Taking every thought captive

Tim Challies posted extract from a chapter on Alexander Whyte by Warren Wiersbe that contains wise advice on reading (and buying) books: “Book Buyers and Book Readers“.\1/ I’m all for the pencil in hand, and felt convicted this morning that I haven’t been writing more of late, though I’ve been thinking plenty about what I’ve been reading.

Thanks to my friend (Mark) Alexander for pointing out the article to (Peter) Whyte. I think we can both endorse the sentiments of the extract from our (almost) namesake!!

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1. Tim Challies, “Book Buyers and Book Readers”, challies.com, 3 Apr 2011, online at http://www.challies.com/quotes/book-buyers-book-readers.

Mark Shead’s recent post “7 Ways To Upgrade Your Brain” makes some helpful points on reading, writing and thinking. I always enjoy the stimulus of reading how others view these vital activities. Now I’d better get down to a bit more thinking.

Tim Challies recently posted a series of articles on a topic dear to my heart that are well worth reading. I share his enthusiasm for books that he shared in ’5 Reasons Books Are Better Than E-Books’^\1/. I’m also with him on ’5 Reasons E-Books Are Better Than Books’^\2/. Yes, e-books do have some advantages, but they are still outweighed by the books’ advantages. Like Tim, I just can’t imagine having to move house. It would be three times worse for me than for him. One mitigating factor is that I tend to buy reference materials as e-books in preference to books, especially when they are considerably cheaper. Then I feel guilty when I make little use of them. Are e-books making me more covetous?

But it’s not just sufficient to pit the arguments against each other and take your pick. There is a need to think through the consequences, which Tim points out well in ‘Books & E-Books, Media & Messages’.^\3/ I agree wholeheartedly that convenience is not sufficient reason to abandon the book in favour of the e-Book. The medium has a definite impact on the message. E-media appear less permanent (Tim’s point about permanence notwithstanding), and paradoxically I suspect we give more credence to online, e-sources without sufficient critical appraisal. It’s similar to the appeal to “it was on television” as the ultimate “proof” of a fact. We can certainly read books uncritically, but the e-medium somehow seems to reduce our ability or willingness to engage critically with the content. McLuhan and Postman are definitely worth considering in this whole area. And Nicholas Carr is also onto something important in The Shallows^\4/, which I’m planning to read later in the year.

When we come to read our e-Bibles we are going to run into some problems. I just can’t study with an e-Bible because you can’t see enough of the text at once (not even on my 24 inch monitor), or mark it up the way you need to make the study worthwhile. I certainly value tools like Logos, especially to check my rusty Greek and Hebrew, but they are just that: tools, not replacements for the text.

I think we’ve already run into a similar problem in churches that rely on song projection instead of hymn books. Sung praise is becoming more like karaoke than sacred worship. The medium has made the shift possible, and the reason is most likely convenience. The congregation may sing more loudly because they no longer have their faces buried in a book, but I find I’ve forgotten the previous line or two very quickly after singing them, whereas with a hymn book I can understand better what I am singing, and comprehend the meaning much more easily. I can’t think I’m alone in that, advancing age and declining memory notwithstanding. What will be the impact of preaching to a congregation who only have an e-Bible? Shorter sermons that engage the text less critically?

It’s not just the ‘E’s in our food* we need to be concerned about, it’s the ‘e-’s in our reading that will have a serious impact on our intellectual and spiritual understanding. Since Christians are people of The Book, this should be a serious concern to us. Convenience is not enough to switch to e-Bibles, just as pragmatism is never enough to make informed and safe moral judgments. I’m going to need more convincing before I make e-reading my staple biblical intake. Tim’s articles have confirmed that for me. Moderation and small doses will certainly be my practice for the forseeable future.

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References:

1. Tim Challies, ’5 Reasons Books Are Better Than E-Book’, challies.com, 17 Aug 2010, http://www.challies.com/articles/5-reasons-books-are-better-than-e-books (accessed 7 Sep 2010)

2. ——, ’5 Reasons E-Books Are Better Than Books’, challies.com, 18 Aug 2010, http://www.challies.com/articles/5-reasons-e-books-are-better-than-books (accessed 7 Sep 2010)

3. ——, ‘Books & E-Books, Media & Messages’, challies.com, 20 Aug 2010, http://www.challies.com/articles/books-e-books-media-messages (accessed 7 Sep 2010)

4. Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010). Carr blogs at Rough Type, http://www.roughtype.com/.

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Notes:

* Approved European food additives all have an ‘E’ prefixed to the universal reference number.

I’ve spent a profitable week reading. Some weeks it doesn’t feel like that, but this past week was encouraging. Tim Carmody put Rolf Engelsing’s ‘Lesenrevolution’ at the top of his 10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books^\1/. Engelsing saw a shift in C18 reading patterns from intensive reading a small number of text to extensive reading of large numbers of text, most of which would only be read once. But Carmody’s not convinced that this is the real revolution, since both types of reading be be identified before and since C18.

Engelsin’s distinction does have application to Christian reading, however. To illustrate the distinction, Carmody contrasts Bible and newspaper reading. Certainly for Christians the Bible ought to be read intensively. It has been the practice of believers since the Bible was written, but it definitely in serious decline today. That is so, despite the plethora of Bible reading programs available (a selection of which can be found on my church’s Web site).

This week I came across another program that will no doubt not suit the modern taste for sixty second quiet times. Grant Horner’s ten-chapter-a-day program (HT: Tim Challies^\2/) could even qualify for intensive and extensive at the same time. Ten chapters is certainly intensive, but by reading from ten different books at a time it is much more intensive than other programs. Its consecutive reading of different chapters over a long period appeals to me as a way to see the connections between different parts of Scripture. I am convinced that cross-references alone are insufficient to see the connections, nor is Beale and Carson’s excellent and profitable guide to the NT’s use of the Old.^\3/

I’ve noticed how in recent years I can more readily identify connections, allusions and the like in Scripture. I’ve also noticed the blank looks one other people’s faces when I mention them in conversation or study groups. I’m sure that it is only intensive reading over several decades that enable me to see them.

I’ve never followed any formal reading plan for long, but I have decided to give Horner’s a go with one alteration. I’m keeping all of Paul’s letters in list 3, and everything from Hebrews on in list 4. I don’t find the length of time required a problem, I doubt any serious reader would. It remains to be seen whether I can stick to it, since I regularly get “stuck” on verses that leap off the page at me. I think Martyn Lloyd-Jones was onto something when he recommended stopping at them before moving on (in Preaching and Preachers, I think).

Horner’s plan applies intensive and extensive reading to Scripture. I’m sure that each of us ought to have a small number of other books that we read intensively, besides the Bible. Pilgrim’s Progress, Calvin’s Institutes, and C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity regularly appear on suggested lists. Everything else should be in the extensive category. And I don’t think this is a luxury for any Christian, much less so for preachers. John Brand recently quoted John Wesley’s rebuke to a preacher whose reading was far from adequate:

“What has exceedingly hurt you in times past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the appetite for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago.

It is lively but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. O begin!”^\4/

What a rebuke! But he’s right. It fits with what I recall of James Montgomery Boice’s advice to someone contemplating Christian ministry–study literature before theology.

Extensive reading is not a magic formula for terrific preaching, but it is evidently a means that God regularly blesses. It strikes me that part of the reason why it works is that intensive Bible reading enables us to engage critically with extra-biblical extensive reading. Our extensive reading ought to go beyond biblical and theological topics because such books enable effective critical engagement with the world’s ideas. That can only sharpen our gospel perspective. Without intensive reading of Scripture it may blunt it, or even damage or destroy our faith.

Extensive reading holds little or no danger, so long as we engage in intensive Scripture reading. That’s not closing our minds, but treasuring the most valuable book we possess, and using it to inform our judgment of other books. I’m happy to continue my pattern of combining intensive Scripture reading with extensive extra-biblical reading.

It’s definitely been a profitable week’s reading.

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References:

1. Tim Carmody, “10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books”, The Atlantic, 25 August 2010, http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/08/10-reading-revolutions-before-e-books/62004/.

2. Tim Challies, “Ten Chapters Per Day”, challies.com, 18 August 2010, http://www.challies.com/christian-living/ten-chapters-per-day.

3. G. K. Beale & D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007).

4. John Brand, “Preachers Should be Readers”, Encouraging Expository Excellence, 27 July 2010, http://www.encouragingexpositoryexcellence.co.uk/?p=559.

Patrick Kingsley wrote an interesting article in The Guardian last Thursday on ‘The art of slow reading‘. In it he mentions Tracy Seeley’s students’ idea of disconnecting from the Internet for a day a week as a way to combat the effect it has on reading.  This is not as unrealistic as some people consider. It just requires discipline, something that even moderate Internet use undermines easily. I think it is certainly well worth the benefit, not that I’ve managed a day a week, but a day every week or so.

I’m convinced that the Internet is contributing in large measure to a shorter attention span. I find Nicholas Carr’s experience to mirror my own somewhat. However, I think that spending time reading serious books and articles offline does help stem the tide. Without it I think my reading skills and attention span would be much less than at present.

Offline reading also stimulates reflection and engagement. Writing comments and criticism is much easier in offline mode. Critical engagement with online reading tends to negligible at best, non-existent at worst. Online reading has a tendency to fragmentation , as hyperlinks are all to easily followed on impulse, and there is a greater temptation to skim the followed links. Footnotes seem to stimulate later follow up reading for me, rather than instantly looking them up and reading right away. Perhaps it is the potential for ephemerality on the Internet that makes me thing that if I don’t read something now it might have disappeared by the time I get round to reading it. It destroys the pleasure of delayed gratification.

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References:

Nicholas Carr, ‘Experiments in delinkification‘, Rough Type blog, 31 May 2010, with footnote on 4 June 2010.

Launcelot R. Fletcher, The Free Lance Academy (Home of Slow Reading).

Patrick Kingsley, ‘The art of slow reading‘ in The Guardian, 15 July 2010.

Tracy Seeley’s blog, http://tracyseeley.wordpress.com/ (Where the books are always slow and the comment thread is always open).

John Brand has posted a helpful reminder on the importance of reading, and some strategies for making it more effective. ‘Of making many books…‘ will challenge and encourage. I’m just about to get my reading bag packed for holidays (so this occasional post is not a sign of resurrection on the blog just yet). I reckon it’s my most important piece of packing, though I rarely make it through the pile. I’ll be bearing John’s comments in mind as I get to work on the contents.

His follow up postings, ‘Preachers must be readers‘ and ‘More Quotes on Reading‘, give some encouraging snippets on how important reading is for preachers and serious Bible students.

Christopher Smith has a thought-provoking article in Bible Study Magazine (Jug/Aug 2009, Vol. 1, No. 5).

There really are some bizarre chapter divisions, and the online version of the article has an animated review of Colossians that shows the problem well.

There’s also a reference to an IBS project called The Books of the Bible that presents each book without any chapters and verses. There are some free PDF downloads so you can sample the experience. There is also a helpful article by Gordon Fee entitled Why Christians Read Their Bibles Poorly that gives some pointers on how to read Scripture well.

Yesterday Tim Challies wrote an insightful piece that argues persuasively that books are the perfect technology. I couldn’t agree more. I haven’t succumbed to the temptation of the Kindle, though I’ve considered it, but I’m less and less persuaded by the benefits of electronic media for reading. Almost all of my serious reading is done from dead trees, and I think Challies is right when he says, “Despite being printed on dead trees, there is a living quality to books that is lost on e-readers.”

Apart from the way we interact with a real book versus an electronic one, I have some treasured volumes that could never be replaced by electronic copies. They belonged to real people from my past and my family’s past, many now in glory. They have memories that nothing electronic could ever match.

And I’m also sticking to pen(cil) and paper for my serious writing/thinking. I find that I produce much better writing that way than on the computer, though I usually transfer it later to the computer.

No batteries, no booting, just straight down to business: reading, writing, and thinking. Definitely the perfect technology.

I found Sven Birkets’s essay on Resisting the Kindle in The Atlantic (2 Mar 2009) a useful reflection on page-to-screen transfer. I, too, am uneasy. But as I read the essay, it struck me that many of the things he says have implications for Christian worship as well.

He makes a compelling point about the the loss of context by using such technology. And when we take context down to the immediate context of any part of a work the loss of context become much more apparent.

Birkets’s story about the Blackberry search for a line of poetry reminded me of a similar circumstance several years ago. I was walking with a group of friends after evening worship when someone mentioned a verse of Scripture, but couldn’t remember the exact wording or reference. One of the group immediately whipped out an electronic Bible he had just bought, and tried to find the verse. Much to his annoyance, I was able to turn it up in a pocket Bible well before he could locate it.

My friend was simply locating information in an amorphous mass, however sacred. As I recall, I had a rough location in terms of the book concerned through knowledge of the text, and a memory of a position on the page. These two pieces of immediate contextual information enabled rapid discovery. There is no such thing as position on the page with electronic text. Even a large monitor still leaves a tiny window on the text (I find 24 inches still not enough). But a physical book enables much more of the immediate context of a work to be visible.

That’s why I’m not entirely convinced about projecting the words of hymns for church services. Each verse becomes disconnected with those preceding and following. Singing from a book gives the overall context of the stanza in the hymn, and enables the worshipper to interact with the hymn as a whole, rather than verse by verse or line by line, however the hymn is projected. Not even a Kindle hymn book would convert me. I have the same concerns about both ways of displaying text, when access trumps content.

Kindle may not be the Devil’s calling card, but we ought not to embrace it unthinkingly with evangelical zeal. All technology has implications and consequences. All things may be lawful, but not all things are helpful. Projecting a song’s words for a karaoke session is probably useful, though I have no experience of it. But Christian worship is not like karaoke, and projection of hymn words can make it seem little more. It takes more than a reminder of the words to make for effective worship.

Birkets also talks about the loss of historical reality to the author that is likely to take place if we become Kindlized (well, a horrible condition deserves a horrible word to describe it). Christian worship is grounded in the historical reality of God’s salvation. Dare we use means that erode historical connections?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was interviewed on Charlie Rose Friday night (6 Mar 2009) talking about Google and technology. He gets down to reading about 42:00, and I’m glad he shares my concerns about reading books versus learning via Google.

(HT: John Dyer & Nicholas Carr)