A flurry of text messages has preceded this cosy gathering. Arrangements, book recommendations, and then gasps and comments as the chosen book has been devoured at varying speeds by the different members of the group.
We are a book group who have been meeting, with various different members, for about ten years. I’ve only just rejoined having moved away, but I’m currently living within reach and was quick to get back into the fray of literary – and not so literary – discussion.
It started with a few of us – friends who worked together – wanting to be motivated to read more. But also, from my point of view, as a means of deepening relationships with people with whom I’d love to share the gospel. It was an opportunity for time beyond our work parameters, but also, as we had a shared reading experience, potential opportunity for meaningful discussion about topics raised within the books. My prayer was, and still is, that these discussions give me space to speak gospel truth into my friends’ lives.
Which books?
As Christians, reading underpins our spiritual life as we encounter the living word of God in the Bible, and hopefully find Christian books to be invaluable as we journey on. I would implore every Christian to prioritise this reading above any fictional delving.
Why, then, give any time and energy to reading fiction? Why buy into the recommendations being bandied around over our text messages and then spend an evening discussing that which isn’t explicitly Christian with those who, by and large, are not following Jesus?
Loving literature
I used to spend hours reading as a child, escaping into the worlds that writers created and vicariously adventuring alongside the characters. It’s a habit that has lasted throughout my adult life, and I’ll more often than not have a novel to hand for those snatched moments before bed or when children are quietly busy. I often think that it should be my Bible that is my habitual pick-up, and I’m trying to do that more. Not that I’m dropping the novels, but that I want God’s word to shape me more than any other words I read.
It was while at university, studying English Literature, that I came to faith and I gradually came to realise that I was being impacted by what I was reading. Paul writes in Romans 12 that we are not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We’re to be in the image of Christ, not the world.
Literature – of all different genres – filled my working hours, and so I was being immersed into compelling worlds created by various writers. Writers who rarely presented gospel thinking and living as the right way. Worldviews and perspectives that were often contrary to the way of Christ. Constructed worlds that sought to conform me to that way of thinking. My mind, and sometimes my heart, became a battleground as I grew in faith and sought to think and live differently to the ways advocated and presented in these books.
Eyes to see
Before I had become a Christian, I agreed with the statement by CS Lewis, and still agree, that ‘my own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others’. Through reading fiction, we are able to have ‘myriad eyes’ and see beyond our own worlds. Exploration and experience through the vehicle of a book. Even better when it’s well written and so all the more captivating. But as we step into the vehicle, we need to remember that we lay ourselves open for battle. While it is beneficial to see beyond our ‘tiny world’ through these ‘myriad eyes’, we need to guard ourselves – eyes and ears – amidst the language, images and ideas that accompany these explorations. Sometimes shutting the book even.
Guardedly with gospel eyes open and biblical thinking switched on, (while enjoying the literary experience), books can help us understand the culture we live in, and the people who inhabit it. As our book group reads, discusses and engages, the worldview of the writer is evident and the perspectives of my unbelieving friends become apparent. Their desires, their needs, their disappointments dip in and out of our reflections on someone else’s fictional, yet often apt, creation. Amidst these stories, I seek to present Jesus – the true, eternal and meaningful narrative that meets all of our needs.
