A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love

Rating:
Summary: words to live by
Review: I read this book one year ago, and I'm reviewing it because it has stayed with me---not the specifics (the book is a bit heavy going in places, as I recall), but the general admonition to be a loving reader. That instruction pops into my mind in odd times and places as I study literature and writing in a secular graduate program. If we are Christian scholars, our scholarship must have some uniquely Christian characteristic---what better characteristic than Christian charity to the author and community?

I heard a presentation by Dr. Jacobs the other weekend at a conference, but I had already been thinking about him, because I had recalled his book.

This book, then, has shaped me more than I thought it would. The more I learn about the academy, the discipline of scholarship, the skill of reading, the more I crave Christian theology to guide me through dangerous pitfalls of hatred, self-interest, and passionate error. A Christian scholar cannot afford to leave unexamined the issues this book raises and cannot afford to spurn the lifestyle this book proposes. Not many people I've found are asking these kinds of questions or giving these kinds of answers.