I enjoy books that help me to fly by faith not show me how to arrive by faith. I hate arriving to soon at a conclusion only to back pedal later on because I have grown. My worst nightmare is that I would fix myself to an unmovable position on a moving issue. Many cultural truths shift and when they do some Christians can be locked in the spiritual rigamortis of traditionalism. If you’re flying the ground can change and you will be fine but if you have arrived than cultural earthquakes can cause you to feel more than a little helpless. Planes are made to do their work aloft not stay on the ground. I like books that help keep my landing gear up. Here are some tips for reading books that will get your plane off the ground. Unless you like the runway…
Here are some of the questions I ask a book before I commit myself to it…
- Will you help me learn to discern spiritual truth or are you going to discern spiritual truth for me?
- Will you help reveal my personal or cultural blind spots convincingly?
- Are you going to bring me to interact or participate with your big idea?
- Do you use the work of Christ as redeemer and victor as the power for change or fear mongering and guilt?
- Are you more practical in relevance or application? You should be relevant enough for me to make application into my own complex life.
- Do you take into account that the I do not live in a vacuum? You should not be overly ideal but convince me of a truth that will work within my messy and unpredictable real world.
- Will you help me to see what personal and cultural pretensions are causing me to miss the big idea your presenting?
- Do you presume that God is already at work in me (even in the bad things) and help me to build on the past and redeem it or are you going to tell me I should start all over again?
- Do you want to replace my faith with certainty?
- Are you presenting doubt as the incubator of faith, not it’s enemy?
I have found that if a book that I am reading does not feed my growing needs, questions and appetites than I don’t want to waste my time with it. As a pastor I have found the character of my preaching and teaching takes the shape of how and what I read.
What about you? What have you found that makes a book truly life changing?
Good thoughts. We all have authors or movements whose stamp of approval tends to encourage or discourage us from reading books. Most of us flip through the index, bibliography, or table of contents to see if we have some points of identification w/ the author. Such strategies can be useful but can also keep us trapped in the same old ideologies. This is especially true when we are or have been involved in movements that, as your #1 says, discern spiritual truth for us. Therefore, #1 is a very, very good place for peops to start in questioning their assumptions. I wish I’d had it emblazoned on my mind many years ago.
Thinking for myself is something that a certain form of fundamentalism almost took away from me. Some would view questioning as a form of rebellion. 🙂 I appreciate what you said “trapped in the same old ideologies” Sometime authors write 250 pages of old ideologies or culturally outdated ideologies in new clothes.
I love number eight because it’s something I have to constantly remind myself about when I write. It’s really easy to get on a high horse of “spiritual revelation” and forget that God is bigger and greater and at work more than we.
I seriously love these questions. Great!