Books that Matter

R. R. Reno has a great post on "Books that Matter" at the First Things blog. Here are the last couple paragraphs, which I found wonderful:

Beware, then, reading solely for agreement. Few think their ideas to the end. Few write with the penetrating clarity necessary to see what is at stake in the beliefs we accept and reject. To see and know the full power and attraction of falsehood may be a necessary preparation for more fully accepting the truth. I do not deny that, in the end, beauty is one with truth and goodness. But in this life we are almost always a long way from the end.

Even the best books that convey the most reliable truths are not perfect. We cannot read our way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Golden books, whether great, semi-great, or unique to our strange intellectual and spiritual circumstances, are never pure. Only one book is without imperfection. But the Bible is not really a book at all. Golden books guide the mind and excite our desire for truth. The Bible does surgery on our soul. It shimmers with the living presence of the divine Word. We do not so much read as hear it. And in hearing, the sacred page does what no human book can do. It pierces our minds and hearts, cutting to the joints and marrow of our thoughts and intentions (Heb. 4:12).

Nietzsche Family Circus

Family Circus + Nietzsche = A great way to recover after reading too much theory.

Church and Theater (Church as Theater)

What belonged to the theater was brought into the church, and what belonged to the church into the theater. The better Christian feelings were held up in comedies to the sneer of the multitude. Everything was so changed into light jesting, that earnestness was stripped of its worth by wit, and that which is holy became a subject for banter and scoffing in the refined conversation of worldly people. Yet worse was it that the unbridled delight of these men in dissipating enjoyments threatened to turn the church into a theater, and the preacher into a play actor. If he would please the multitude, he must adapt himself to their taste, and entertain them amusingly in the church. They demanded also in the preaching something that should please the ear; and they clapped with the same pleasure the comedian in the holy place and him on the stage. And alas there were found at that period too many preachers who preferred the applause of men to their souls’ health.

[Gregory of Nazianzus, late 4th century]

(h/t: More than 95 Theses)

Vocab Fun with David Bentley Hart

From "When the Going was Bad," Hart's review (available at First Things) of Evelyn Waugh's collected travel writings:

a-cid-u-lous: adj. Slightly sour in taste or in manner.

at-ra-bil-ious: adj. 1. Inclined to melancholy. 2 Having a peevish disposition; surly.

Watch for more vocab fun in the future!