We get to look in on other cultures - oriental as well as occidental, contemporary as well as ancient - and in its turn that experience helps us not to be blinded to the realities of our own culture and time. When we read a novel, we don’t just follow a plot line we become acquainted with more people - some friends, some not-so-much friends - who hone our humanity. We get to meet other people from other places - even from other times - that we would otherwise never meet. Reading imaginative literature takes us outside of our own immediate situation. Lewis, a Christian can think of literature as one form of “pre-evangelism”: a means to help people ask the important questions - the eternal questions - and which gives us an opportunity to speak the Gospel into their lives. In “Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective,” Leland Ryken helpfully suggests that literature “clarifies the human situation to which the Christian faith speaks.” Likewise, with C.S. Literature connects us with others who have given effective expression to our common humanity and longings and, while we may not agree with a writer’s worldview, he or she illuminates our common condition in ways that can help us understand our situation better and relate to others outside of our immediate community. No matter our gender, race or nationality, we all struggle with sin, experience the emotions of love and hate, give expression to our strongest desires, and we all long for something that this world cannot satisfy - in the end, God. As humans, we all share the same human condition. Literature speaks to the human condition in which we all find ourselves all the time. Imagination allows us to see the universal and timeless human issues and truths in the particular experiences of the characters in the book we are reading. Reading literature gives us what Kevin Vanhoozer calls “the power of synoptic vision”: Through our imaginations responding to the imaginative writings of others, we see the important issues in life, not just the urgent and immediate circumstances around us. Which emotions are healthy, and which are not? Which emotions ought we to cultivate, and which should we put to death? In literature, we can see the expressions and consequences of human emotions in real-life situations and can be encouraged or take warning accordingly. As we read good imaginative literature, we begin to see our own experiences and emotions in the larger human context. People write about what they experience and how they respond emotionally and imaginatively to their experiences.
Literature exercises and develops our emotions and imaginations. (By “literature,” I am simply thinking of published works of imaginative writing in various genres, such as poetry, fiction and drama.) Literature helps us realize the image of God in us in ways that we cannot afford to miss.
(BP) - Why should Christians bother reading literature at all? Because reading literature humanizes us - in the best sense of the word.
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