The Need to Read

There is a need to read. CNN reported this week that the Pew Forum conducted a 32 question religion quiz with 3,400 people living in America. In their findings they discovered that atheists and agnostics scored higher than evangelicals. Those in the “Bible belt” scored the lowest. The poll was certainly not exhaustive in its findings but it does represent what the church knows and those findings are not good. One conclusion is obvious; those who read did better than those who do not.

A 2004 NEA survey found that most adult Americans do not read one book a year. They found that the average 15-24 year old spends less than seven minutes a day reading leisurely. Another study found that 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book in 2007. Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines. The average American watching 4 hours of TV a week will spend 9 years of their life in front the TV by the age 65. The average American parent spends 3.5 minutes per week in meaning conversation with their children. The average American child watches 1,680 minutes per week watching television. People are reading less and watching more and knowing less.

When I first read George Orwell’s 1984 I feared what most young Americans feared living during the Cold War, Big Brother and oppression from without. But what I missed in that government education by day and TBS education by night was Aldous Huxley’s prophecy in Brave New World. Neil Postman puts it this way, “As he (Huxley) saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think…Orwell feared those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one to read one…Huxley feared that what we love would ruin us.” It appears that Huxley was on the road to right especially if we apply these thoughts to the church.

Does the church know what or how to think in this culture of amusements or is she sliding with the culture into the same ruin of passivity and egoism? I would argue that if you asked the “evangelicals” of those 3,400 polled by the Pew Forum on religious knowledge if they cared about the questions they were being asked the answer would have been, “No, what does it have to do with me.” The church does not know what she is laughing about and why she has stopped thinking. Therefore the following questions are necessary: How many hours a week is the average church member spending reading, hearing, praying and singing the Word of God? How many hours a week is the average church member spending in reading good Christian books and discussing them with other church goers?

David prays in Psalm 119:17, Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Life in the ways of God is through the transforming and renewing of the mind with the knowledge of God and his will (Rom.12:1-2). The turning away from worthless things and worthless thoughts happens in the context of treasuring the knowledge and will of God revealed through his Word. But it also occurs where the truth about God and his will is discovered in good Christian literature. This week I struggled with discouragement and was tempted to shrink back into passivity and egoism. But God through his Word studied, talked about, taught and written on my heart and the use of good Christian literature my mind and affections were renewed and transformed that I might live in his ways.

The apostle Paul uses the phrase, “Do you not know” thirteen times. Jesus is recorded as saying, “Have you not read” seven times, and “have you never read” three times in the gospels. The prophet Isaiah says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” (Isa.40:28) What are you knowing, what are you reading, what are you hearing read and discussing? It is the unsearchable knowledge and understanding of God that is for the shaping and imaging of the church for his glory The church must be attending to every opportunity to read the Scriptures, hear them read, taught, preached and participate in the discussion of them. The church must also be reading good Christian literature. By reading good Christian literature 15 minutes a day each church member could be reading 20 average Christian books a year. Tolle Lege, take up and read. There is a need to read.