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Recently a pastor friend of mine came to my office and, as many of us pastors do, inspected the books on my desk. After seeing one of the titles there he remarked, “Dang. I couldn’t even have that on my desk.” It was a joke, but a great joke because it was mostly true. Knowing his tradition and church, he’d probably get pulled into an office for having this particular book there next to his Bible.
I know what you’re asking: what book?
It doesn’t matter what particular book it was, but it does matter what kind of book is was in general: it was a theology book. Yes, a theology book. Why on earth would a theology book be banned from a pastor’s desk? Wouldn’t any sort of theology book make sense on a pastor’s desk? Why would a lead pastor or elder feel the need to curate the theological reading list of a pastor?
Well, this particular theology book was “outside the stream” of the tradition my friend came from, and therefore, to be banished from his own office. As we sat down in my office, we laughed at how he could have Nietzsche on his desk but not the theology book that was on mine. What a world…
And that’s precisely what’s next in this little series of mine on “Reading Widely.” In the previous post, I wrote about the debate between Žižek and Jordan Peterson, and how their breadth of…
