John Wesley on Reading

I just stumbled across this today: a portion of a John Wesley letter to a fellow preacher on the importance of reading. In spite of Wesley's busy schedule, he found time to broaden his thinking with reading.

So much open-air preaching sounds like other preachers. What's the remedy for this? A wide range of reading. We're not open-air parrots, we're open-air preachers.

Here's Wesley's letter, taken from an editorial by J.B. Chapman in The Preacher's Magazine (Vol. 6, No. 1 January 1931). It was written to one John Premboth on August 17, 1760. It's as pertinent today as it was 249 years ago!

"What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety, there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first, will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you in particular."

Vacations, Reading, the Civil War & Memorization

Well, we are back from a much needed vacation. As much as I enjoyed the time away, it is good to be "back in the saddle" with Lost Cause Ministries, Informed Evangelist and the book business.

Last week we went on vacation to San Angelo, TX. We were blessed with some good family time and some time to enjoy the great outdoors of West Texas. The end of July is not usually the best time to go on vacation, but it was the only time I could get away for a solid week. At the State Park, where we camped in an air conditioned cabin, we saw roadrunners, prairie dogs, the State herd of bison and longhorn steer, hummingbirds, deer, snakes, black tailed jackrabbits, and a skunk. We managed to do a couple of hikes through the interesting terrain in the mornings, before it got too hot. In the evenings, we went to an isolated ridge and watched the sunset behind a picturesque plateau. While we were in the area we visited Fort Concho (Indian wars), the Indian paintings at Paint Rock, and had some incredible Mexican home-made ice cream.

I had a chance to do a little booking while we were in town. San Angelo has a few used bookstores. Two of them are the garden variety paperback exchange type shops, but I still managed to scrounge up an Advance Reading Copy of Richard Bradford’s first book, “Red Sky at Morning” as well as a limited edition of a book on Texas history, printed in San Angelo. But the best find was in the reputable “Cactus Book Shop”. This shop specializes in the Southwest and in Texas in particular, both fiction and non-fiction. The owner is friends with the prolific Western\Texas author, Elmer Kelton (whom I once met in Fort Worth) who lives in the San Angelo area and who drops by the shop to chat with the owner and sign books. It is a wonderful shop to visit and the owner is very knowledgeable. In my never-ending search for the titles printed by the Modern Library, I scoured his Modern Library section and was surprised to find a small collection of Modern Library reprints which were once owned by Fred and Tommie Gipson, with their inscriptions and address labels on the endpapers. Fred Gipson is the author of the classic book into film and classic TX juvenile, “Old Yeller.” Gipson wrote a couple of other juvenile dog stories set in Texas, but he was also a serious author of Texas non-fiction. The prices were reasonable, so I bought them all. The owner had a framed invitation to the Gipson’s wedding hanging on the wall, so the provenance is very good on these titles. I’m going to take my time with these and sell some of them since one of my specialties is Texas fiction and literature, but I’m going to keep a few as well, for my own modern library collection.

During the trip I caught up on some reading as well. I've been reading through J. William Jones' "Christ in the Camp", the fascinating story of the revival which took place in the Confederate Army (specifically, the Army of Northern VA) during the Civil War. I dabble a little bit in Civil War history, but as a born and bred Yankee, I was taught that the South was pretty much evil in their cause. Certainly, slavery WAS a horrible evil in America. As an antiquarian bookseller, I've had some pretty scarce abolitonist material, including Frederick Douglass' autobiography and a book signed by the guy who bankrolled John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. A guy named "Joshua Speed" was Abraham Lincoln's best friend and I've always been an admirer of Lincoln, and not just because I share Joshua's last name.

However, it's pretty clear that men like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were devout Christians and not the garden variety false converts that we have in evangelical American Christianity today. They not only supported, but encouraged the revival and spiritual growth of their men. They were good friends of the chaplains, supporters of the colporters (evangelists) who came through the camps, and both had deep walks with the Lord. Jackson's walk with Christ is most impressive. Some of his men thought him crazy because of his constant attitude of prayer. One of his main concerns was the evangelization of his men.

Compare this with the leaders of the Union armies: Grant was an alcoholic, Sherman was downright brutal, and Grant's predecessors in his position were egomaniacs. I've been blessed reading "Christ in the Camp", but especially by the early chapter on Stonewall Jackson. I love the movie "Gods and Generals" which focuses on Jackson, and which is very accurate historically, in spite of Ted Turner's atheism. Jackson's life is one that I want to emulate. He was a bold leader of men, but only because of what his humble walk before God.

He fought on the wrong side regarding the slavery issue, but seeing what's become of our federal government one can't help but wonder if the South had the right idea about the issue of states rights. Considering the financial prosperity of the South these days compared to the relatively depressed North (e.g. Detroit, New York State) it's easy to see how less governmental interference has brought a more stable economy here. The War may have been a judgment of God on our nation for ALL of the evils of our nation's birth (slavery, the extermination of the Native Americans, etc.); we lost more men in the Civil War than in all of our other wars COMBINED. More than 625,000. But this does not diminish the wisdom of stronger state's rights that the South fought for.

I also read a great little book on the importance of Scripture memorization by N.A. Woychuk. This is a discipline that I have neglected. I've memorized Scriptures over the past few years, but not purposefully. I have a good memory and can memorize single verses that I use without being very systematic about it. But the Lord has given me this memory for a reason and I need to develop it even further. So, I've begun memorizing chapters as well as verses on evangelism from the School of Biblical Evangelism. I'm using a software program to help which has been fun and very, very helpful. You can check it out here.

Well, those are my thoughts for today. Time to get back to work. Thanks for reading.

Incurious America

This past Sunday, the Dallas Morning News ran an article in their "Points" section titled, "An Incredibly Incurious America" by Susan Jacoby. Ms. Jacoby has written a book called "The Age of American Unreason". She makes some great points about American illiteracy and ignorance that I want to point out here. This is essential stuff for anyone doing biblical evangelism just so we know what we are up against when it comes to the reasoning abilities of the average American.

What frightens her (and me) the most is the fact that most Americans do not read and it is these non-reading Americans who will vote for the next leader of the free world in the November elections. She cites the prevalence of digital media as a cultural indicator of "dumbness" and points out that only 67 percent of college graduates read poems or novels for pleasure, as opposed to 82% in 1982. She rightly points out, "...there is no evidence that focusing on a screen is anything but bad for infants and toddlers" and that "...the inability to concentrate for long periods of time...seems intimately related to the inability of the public to remember even recent news events." She also bemoans the anti-rationalism of our youth which actually takes pride in ignorance.

If you stop and think about it, this has a lot to do with the popularity of Barack Obama. What does anyone know about him other than the fact that he has exciting pep rallies which tout "change"? What percentage of voters will vote for him based only on the fact that they know he is about "change"? What makes him any different than Hillary Clinton (other than actually being more liberal than she is)? How many will vote for him (amongst the Democrats) simply because he is a black man? How many will vote for Hillary simply because she is a woman? Jacoby is right. These are scary times politically speaking.

This all is very interesting to me since I just finished reading a book last week called, "What Every Christian Should Know" by Jo H. Lewis and Gordon A. Palmer. In this book, the authors bemoan the illiteracy of the average American Christian in the early 80's (back when 82% of the college graduates actually read poems and novels for enjoyment, when things were substantially better than they are now). It's interesting to note that the authors suspected that the trends would lead to the following:

• An extinction of Sunday School classes.
• An emphasis in youth ministries on "socialization" over content.
• An increased divisiveness based on age, race and economics.
  
• Fad-jumping.
  
• An exodus from local churches into New Age theologies.
• Decline of Bible reading.
  

The predominance of the Emergent Church and seeker sensitive churches have born out these concerns. There are very few serious Sunday School classes. Youth ministry has degenerated into teenage babysitting sessions. The elderly feel lost in their own churches because they have been programmed out of them as the church leadership continues to cater to the youth. For some, fad-jumping is the very definition of evangelicalism. New Age theology characterizes the Emergent Church movement. And Bible reading is on the decline.

Were the authors prophets? No, just readers who could see the proverbial writing on the wall. And just like our modern counterparts, many in evangelicalism take pride in their elevation of the lowest common denominator intellectually. Like a giant sow, they wallow in the muck of their own stupidity.

This all is why logic is lost on modern college students. It is why they embrace Darwinism uncritically, with a great deal of faith. It is why the Emergent Church will continue to grow exponentially; it is a movement which absolutely glories in knowing absolutely nothing with certainty.

The best thing we can do as Biblical evangelists to arm ourselves against this massive wave of idiocy is simply to read. Read deep theology. Read some classics in Christian and secular literature. Evaluate what you read and assimilate it. Soak in the Bible. Determine to glorify God with your mind. Prove yourself to be someone who knows how to think and you will have an edge on anyone who tries to counter the Gospel message.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Informed Evangelist. I hope that you are here because you love the Lord with all of your heart (enough to obey the Great Commission) and you love your neighbor as yourself (so that you will have enough guts to obey said Commission). My goal with this blog is to encourage a love of reading the printed word, mainly because we are not only commanded to love the Lord with our hearts, but also with our minds. Since there is no intellectual development apart from reading, the goal of this blog is to provide inspiration towards becoming not just a passionate biblical evangelist, but a properly informed biblical evangelist. An evangelist who loves God with his or her mind.

As a former pastor of thirteen years, a biblical evangelist of almost four years, and a used bookseller of about thirteen years I am shocked and awed by the lack of intelligent reading material in the homes of most Christians. This lack has nothing to do with the abundance of public libraries (at least here in the USA) which provide books for free. I am no scholar in the area of literacy, but it's safe to say that most Americans don't read for the following reasons:

• The predominant role that television plays in American culture.
• They were taught to hate reading by the public school system.
• Parents do not read to their children.
• The general "dumbing down" of America.
• The continued growth of the internet as the main source of knowledge.
  

Christians are victims of all of the same societal scourges, but you can add a couple of bullet points for us:

• A suspicion of anything "intellectual".
• The dreck that is marketed to us as literature via the big Christian publishers and mini-big box Christian bookstores.

How ironic that Christians, people who it could be rightly said are people of one Book (the Bible), do not read! Most of us do not read even the one divinely inspired Book which distinguishes us from every other religion and cult, much less anything else which might help us understand or apply that Book.

As I see it, there is hope. Those of us who are turned on to biblical evangelism from sources such as Way of the Master (and others) come to the table with the same cultural deficiencies. Fortunately, as believers move beyond the TV program and pick up some of Ray Comfort's books they discover the joy of reading. They see authors and preachers that he cites and they begin reading books by these men and women. Reading becomes a life-line for newly discovered ideas about theology and evangelism.

The "con" in this situation is that most popular biblical evangelism resources are online. Many of these new biblical evangelists don't depend on the printed word, but on what they can glean digitally using Google and "cut and paste". This isn't the same thing (by a long shot) as reading. The proof lies in the mangled use of the English language they use when they write. Readers generally become fairly good writers, even if they are not formally taught grammar or style.

My hope is that this blog serves to point biblical evangelists in the direction of good, theologically sound reading. This will help us move beyond the habit of parroting popular evangelists and become original thinkers and communicators of the magnificent Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. May He be glorified.