No doubt you’ve heard the saying that, “You are what you eat.” It’s also true that “you are what you read.” You can get some insight into someone just by looking at the books they read. I confess that when I visit someone’s house and they happen to have bookshelves, I’m inclined to get nosy. But Rosaria Butterfield adds a further dimension to the equation: “You Are What – and How -You Read.” The following article by Butterfield appeared on The Gospel Coalition website. I thought she made some good points.
I love this excerpt:
In short, we honor God with our reading diligence. We honor God with our reading sacrifice. If you watch two hours of TV and surf the internet for three, what would happen if you abandoned these habits for reading the Bible and the Puritans?
You Are What – and How -You Read by Rosaria Butterfield:
I just returned from a well-known (and well-heeled) Christian college, where roughly 100 demonstrators gathered on the chapel steps to protest my address on the grounds that my testimony was dangerous. Later that day, I sat down with these beloved students, to listen, to learn, and to grieve. Homosexuality is a sin, but so is homophobia; the snarled composition of our own sin and the sin of others weighs heavily on us all. I came away from that meeting realizing—again—how decisively our reading practices shape our worldview. This may seem a quirky observation, but I know too well the world these students inhabit. I recall its contours and crevices, risks and perils, reading lists and hermeneutical allegiances. You see, I’m culpable. The blood is on my hands. The world of LGBTQ activism on college campuses is the world that I helped create. I was unfaltering in fidelity: the umbrella of equality stretching to embrace my lesbian identity, and the world that emerged from it held salvific potential. I bet my life on it, and I lost…keep reading
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