Thursday, December 30, 2021

Who Reads Anymore?

I’ve heard that Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time may be the most famous book people have never read.

That’s right: Never.

People sure do talk about it. It’s sold ten million or so copies. Lots of people cite the title of the book, laud it, and claim to have found their opinions confirmed by it — but few of these have actually ever read it.

In a way, maybe that’s understandable. It is, after all, a fairly challenging book. For a mathematician, it’s a good read, perhaps; for the average person it’s a quick road to Slumberland. Even though it’s pretty short it only takes a few pages to render most folks unconscious.

The Hawking Index

Hawking’s not the only one who gets this sort of treatment. According to statistician Jordan Ellenberg, quite a few other titles rate high on what he calls the “Hawking Index” (i.e. authors whose books are purchased and praised more than they are actually read). Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History is another. The most recent examples included Thomas Piketty’s Capital, and Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices. And a surprise case is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby.

Too bad: I always rather liked that one.

Aspirational Reading

The Hawking Index is a sign of our times. According to newspaper columnist Joseph Brean, we live in “The Golden Age of Aspirational Reading”. We want to read a whole lot of stuff … a lot of it we admit would be good for us to read … but we just … don’t.

Now, if you own a copy of Hawking, or Picketty, or Fukuyama, or even Fitzgerald, and you just don’t get around to reading it, you’re probably not going to die.

But do you think that the same is true of the word of God?

Biblical Literacy

“Man does not live by bread alone,” we quote, “but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” A nice sentiment.

Too bad that's sometimes all it is.

Apparently, there are somewhere around six billion Bibles out there — some may have been burned or destroyed by now, but also it’s likely there have been more printed than we know. If sales are any indicator, the world is saying that this is the most important book every printed. By far.

But I suspect that in spite of all that, it probably rates very high on the Hawking Index. And I can’t help but wondering how often people do with it exactly what they do with Hawking’s book — talk about what they think it might say, but really make it up as they go along, not having the foggiest idea of whether or not they’re telling the truth.

Could Christians really be doing something like that?

Fact Check

Have you ever read it? I mean, have you ever gone cover-to-cover? Or do you know small sections you once read in a religious class or heard quoted a few times, scraps of a few psalms, John 3:16, a couple of verses in Ephesians … and really have not much idea what’s in most other sections?

Let’s suppose I asked you to name six of the twelve disciples, or to finish the quotation, “Blessed are the meek …”, or give the number of churches messaged in Revelation, or if I asked you who was “the father of those who have faith”, or else “the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” — how well would you do on a quiz like that?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a quiz like that shouldn’t be hard; after all, every one of those questions is keyed to a major issue in the Bible.

I didn’t exactly ask you for Ezekiel’s hat size.

An Analogy

Back when we were dating, my (future) wife was in China for six months. That was tough. In those days, there was no internet allowed. I got up at 2 a.m., wrapped myself in a blanket, sat in the cold basement where no one could hear me, and phoned half way around the world. Through chattering teeth and in short fragments of simple English I would plead with the operator to let me speak to my girlfriend for a few precious moments.

It wasn’t fun. Sometimes it didn’t work at all. But it was necessary if our relationship was to continue and remain healthy during the time of her absence, so it was worth it.

We also wrote letters, of course, quite a few — and yes, they were on paper, with a pen, and so forth (this really was the dark ages). I won’t inflict any part of their substance upon you. But now, imagine if my wife had arrived home to discover a pile of unopened letters sitting on the top of my dresser. Would she not be surprised? Would she not be hurt that I had not bothered to open and read all of the things she had written with such great pains during our time of separation? And what would it say about my attitude to her if I had done that?

Moreover, what are the chances that I would have missed out on something important to our relationship? How could a relationship continue at all, if my attitude to her words to me was so cavalier? And why should she have married me if that was all I thought of her?

Well, you can see the application.

Why We Read

It’s not because it’s easy. It’s not because we necessarily want to. It’s because we are desirous of a truer, deeper relationship with the Author of this book. Until he returns, this word is what we have. And it may be difficult, at times, confusing at others, challenging always, and convicting — but he has given us his Spirit to be our guide. And no matter what, we push through all that for the sake of the One we love.

Love and the word of God. They go together. The psalmist sure got that:

“With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”

Three chapters a day = read through in 1 year. One chapter each day = done in 3-1/2 years. It’s not impossible. Not nearly impossible.

Maybe we cannot personally take the Bible off the world’s Hawking Index.

But we can take it off yours.

2 comments :

  1. Hmm, used a search engine on bible to try and locate Ezekiel's hat but could not find it. Which version of the bible are you reading O.O ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was a trick question.

      Everybody knows that Ezekiel wore a do-rag.

      Delete