Books, reading, etc.

I am not much of a reader anymore. There was a time when I was active in ministry that I would read about a book a week. Most of those books were theological, or related to my pastoral ministry in some way. I developed much of my theological bias, as it were, from reading a lot of those books. Of course I read and studied the Bible a lot, which was foundational to my belief system.

Of late I have read very few books from beginning to end. I have dabbled around in some, but have become quite picky in what I choose to read totally. My book reading is something I do in relation to something else usually, like Sunday School class studies, speakers I hear, or someone I read about that sounds like they have more to say that I want to hear.

One illustration of the above is the book, Road Signs for the Journey, by Conrad L. Kanagy. Our S.S. class did a study of this book recently led by David Greiser, a teacher here at Hesston College. It gives statistics and commentary on a profile of Mennonite Church USA which was done last year. Some of the information reported was eyeopening and challenging. Our denomination is changing, in some areas quite rapidly, and it is important that we are aware of that and try to help make the changes positive rather than negative.

Another book I am currently reading is, The Myth of a Christian Nation, by Greg Boyd. We first saw and heard Greg Boyd when he was interviewed on CNN's recent special broadcast, God's Warriors. Boyd spoke briefly there about Christianity as one of the "warriors" seeking for control in our world, the other "warriors" were Judiasm and Islam. Boyd also spoke in our church about three weeks ago following a weekend conference here at Hesston College. His blog following that weekend was titled, It Turns Out I'm A Mennonite. Interesting. Anyway, I am finding much to like about this book and the approach he takes writing in layman's language what the Christian faith is all about.

In addition to reading a book now and then I like to keep up with our Mennonite periodicals. We have access at the Villa to current issues of The Mennonite and Mennonite Weekly Review. I also have these websites bookmarked on my browser. These papers and magazines help keep me informed about many things, such as theological trends, happenings at our church colleges, and family things such as births, marriages, and deaths. It's surprising how many names I see in these publications that I recognize from one place or another where we have lived or visited.

All of this to say that while I do not read a great deal, I still do enough reading of one kind or another to keep myself informed of happenings, events and trends in the church around the country, and the world. I would not like to be without these important channels of information.

I guess in a day and age when there's so much information out there, coming at us in all kinds of ways reading still has a place in our world. At least it does in mine.

Pilgrim on the way