Here’s a good question, and I’m thinking you have thought about it aplenty and probably not at length at any one time: How do you choose what to read? Photo by Alexei Maridashvili on UnsplashScot’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I find it salutary to pray, Scot, as I desultorily listen to my whims. Often has made an evident difference: right book at the right time. I appreciated knowing how and what you read (you're a machine!) and I have freshly resolved to read more and better. Can't come up with the necessary quality of thought in our profession without a lot of input—and throughput in our teaching and writing...
What are you reading? Why are you reading it? What are your patterns of reading?
“Learning from the Germans” Susan Norman. Recommended by our Lutheran pastor guide on a recent tour of Germany. Compares how the Germans have sought to “work out” their Nazi history with how America has treated its slavery history. Very insightful and provocative.
“My Body is Not a Prayer Request” by Amy Kenny, reflections from a disabled person on disability in the Bible and her experience as a disabled person in churches. A different take on disability, healing and how we define and treat “disabilities.”
My reading is not at organized as yours but similarly eclectic. I read scripture in the morning, too much news, and then a mix of books I’ve found through podcasts and reading and friends recommendation. I was also raised to consider fiction a waste and “not true.” But I was a rebellious reader and read a lot of fiction as a teen and then became an English and theology major. Stories - whether or not they “happened in real life” - are how we explore and learn about other ways of being without having to try everything ourselves. Learning how to interpret “story” through literary skills has been so important for my theological and biblical studies.
Another one: Which novelist do you draw from the most?
Madeline L’engle, JRR Tolkien
What do you get out of fiction you don’t out of nonfiction? What do you get out of nonfiction you don’t out of fiction?
Fiction yields psychological insight and tools for psychological processing, as well as sympathetic exposure to and understanding of the experiences and thought of people very different from me. Non-fiction provides information and argumentation and propositions to consider and investigate, engage and accept or disagree with. Fiction is less about disagreement or argumentation and more about considering the differences among experiences and how those form is as individuals and communities. I can disagree with the action a character takes in fiction but the story will also often provide understanding of what has driven that action and why it “makes sense” for the person in the moment, even if it’s clearly the wrong action.
That’s a good question. Personally, I get a lot of joy out of nonfiction that also serves me as a pastor. I read a book in Herod the Great’s family a few months ago, and it was so much fun. That said, I have been surprised how much I’ve enjoyed adding fiction back into my reading list.
I do! I am loving reading things I just plain want to read -- either that are entertaining, or I like the characters, or I love spending time in the world of the novel. Thank you for pointing out that sometimes reading (like food) can just be for joy!
I'm learning about myself that when I have a big question, books are where I turn. And there are SO MANY GOOD ONES! I have a very difficult time making myself read a book I "should" read -- it has been a delight in the past few years (post-seminary) rediscovering the joy of reading things I genuinely want to read and/or on topics I really want to learn about.
A side note: I would love it if you could find ways to research and present different ways that pastors engage with Scripture when they aren't preaching. I find that studying Scripture so easily becomes a "should" for me because of my upbringing, and I would love to hear different, creative ways and rhythms that pastors (and scholars too!) engage with Scripture throughout the week.
I know you are a great, and liberated, reader of novels. "Should" reading, we hope, can be held at its minimum but it's part of the pastoral and professor callings. Desultory reading is reading what one wants, when one wants, for the pleasure and joy of the adventure and imagination.
As for pastors and professors reading, my sense is that this is far more of a struggle than either will admit -- after all, it's their business! Since I read the Bible all morning most days, I'm a bit of the outlier. But, still, I like to read parts of the Bible that bring me joy. I try different translations and read books that stimulate -- but not for writing or preaching or lecturing. Just for the joy of it. I love Isaiah's magnificent poetic images, Hosea's, and at times Amos's. And it's always been a habit of mine to read a Gospel. In this kind of Bible reading one has to let one's mind wander to where it wanders because the text invites that wandering.
Having said that, I've asked your question many times, and what I see on faces and hear from such pastors and church leaders, is "pastor guilt" for not doing it more. Reading Bible only for sermons and teaching is a trap to avoid, and a very hard to avoid.
But we need to ask this on this Substack to see if we can get a conversation.
Also, I have found HUGE benefit in spending time with novelists of other backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. Brilliant and inspiring to the imagination.
Your blog is forcing me to think about my reading habits (that's not a bad challenge!). I think I read three different things in print. I'm usually working on a writing project every morning and virtually all of my reading all morning relates to what I'm trying to write: Is what I'm writing accurate? Read to evaluate that (!). Does what I'm writing appear to have relevance for others? Read to evaluate that! I'm usually deep into researching those questions all morning.
In the late afternoon I want to check up on what's going on in my nation, my town, my church, my family, etc., etc. So that is reading to connect me to "factual" kind of written stuff.
After supper I read a few chapters in whatever novel I'm reading or re-reading. (I'm a great believer in reading at least twice anything I find useful or profitable. I'm sure I miss good stuff on the first read, so if it seems to have value, II always re-read books twice to catch what I missed on the first run-through.)
No, I don’t have a stack of books to read. I have stacks. It seems that I must subconsciously believe that if I buy the book I will somehow absorb the material by osmosis. Not only does that not happen, but with age I retain less and less of what I read.
My pattern is to read the Bible and Bible related material in the morning and afternoon, and finish the day with recreational reading - for the last few years a novel set in the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
Mine is a combo of whim (based on interest and interviews with scholars) along with a list of classics that I have not read or want to re-read. All these are recorded in a book.
Jul 13, 2022·edited Jul 13, 2022Liked by Scot McKnight
I tend to buy books on subject that I want to increase my proficiency (theology, history, philosophy, psychology, etc). As a pastor / teacher, I have an abundance of books / commentaries on biblical texts.
I also read books on non-work related subjects, purely for the purpose of joy and enhancement. Food / drink, aviation, space program, photography, wildlife, history. I very rarely read fiction. I just don't enjoy it as something I see as worth my time.
I’m a whim reader, also. Often my whims are influenced by this blog or by recommendations from others I esteem as thoughtful readers. I’ll read for a topic or sermon series I really need to dig deep for. (Currently reading Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Discipleship for a series on emotions.) I’ll read blogs and articles for hit topics in the church world, and sometimes that will push me to a particular book. I enjoy reading NT/ biblical background books and compilations.
In the last couple years I’ve started reading fiction again, mostly on Audible. This works pretty well for me, so Ive gone back and listened to several classics (Crime and Punishment, Moby Dick, Oliver Twist) and the full Narnia and Sherlock Holmes collections. At Carty’s recommendation, I listened to Gilead on the road to Florida; it was soul-stirring.
I find it salutary to pray, Scot, as I desultorily listen to my whims. Often has made an evident difference: right book at the right time. I appreciated knowing how and what you read (you're a machine!) and I have freshly resolved to read more and better. Can't come up with the necessary quality of thought in our profession without a lot of input—and throughput in our teaching and writing...
Tomorrow, John, I will have some thoughts on your new book on evangelicalism. Don't lose too much sleep over it, though! Ha.
What are you reading? Why are you reading it? What are your patterns of reading?
“Learning from the Germans” Susan Norman. Recommended by our Lutheran pastor guide on a recent tour of Germany. Compares how the Germans have sought to “work out” their Nazi history with how America has treated its slavery history. Very insightful and provocative.
“My Body is Not a Prayer Request” by Amy Kenny, reflections from a disabled person on disability in the Bible and her experience as a disabled person in churches. A different take on disability, healing and how we define and treat “disabilities.”
My reading is not at organized as yours but similarly eclectic. I read scripture in the morning, too much news, and then a mix of books I’ve found through podcasts and reading and friends recommendation. I was also raised to consider fiction a waste and “not true.” But I was a rebellious reader and read a lot of fiction as a teen and then became an English and theology major. Stories - whether or not they “happened in real life” - are how we explore and learn about other ways of being without having to try everything ourselves. Learning how to interpret “story” through literary skills has been so important for my theological and biblical studies.
Another one: Which novelist do you draw from the most?
Madeline L’engle, JRR Tolkien
What do you get out of fiction you don’t out of nonfiction? What do you get out of nonfiction you don’t out of fiction?
Fiction yields psychological insight and tools for psychological processing, as well as sympathetic exposure to and understanding of the experiences and thought of people very different from me. Non-fiction provides information and argumentation and propositions to consider and investigate, engage and accept or disagree with. Fiction is less about disagreement or argumentation and more about considering the differences among experiences and how those form is as individuals and communities. I can disagree with the action a character takes in fiction but the story will also often provide understanding of what has driven that action and why it “makes sense” for the person in the moment, even if it’s clearly the wrong action.
Thank you for this thorough and thoughtful comment.
Doesn’t anyone read just for pleasure? Fiction for emotional joy and satisfaction? Where are your emotions in all this?
That’s a good question. Personally, I get a lot of joy out of nonfiction that also serves me as a pastor. I read a book in Herod the Great’s family a few months ago, and it was so much fun. That said, I have been surprised how much I’ve enjoyed adding fiction back into my reading list.
I do! I am loving reading things I just plain want to read -- either that are entertaining, or I like the characters, or I love spending time in the world of the novel. Thank you for pointing out that sometimes reading (like food) can just be for joy!
I'm learning about myself that when I have a big question, books are where I turn. And there are SO MANY GOOD ONES! I have a very difficult time making myself read a book I "should" read -- it has been a delight in the past few years (post-seminary) rediscovering the joy of reading things I genuinely want to read and/or on topics I really want to learn about.
A side note: I would love it if you could find ways to research and present different ways that pastors engage with Scripture when they aren't preaching. I find that studying Scripture so easily becomes a "should" for me because of my upbringing, and I would love to hear different, creative ways and rhythms that pastors (and scholars too!) engage with Scripture throughout the week.
I know you are a great, and liberated, reader of novels. "Should" reading, we hope, can be held at its minimum but it's part of the pastoral and professor callings. Desultory reading is reading what one wants, when one wants, for the pleasure and joy of the adventure and imagination.
As for pastors and professors reading, my sense is that this is far more of a struggle than either will admit -- after all, it's their business! Since I read the Bible all morning most days, I'm a bit of the outlier. But, still, I like to read parts of the Bible that bring me joy. I try different translations and read books that stimulate -- but not for writing or preaching or lecturing. Just for the joy of it. I love Isaiah's magnificent poetic images, Hosea's, and at times Amos's. And it's always been a habit of mine to read a Gospel. In this kind of Bible reading one has to let one's mind wander to where it wanders because the text invites that wandering.
Having said that, I've asked your question many times, and what I see on faces and hear from such pastors and church leaders, is "pastor guilt" for not doing it more. Reading Bible only for sermons and teaching is a trap to avoid, and a very hard to avoid.
But we need to ask this on this Substack to see if we can get a conversation.
Also, I have found HUGE benefit in spending time with novelists of other backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. Brilliant and inspiring to the imagination.
Your blog is forcing me to think about my reading habits (that's not a bad challenge!). I think I read three different things in print. I'm usually working on a writing project every morning and virtually all of my reading all morning relates to what I'm trying to write: Is what I'm writing accurate? Read to evaluate that (!). Does what I'm writing appear to have relevance for others? Read to evaluate that! I'm usually deep into researching those questions all morning.
In the late afternoon I want to check up on what's going on in my nation, my town, my church, my family, etc., etc. So that is reading to connect me to "factual" kind of written stuff.
After supper I read a few chapters in whatever novel I'm reading or re-reading. (I'm a great believer in reading at least twice anything I find useful or profitable. I'm sure I miss good stuff on the first read, so if it seems to have value, II always re-read books twice to catch what I missed on the first run-through.)
Ok Alice... what novels are you reading these days??
No, I don’t have a stack of books to read. I have stacks. It seems that I must subconsciously believe that if I buy the book I will somehow absorb the material by osmosis. Not only does that not happen, but with age I retain less and less of what I read.
My pattern is to read the Bible and Bible related material in the morning and afternoon, and finish the day with recreational reading - for the last few years a novel set in the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
I am right there with you. I need to practice the discipline of only buying one book at a time!
Mine is a combo of whim (based on interest and interviews with scholars) along with a list of classics that I have not read or want to re-read. All these are recorded in a book.
I tend to buy books on subject that I want to increase my proficiency (theology, history, philosophy, psychology, etc). As a pastor / teacher, I have an abundance of books / commentaries on biblical texts.
I also read books on non-work related subjects, purely for the purpose of joy and enhancement. Food / drink, aviation, space program, photography, wildlife, history. I very rarely read fiction. I just don't enjoy it as something I see as worth my time.
I’m a whim reader, also. Often my whims are influenced by this blog or by recommendations from others I esteem as thoughtful readers. I’ll read for a topic or sermon series I really need to dig deep for. (Currently reading Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Discipleship for a series on emotions.) I’ll read blogs and articles for hit topics in the church world, and sometimes that will push me to a particular book. I enjoy reading NT/ biblical background books and compilations.
In the last couple years I’ve started reading fiction again, mostly on Audible. This works pretty well for me, so Ive gone back and listened to several classics (Crime and Punishment, Moby Dick, Oliver Twist) and the full Narnia and Sherlock Holmes collections. At Carty’s recommendation, I listened to Gilead on the road to Florida; it was soul-stirring.
I am currently reading James Bryan Smith’s The Good and Beautiful You, Matt Tebbe and Ben Sternke’s Having the Mind of Christ, Tom
Holland’s Dominion.