will has a great post on the issue of banned books. He cites a list of the 100 most challenged books and asks which we have read.
the banning of books perplexes me...i am intrigued by the idea that "if we don't tell, then it won't be true!"
i remember long ago, being challenged,
"Why is it that "non-christians make movies like The Killing Fields, and not christians? What are we afraid of?" With great passion, my friend declared, "We of anyone should be able to name and speak and tell and engage in what is true in the world today! Until we do the gospel will continue to be distorted!"
I think that we Christians, we who claim to know the Truth, to have an intimate relationship with Jesus, who scandalously calimed to be The Truth, we must be willing to face the reality of this fallen world.
Why is it then that, far too often, our actions don't align with our beliefs? Are we fearful of truth, or are we unwilling to tell it? Are we willing to engage in the messiness of life and enter into conversation about it? through a book, through a neighbor's broken truth, through the concrete jungle that our children navigate every day in public school...?
I am not advocating reading every book every written, i am not saying that some books are better left unread...
I am simply asking, what guides us to reject or flee from certain topics, what makes us refuse to name the truth that is, especially when it is often ugly, difficult and without answer---seemingly beyond redemption? (do we believe that there is a category of "beyond redemption?)
What motivates a fear driven posture in relationship to the world, the culture, the truth and stories that we cannot comprehend? What justifies our refusal to see and name certain truth's however awful...
can we examine this energy in our own souls and stories... can we reflect on what this recoil, and the desire to control and contain says about our theology, our beliefs and the radical claims of Jesus?
will muses that he encounterd this list while reading an essay by Any Plantinga Pauw in Practicing Theology, entitled Attending to the Gaps between Beleifs and Practices
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