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Between The Times | Why Should Christians Read Literature? by Michael Travers

For the Record (Michael Travers): Why Should Christians Read Literature?

August 1, 2012 by administrator

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[Editor's Note: Michael Travers is Professor of English and Associate Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness at Southeastern. He is author of Encountering God in the Psalms (Kregel, 2003) and co-author (with Richard D. Patterson) of Face to Face With God: Human Images of God in the Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2008). As a disciple of Christ and good literature, and teacher on both at Southeastern, we asked him to write on the topic of reading literature for Christian formation.]

Why should Christians bother reading literature at all? Because reading literature humanizes us—in the best sense of the word. Literature helps us realize the image of God in us in ways that we cannot afford to miss. Consider….

Literature exercises and develops our emotions and imaginations. People write about what they experience and how they respond emotionally and imaginatively to their experiences. As we read good imaginative literature, we begin to see our own experiences and emotions in the larger human context. Which emotions are healthy, which not? Which emotions ought we to cultivate, which should we put to death? In literature, we can see the expressions and consequences of human emotions in real-life situations and can be encouraged or take warning accordingly. It is the same with our imaginations. Reading literature gives us what Kevin Vanhoozer calls “the power of synoptic vision”: through our imaginations responding to the imaginative writings of others, we see the important issues in life, not just the urgent and immediate circumstances around us. Imagination allows us to see the universal and timeless human issues and truths in the particular experiences of the characters in the book we are reading.

Literature speaks to the human condition in which we all find ourselves all the time. As humans, we all share the same human condition. No matter our gender, race, or nationality, we all struggle with sin, experience the emotions of love and hate, give expression to our strongest desires, and we all long for something that this world cannot satisfy—in the end, God. Literature connects us with others who have given effective expression to our common humanity and longings and, while we may not agree with a writer’s worldview, he or she illuminates our common condition in ways that can help us understand our situation better and relate to others outside of our immediate community. In Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective, Leland Ryken helpfully suggests that literature “clarifies the human situation to which the Christian faith speaks.”[1] Likewise, with C. S. Lewis, a Christian can think of literature as one form of “pre-evangelism”: a means to help people ask the important questions—the eternal questions—and which gives us an opportunity to speak the gospel into their lives.

Literature expands us. Reading imaginative literature takes us outside of our own immediate situation. We get to meet other people from other places—even from other times—that we would otherwise never meet. When we read a novel, we don’t just follow a plot line; we become acquainted with more people—some friends, some not so much friends—who hone our humanity. We get to look in on other cultures—oriental as well as occidental, contemporary as well as ancient—and in its turn that experience helps us not to be blinded to the realities of our own culture and time. Again, C. S. Lewis is helpful here. What he says in An Experiment in Criticism is worth quoting at some length: “We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own….”[2] He continues, “in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here [i.e. in reading great literature], as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”[3] Think a bit about that!

Literature can help us glorify God in our lives. Humans are “wordish creatures.”[4] Only we, of all God’s creatures, use sounds and graphics symbolically to communicate what is not immediately present to our five senses. Only we imagine and create what is not essential to our immediate needs. Only we can appreciate beauty, truth and goodness in their own rights. God made us wordish creatures, and he communicated the gospel to us in words. Even Jesus Christ is given the epithet, “Word made flesh,” and only He communicates the Father to us sinful people. Because literature is a wordish medium, it is in some senses the form of artistic expression that allows us to get closest to our Creator. After all, we are all part of that great Story, and our stories fit into the larger Story. And you can’t tell a story without words.

Why read literature? How can you not? It’s part of our heritage as humans. But we must cultivate it if we are not to lose it again and revert to an earlier age or place where the Word and the word were both darkened. Make your words flesh that the Word made flesh might be glorified.

[1] Leland Ryken, Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 34.

[2] C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 137.

[3] Ibid., 141.

[4] Bradley Green, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway, 2010), 104.

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101 Books To Read This Summer Instead of ’50 Shades of Grey’ | Upworthy.com

101 Books To Read This Summer Instead of ’50 Shades of Grey’

This epic flowchart goes to great lengths to help you help yourself put down the trashy erotica.

Share it if you know anybody who’s reading “50 Shades” right now

via 101 Books To Read This Summer Instead of ’50 Shades of Grey’.

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Ahhh…Summer, the Time of Beach Reads!

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Everyone is welcome to join.

Just link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out your list! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic:
Ahhh…Summer, the Time of Beach Reads!

1.  The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand.  Set on Nantucket Island, as many of her books are, this is a sweet story involving (primarily) the restaurant staff of this popular eatery.  Perfect for a quick summer read.

2.  Home to Italy by Peter Pezzelli.  This is the first book I read by Pezzelli, and I was not disappointed.  It starts in Rhode Island with the death of Anna, Peppi’s wife, but it quickly transitions to Italy as he returns to the land of his birth, reconnects with an old friend, and falls in love again.  It’s predictable, but after a but of a herky-jerky start, Pezzelli settles into a quick & easy style that is perfect for a day at the beach.

3.  Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik.  As with most (or all?) of her books, this one is set in Minnesota, and centers around a group of women living on the same street who decide to start a book club.   It evolves to much more than that, of course, and though the arc of the story is fairly predictable, it is well written and has a lot meat on the bones.  Landvik has an writing style that makes for a fast, easy and enjoyable read, perfect for the beach.

5.  Bitsy’s Bait and BBQ by Pamela Morsi.  I was drawn to this book by the eye-catching title, and found it to be exactly the right thing for a summer read.  It is set in the South, a setting I love, and it has the predictable love story.  However, the writing is engaging and the characters are loveable, so it makes for a delightful read.

6.  Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson.  This was Jackson’s debut novel, but the unusual title suggested right away that it would be a book worth reading.  I was not disappointed.  This is a Southern author whose works I love, and because characters reappear from time to time in different books, this first novel is the ideal place to start.  It is a quick and easy read, but truly enjoyable on every level.

7.  The Last Beach Bungalow by Jennie Nash.  A beach setting, which (obviously) is a great beach read.  I think I picked this up because of the cover art, and it was a lovely, if predictable, summer read.  Great for relaxing in the sun.

8.  The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright.  I love epistolary novels, and this is no exception.  It is the story of a 39 year marriage, documented in a letter written each Wednesday by Jack to Laurel, and it plays out for their children, who are home to attend their funeral.  Though it sounds like a downer, it is not, and it is rich with all the elements of a classic love story.  Worth the time, and great for the beach despite the subject matter because it is quick and easy to read.

9.  Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe.  I have read several of Monroe’s novels over the years, but I particularly loved this one.  I love the Southern setting of South Carolina, the typical “Southern” way (even in the way Monroe writes), and the cultural issues that she included.  It has an authentically Southern feel.  It also deals with some heavy subjects, but Monroe does not have a heavy hand, which makes it a lovely summer read.

10.  Hearts on a String by Kris Radish.  A story that illustrates a grandmother’s anecdote about the thread that connects all women, it is sweet and fun and easy to read.  Radish always has some fairly implausible element to her story lines, but in the end it doesn’t matter, because she touches you, entertains you, and lets you escape from regular life for a bit.  You will not be disappointed.

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REWIND! Had to Have These Books, but They’re STILL Languishing on the Bookshelf…

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Everyone is welcome to join.

Just link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out your list! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic:
REWIND!!
Top Ten Books I Had to Have…but are STILL Languishing on the Bookshelf
(click here for original post)

  1. The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson
    I bought the audiobooks when they were first released because my husband & I were both interested in them, and we listen to audiobooks together on road trips.  They are still on the shelf almost a year later…one road trip this year, and not long enough for even one of those books.  Sad.
  2. A Thousand Splendid Sons by Khalid Hosseini
    I bought the audio version of this and The Kite Runner at the same time.  Listened to The Kite Runner and LOVED it, but have not gotten to this yet.
  3. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
    This set has been on my shelf for at least 10 years, and has followed me through several moves.  I purchased it with the conviction that I should read it, because it’s an incredible shame that I never even knew they existed when I was an adolescent.  Still there…still waiting…
  4. Hearts in Atlantis & Insomnia by Stephen King
    I have loved Stephen King since I was in 9th grade, and have devoured 30ish of his books over the years.  For some reason these never made it past the bookshelf, and I eventually got rid of both, though I have since re-purchased Hearts in Atlantis in audio format.  The last several King books I’ve “read” were actually listening experiences, and that is proving to be my preference lately.
  5. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
    Purchased for a book group read, I had grand hopes of finishing it.  I barely got started, and with the distractions of a new baby and home renovations, it was abandoned and is still on the shelf.  I haven’t discarded it, so there is hope that eventually it will make it into the pile of current reads.
  6. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
    I bought this book when it was causing a stir on the book scene, and it sat on the shelf for years.  I finally sold it to the used bookstore, only to repurchase in audio format.  Still there, but I’m hoping to get to it this year.
  7. The Bourne Series by Robert Ludlum
    These sat on my shelf for years until I finally sold them when I was getting ready to move out of state.  They were a recommendation from my brother, and for some reason I never got excited about reading them, even after having seen the movies.  They are still on my TBR list, so hope is still alive that I will read them one day.
  8. Everything Monica McInerney has written
    McInerney is an Australian author, and I stumbled across her books Family Baggage and The Alphabet Sisters through http://www.dearreader.com.  I devoured those books and started looking for more, only to discover that the rest of her books had only been published in Australia.  Thanks to my online book club, I had a contact, and over the next year I exchanged books with her…she sent me the McInerney books I couldn’t get in the States, and I sent her book club selections that were difficult for her to find.  I have read a couple more of them and I love them, but I hate the thought of finishing the and having no more to look forward to, so I space them out.  Silly, I know, but sadly true.
  9. Complete sets of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
    For some reason, I thought I needed “the complete set” of whatever classic author was on the radar at the moment.  So I bought them…in fact, I bought the book club editions, which have virtually no resale value when one decides to part with them.  I have not parted with them, but I’ve not read them either.  They do, at least, look good on the bookshelf.
  10. The Space Between Us & If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar
    I have been on an Indian literature kick for the past couple of years.  It’s not a constant pursuit, but when I find Indian novels that look interesting, I can’t resist buying them.  Not only did I purchase these, but I bought The Space Between Us at full price, which is almost unheard of for me.  They are still on the shelf, and I will get to them, but I signed myself up for all these reading challenges this year…

Updates 6-5-12: 

  • My husband and I (finally) listened to the first Larssen book – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – last year on a road trip.  We loved it, and we’ve been saving the other two until we can listen together.
  • I listened to This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald last year.  I recognize how good Fitzgerald always is, but I didn’t love the book.  So four down…
  • Listened to For Whom the Bell Tolls last year – well, half of it – and I thoroughly enjoyed the half I got through.  It is a long and heavy book, and after 9 discs, with 9 still to go, I needed some lighter fare.
  • I got rid of the Stephen King books (both heavy hardback editions), and I have Hearts in Atlantis on my audio shelf.  I doubt I will ever read Insomnia unless I get a renewed interest in all things Stephen King.  I’m still a fan, and I have read enough of his books to know that I’ve (likely) read the majority of his very best work already (The Stand, The Green Mile, The Tommyknockers, It, Salem’s Lot, all of his books from the 70s & 80s).  What I haven’t read (and still want to read) is already on my shelves (Lisey’s Story, Hearts in Atlantis, On Writing, some of his short stories / novellas).
  • I have added to my collect of Monica McInerney books as they have been published in the US, but have not (yet) gotten back to them.  I’m sort of savoring the memory of what I have read so far, and enjoying the anticipation of reading more.

That’s it!  More updates to come at some point…hopefully…unless I get sidetracked with some other wonderful book.  Too many books, and not nearly enough time to read them all.

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These (Books) Should Have Some Staying Power

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Everyone is welcome to join.

Just link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out your list! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic:
These Should Have Some Staying Power
(or Books Written In The Past Decade That I Hope People Are Still Reading In 2042)

1.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett – Excellently written and deeply moving, this is a powerful & thought provoking reminder of part of our nation’s history.

2.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows – A beautifully written epistolary, and definitely worth of a place in the literary canon.

3.  Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling – Not only are they well crafted and packed with action, the story line from start to finish is incredible, and they have been instrumental in getting kids (even professed non-readers) steeped in reading again.

4.  Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larssen – With an unusual protagonist and an oddball sidekick, technological intrigue and danger in spades, this is a detective / mystery series that rises above the rest.

5.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen – So well researched and realistic that it is hard to believe this is “just” a novel, but it is, and it is stellar.

6.  The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas – Controversial, and therefore so worth the read.

7.  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – A gripping story that spans a generation (or two), an emigration to the U.S., and all the difficulties and joys that are part of life-changing events.

8.  No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy – It’s dark and disturbing and violent, and written so well that you can’t help but be effortlessly carried to the end on McCarthy’s words.

9.  Rain Gods by James Lee Burke – As will all of his novels, the writing is wonderful, but this one is an especially gripping, disturbing tale of serial murder.  Similar in scope & setting to No Country for Old Men, it is my favorite of the two, though both are worthy of being in the literary canon.

10.  South of Broad and My Reading Life by Pat Conroy – Really, I would say anything by Pat Conroy should have longevity, and there are several that have already proven their mettle, but since we’re focusing on the most recent decade, I must include both of these books.  Pat Conroy is as accomplished an author as we have currently writing, and I believe all of his works will have staying power for decades to come.