [Wise Counsel, 127]
How true it is.
The Subtle Drama
Wickedness is easier to display in literature than goodness. Evil characters are easier to develop than good characters. So says crime novelist Phyllis Dorothy James, or P. D. James. In an interview with Ken Myers from the 1980s, James said this:
I suppose that wickedness reveals itself often in action. Goodness also does, but is on a quieter plane. Good people often reveal their goodness through the whole of the quiet revelation of their character in the ordinary events of life. And if a good person is being courageous he’s probably being courageous in facing rather ordinary troubles—sick children, a sick wife, an uncongenial job. Wicked people are murdering. It’s more dramatic. Goodness is very seldom dramatic, I think. And it’s much more easy to write about drama.
If evil is more dramatic and more easily communicated in literature it is also more easily read. On the other hand, goodness in literature is difficult to write and is–I think–more difficult to read.
The bold drama in crime fiction is less demanding of the reader. The subtle drama of goodness we read in novels like those by Marilynne Robinson is more demanding. And this is because reading literature for its goodness requires the reader to pick up on the subtle drama.
Literature is Life
One of the best little summaries of the value of literature in the Christian life comes from Leland Ryken’s book Windows To the World: Literature in Christian Perspective (Wipf and Stock, 2000). Here’s what Ryken writes on page 34:
“Literature is life. If you want to know what, deep down, people feel and experience, you can do no better than read the stories and poems of the human race. Writers of literature have the gift of observing and then expressing in words the essential experiences of people.
The rewards of reading literature are significant. Literature helps to humanize us. It expands our range of experiences. It fosters awareness of ourselves and the world. It enlarges our compassion for people. It awakens our imaginations. It expresses our feelings and insights about God, nature, and life. It enlivens our sense of beauty. And it is a constructive form of entertainment.
Christians should neither undervalue nor overvalue literature. It is not the ultimate source of truth. But it clarifies the human situation to which the Christian faith speaks. It does not replace the need for the facts that science and economics and history give us. But it gives us an experiential knowledge of life that we need just as much as those facts.
Literature does not always lead us to the City of God. But it makes our sojourn on earth much more a thing of beauty and joy and insight and humanity.”
Librophiliac
is a word that denotes someone who suffers from an inordinate love of libraries. Two librophiliacs (always more dangerous in pairs), after being “shocked into a library induced euphoria” (yikes), assembled a compendium of photographs of some of the world’s most beautiful libraries. See the collection here. Beautiful.
Reading Digest #8 (Feb 28, 2010)
Book writing is still at full-throttle pace for me, and it’s been that way for all of January and February. I have completed the rough drafts of the thickest theological chapters (1-6) and have now shifted my attention to writing the much more practical—and much less intense—chapters (7-14). And since the intensity of writing has dropped off a tad I’ve decided to intensify the reading. For this season I have decided to focus on theology.
Here’s my current list:
• Brooke Foss Westcott, The Victory of the Cross (Macmillan, 1888). I found this old gem on the bottom shelf in a dusty used book warehouse in DC. It’s a collection of sermons from a noted bible scholar and the Bishop of Durham, on the topic of the cross. I completed it the other day. The book fed my soul. I’ve quoted from it on the blog in the recent past and plan to post a couple other excerpts soon enough. You can read it online for free here.
• Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (WJK, 2005). The book was written to encourage the church see the relevance of theology. Already I like what I read: “he who is tired of doctrine is tired of life, for doctrine is the stuff of life” (xiii). Nice. Also, he writes that theology is essential because it helps us (1) cope with life, (2) celebrate the activity of God, (3) communicate the works of God inside and outside the church, and to (4) criticize what is false. Vanhoozer’s goal in this book is to present theology as a drama, which seems fitting enough at first glance. Whether or not I’ll end up biting on the theo-drama approach I cannot say this early. But any book that emphasizes the seriousness of theology in the Christian life is worth reading. Alister McGrath says this book is “essential reading for all concerned with the nature and future of doctrine.” That’s me!
• Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Fortress, 1993). Of all the branches of theology I think eschatology is the most underdeveloped. Not that there aren’t a lot of books that bicker about things like timelines, because those are plentiful. I mean books that seriously explain how eschatology informs the Christian life, how it protects us from worldly thinking, and how our future hope—not merely our past memory—shapes our theology and our priorities as Christians. I’ve only begun reading but I’ve eaten at café Tübingen before and they serve only lobster, a dish with hardly enough exegetical meat feed a man or to justify the time, the effort, or the price. Having read Moltmann in the past I cannot endorse the book or paste quotes from it on this here blog.
• John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. I continue to plug away at the Institutes. Is there a better work of theology? Nope, not even my man Herman comes close to Calvin. My goal is to reread The Institutes cover-to-cover in 16 months. Right now I’m focused on 2.2.1–2.13.1 (or 1.255-475) where Calvin focuses in on free will, depravity, the law, and the mediator. Calvin is so relevant to our modern questions. Like what is the purpose behind the Lord sending earthquakes? Calvin has articulated the clearest and most careful answer to this question that I’ve read (see 1.17.1). Rich and relevant.
• Martin Luther, Off The Record With Martin Luther (Hansa-Hewlett, 2009). For fun I’ve been reading this new translation of Luther’s Table Talk. I’m tempted to quote my favorite excerpts but that would get me into trouble. This is a wonderful collection of colorful quotes from Luther’s free-tongued dinner conversations over meat, potatoes, and a mug.
So that’s what I am reading at the moment. How about yourself? I love hearing from you, and especially if what you are reading is less nerdy.
Tony Reinke 