Regarding Difficult Books

Why reading deep and dense books in community is important to the life of the mind

“Don’t talk to me about it being harder or less fun to read. We are not here to toy with trivialities but to wrestle with the weightiness of the oversight of souls.”
-Ray Van Neste, PhD, University of Aberdeen, dean and professor of biblical studies in the School of Theology and Missions at Union University

There was discussion in our book club on the various challenges of reading through Dante. It’s work and sometimes it can feel overwhelming. This is an important quote to reflect upon as we commit to growth through broad and challenging study.

Loving God with all our minds is good and important work in the life of faith and witness. A studious and generous love for knowledge in order to be better equipped in scripture and reason is critical in an age of trivialities, distractions, deceptions, and disinformation. We have to be diligent and discerning in a highly curated and algorithmic based world of information and education on the internet.

The internet is primarily an individual based learning system devoid of an important component of Jesus-based, biblical discipleship: learning in community and connection to meaningful relationships of different ages, experiences and cultural or racial differences.

Extreme isolation and overly-independent learning is one of the primary challenges and dangers of the intellectual life today. We need to be exposed to healthy and wide conversations, encounter broad and different views and perspectives and be having conversations that expand beyond a self-built echo chamber. If we do not have much of this we can develop malformations of the life of the mind and build prideful conclusions that are rarely challenged or defended.

The Church, the believing community is a God ordained, safe but challenging place to do this good but difficult work together.