Free People. Free Readers
The Importance of Reading Widely For Faith, Intellectual, and Democratic Development
People just need to read more.
I know that sounds offensive to folks who don’t think of themselves as “natural readers1,” but facts are facts. Reading remains the most effective way to understand complex ideas, the best way to learn, grow, and expand a person’s worldview, and, persists as one of the dominant ways to transmit faith to the next generation.
Increasingly, people are pushing against reading. There have been widely talked about book bans. In Houston, public school libraries are being transformed into a pivotal cog in the school to prison pipeline as the new superintendent turns libraries into discipline centers. Even independent bookstores find themselves in the government crosshairs for the books they sell.
The very forces who used to cheer on the “marketplace of ideas,” have come to realize their ideas aren’t all that marketable, therefore, rather than re-forming or reforming their ideas, they will simply eliminate the marketplace.
This is a bad idea, but not for the reason you might suspect. It is a bad idea because the only way anyone’s one ideas become better, more sophisticated, healthy, and helpful is for them to meet the resistance of contrary ideas.
A Quick Example
Years ago a father came to me struggling with his pre-teen daughter’s newly professed atheism. He was stunned and worried, as many parents might be. He wanted some apologetic resources, hoping to concretize the belief system he and his wife wished for her. I encouraged him to go the other way.
“Tell her to follow it all the way down,” I said. “If she’s going to be an atheist, tell her not to be Twitter atheist. Be a real one. Read everything she can." I counseled him to encourage her. No. I didn’t want to encourage her budding atheism, but to encourage her investigation through reading.
Ten years later, his daughter is deeply connected to her local church. In fact, her spiritual practices are the most robust in the family. She got there, not from being denied ideas, but through exposure to them. In fact, much of the current — and needed — emphasis on “deconstruction” is simply a wide spread conversation about reading, ideas, interpretations, and spiritual practices denied people when they were younger. Deconstruction, largely, isn’t about denying God, Jesus, faith, or the church, but opposing the intellectual, interpretive, and spiritual rigidity too many families and churches forced on young minds by embargoing ideas.
As an undergraduate, my major study emphasis was adolescent development. What was true then is still true. If you want people — especially children — to develop a flourishing faith, one of the statistically top rated ways of doing so is reading.
We should encourage reading and we should encourage reading widely. If God is perfect and God is love and love cast out all fear, no Christian should ever fear any book.
Any. Book. Ever.
This is especially true given the fact that we know that reading is the major way we develop faith, empathy, discipline, and hosts of other positive traits. So here’s what you need to know about reading.
There’s No Such Thing As A “Natural Reader.”
None of us are born with a book in our hands. Reading is a skill. I am a slow reader. I get distracted. When I was a boy, my dad forced me and my brother to read at least 30-minutes a day, especially in the summer. I still have the same practice. I set a timer for 30-minutes and read. If I want to read more — which I often do — I read for more time, but it is not “natural” to me. Like exercise, it’s a discipline anyone can develop.
Own Lots of Books.
Everyone should have more books than they can read (and buy the ones you can). Why more books? Because humans are moody. It’s helpful to have an army of books to fit the mood you’re in at the moment.
Audiobooks Are Okay
I listen to audiobooks. In fact, there are some books I’d never get to if they weren’t audiobooks. They are simply too long. At any moment I have three to five books going — novels, books for spiritual and theological formation, books about preaching and communication, and something either historical, biographical, or self-help. Part of my day, each day is spent with each of those. (Did I mention my book are in audio format?)
Read Books About Other People
One of the great benefits of reading is gaining a window into the lives of other people. Books are inhabited by characters from another race, from the LGBTQIA+ community, from another country, or living in another time. This is the only access many of us have to the lived experience of others. We need to know that everyone’s life is not like ours. This is also why banning books is so incredibly harmful.
On Feb. 14, 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa2 ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. Rushdie said a fatwa is not only a death sentence, it’s also a life sentence. A fatwa is forever. On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was attacked. He was stabbed multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture in New York.
He was attacked because of a book. And I don’t think the folks supporting book bans and idea imprisonment know that they are, in small, but important ways, creating a more violent, less intelligent and faithful world.
More about “natural readers” below.
https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-fatwa-a-religious-studies-professor-explains-188866