Reading as a Spiritual Practice
Reading good books can make us more truly human
I loved books as a kid. I continue to love them now. When I was young, at the start of every summer my parents would take my brother and I to the local public library to check out a bunch of books. I favored books about sports, both fiction and non-fiction. In middle and high school, I became an avid science fiction reader, enjoying the works of Isaac Asimov, George Herbert, Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke, and others.
I still read science fiction once in a while, but most of my reading habits are directed elsewhere these days. I read the Bible, as someone who is trying to follow the Way of Jesus. Reading philosophy is part of my vocation, and I usually enjoy it. I also read works in Christian ethics, Christian spirituality, and theology. In recent years I’ve spent more time reading fiction, both classic and contemporary literary fiction, as well as the occasional John Grisham novel just for fun.
I recently read Jessica Hooten Wilson’s excellent book, Reading for the Love of God. I marked it up during my first reading, and have been going back through it to more fully take in the wisdom in its pages. I love what she says about the importance of reading:
Reading must be a daily spiritual practice for the Christian. A life of reading counteracts the malformation of screen and digital technology. It acts as an antidote to the bad habits of consumerism, utilitarianism, individualism, and the other wayward -isms. In contrast to many other pastimes, reading demands engagement. It asks something of the participant. It cultivates that person’s imagination and increases their vision of the world (15-16).
While I wouldn’t say that reading must be a daily practice in a legalistic sense, a daily or near-daily habit of reading is certainly good for the soul. It can help us know God more deeply. It can help us escape the -isms Wilson alludes to above. Reading is good for our character, as it can help us grow in both intellectual and moral virtue. Reading good books can help us become better people because it demands something of us. It demands our active attention. It demands that we enter into the world of others. It takes us out of ourselves, which in an era of algorithms that often feed the worst parts of our self-centered nature, we need.
For followers of Jesus reading the Bible is key, but reading other books can be an important spiritual practice as well. As Wilson says, reading cultivates imagination and expands vision. We need this more than ever, when it is so easy to read only content that reinforces our limited current perspectives, rather than challenging us in ways that we all need to be challenged. All truth is God’s truth, and there is plenty of it to be found out there in a variety of good books. Reading other books also helps us to be better readers of the Bible. Certainly other books don’t have the same authority as the Bible, but they can be formative in very significant ways. We cannot have a conversation face-to-face with Augustine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Frederick Douglass, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, or Dallas Willard, but we can engage in a different sort of conversation as we read, reflect, and talk with others about their writings. When appropriate, we can be posthumously mentored by some of the greatest hearts and minds from the past.
Good literature can reveal spiritual realities in ways that are delightful and instructive. The Lord of the Rings can help cultivate our imagination and increase our vision of reality in ways that are good for us and others. It is well worth our time to read the novels of Wendell Berry, Marilynne Robinson, and William Kent Krueger, or classic works like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, or Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo (this one is on my summer reading list). If you’re looking for ideas, Wilson’s book has an appendix with reading lists of great books for children and adults. Karen Swallow Prior’s On Reading Well is also a great place to look for those wanting a list of classic books to dive into this summer.
Wilson also contends that reading good books well can help us understand and love our neighbor. We can understand the perspective of other people in the here and now, as well as that of people in other times and places. And if we read books simply in order to enjoy them, “we may find we have more means with which to love and enjoy God” (59). That sounds like a worthy way to spend our time!
So read the Bible. Read good books, past and present (but especially past). Read good literature, poetry, biography, history, philosophy, etc., whatever interests you. Read a book from someone who represents a different religious, ethical, or political perspective than your own. You may not change your mind about your views, but you might come to understand how and why those you disagree with believe what they do. That’s a worthy goal. You might start seeing them in a new light, as fellow humans made in God’s image. I’ve found this to be true in my own life.
Finally, I love this from the last chapter of Reading for the Love of God:
Since the early Church, Christians have prized words. We should continue to be those weirdos who spend less time in the virtual ether and more time in stories, poetry, and drama…Christians are called to be the most human among us—readers—those who have not forgotten what it means to be a bookish people, for in the beginning was the Word, and in the end is the book of life (154).
Amen.
If you’re interested, connect with me on Goodreads. I get some good recommendations there, not so much from the platform, but from the people on it. For that reason alone, it’s worth it.