Dimly Lit

This all got started over at Hugh Hewitt’s latest idea for a blogversation called One True God. Hugh asks a weekly question and has invited a few heavyweight types to converse - so far there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of activity.

Question # 5 was as follows:

Please recommend the five books you would have a Christian college student read who was interested in deepening his or her faith but who also had all the time constraints and background education of most college kids today. (In other words, no Summa Theologica or Institutes.)

Unfortunately it only garnered 1 response from David White on that site, but then Tim Challies picked it up and gave his own list (which I have some serious reservations about, but I’ll get to that later). Challies post was picked up over at the Boars Head Tavern resulting in some good discussion there, and now it’s my turn.

First, the question itself. The recommendations are for a Christian college student so I assume the goal is to challenge the mind as well as build the faith. The recommendations also must take into account the time constraints and background education of most college kids today which I take to mean that college kids don’t have much time and very possibly don’t have the ability to read well (in the How to Read a Book sense). If those assumptions are true, they do limit to some degree what you can ask them to read. Hugh’s examples are fitting, unless you’re majoring in something that would require you to read them it would be a little much to expect any college student to spend the time and effort necessary to read the Summa or the Institutes.

Having acknowledged that however, I’ve got to say that Challies list is just poor. It seems to me that one of the reasons that you would have to add the qualifier about background education to a question like this is because noone requires kids to actually stretch their minds enough to read the primary sources. Instead we feed them the thin, baby food gruel of text books that simplify, explain, and utterly neuter the great books that have shaped history. Is it any wonder that so many people think reading anything more challenging that John Grisham is boring? The little they’ve learned about Plato, Augustine, Shakespeare, or Dante is from a dry text book that tells the poor kid exactly what he’s supposed to think! Ideas become exiting when the mind is pushed to grasp them.

Any college kid that truly wants to deepen his faith is going to have to wrestle with this world and one of the great ways to do that is by engaging with the great minds that have gone before.

Now let me be try to be clear. I don’t have any real problem with the books that Tim mentioned in his post. I’m sure there’s probably some good stuff in them and that I would very probably enjoy some of them. The reason Tim’s list is poor is that these books have not withstood the test of time and have not, yet at least, shaped the world in which we live. We’re talking about college students here, these kids are supposed to be bright enough to engage the great minds of history. I don’t want to engage in a reverse chronological snobbery and come across as though I believe that if it’s older it must be better, but some of these works are called classics for a reason.

So what about my 5 recommendations? Off the top of my head I’ll go with the following (not in any particular order):

1. Phaedo by Plato - I agree with White’s reasoning here, being able to think about the soul in todays world is very important.
2. Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis - As far as devotional literature goes, this is about as good as it gets.
3. Confessions by Augustine - This touches on every area; philosophy, theology, and devotional.
4. Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan - Still a beautiful allegory of Christian faith.
5. Brothers Karamazov - This will challenge and force one to think about the sinfulness of all men and the nature of faith.

I could easily see this list shift and change as I spend more time thinking it through. Already I can tell you that it’s hard for me to leave off Moby Dick and several of C.S. Lewis’ books. These are all books that I think should be accessible to any college student and, with the exception of possibly the Confessions, won’t overwhelm a students time.