by A. W. Tozer
Dr. Samuel Johnson said that if a young man would acquire knowledge he should read five hours a day anything he felt inclined to read. This is not an exact quotation but is a fair summary of his words.
In its historic and literary context this might have been a wise bit of advice, but if by some flash of prophetic inspiration the great doctor could have foreseen the flood of printed matter that rolls from our modern presses each day, he would surely have qualified his famous dictum considerably.
"Read anything" becomes extremely harmful advice in twentieth century America.
At a table where all the food is wholesome, "eat anything" may be safe counsel for the guests; but where some of the food is without nourishment and some is downright poisonous, it may be a counsel of death to those that follow it. And if we should exercise care in selecting matter to take into our stomachs, how much more important that we be most careful of the quality of matter we take into our minds. For it should always be remembered that a human soul may be destroyed through the mind as surely as a human body through the stomach.
I have never subscribed to the doctrine that we Christians should live in an intellectual vacuum, refusing to hear what the world has to say. A faith that must be "protected" is no faith at all. If I can retain my faith in Christ only by closing my mind against every criticism, I give proof positive that I am not well convinced of the soundness of my position. The soul that has had a saving encounter with God is sure beyond the possibility of a doubt. His happy testimony will be, "To the LORD I cry aloud,/ and he answers me from his holy hill./ I lie down and sleep;/ I wake again, because the LORD sustains me./ I will not fear the tens of thousands/ drawn up against me on every side" (Psalm 3:4-6). Such a man will not need to shield himself from the classics nor from comparative religions or philosophy or psychology or science. The Spirit bears witness to Christ deep within his consciousness. His heart knows, though his reason my not yet have caught up with his heart.
When a very young minister, I asked the famous holiness preacher, Joseph H. Smith, whether he would recommend that I read widely in the secular field. He replied, "Young man, a bee can find nectar in the weed as well as in the flower." I took his advice (or, to be frank, I sought confirmation of my own instincts rather than advice) and I am not sorry that I did.
John Wesley told the young ministers of the Wesleyan Societies to read or get out of the ministry, and he himself read science and history with a book propped against his saddle pommel as he rode from one engagement to another. Andy Dolbow, the American Indian preacher of considerable note, was a man of little education, but I once heard him exhort his hearers to improve their minds for the honor of God. "When you are chopping wood," he explained, "and you have a dull axe you must work all the harder to cut the log. A sharp axe makes easy work. So sharpen your axe all you can."
I hope my readers conclude right here that I have contradicted myself in the above paragraphs. It will indicate that they have been reading with their critical faculties awake. But actually there is no self-contradiction present. I have warned against harmful books and declare that there is no harm in reading in fields far removed from the standard evangelical meadows considered safe by the timid souls who think they must defend Christianity and protect the faithful from the effects of alien ideas. I'll explain.
By harmful books I do not mean those on a high intellectual level, such as the classics, poetry, history, political science and whatever falls within the category of the liberal arts. I mean cheap fiction (religious or secular), shallow religious chop suey such as is found in so many religious magazines, the world of religious trash designed to entertain the saints; I mean the self-glorifying religious adventure stories written by the brethren of the restless feet who refuse to take any responsibility or to stay in one place long enough to plant a single tree or lay a single foundation, but who always manage to spin an exciting yarn when they get back home. I mean the "digest" type of religious literature, precooked and predigested, to be ingested with a minimum of effort and in the shortest possible time. Such matter not only affords no nourishment for the soul, but its continuous use creates a parasitic mind in the reader, gives him a morbid appetite for wind and makes the reading of serious religious books not only distasteful but impossible.
I deliberately omit from my list of dangerous books the vulgar and the unclean. I take it for granted that no Christian would stain his soul with such literary putrefaction. At least I am quite sure that no one who reads this page will need to be warned about such books.
( The Size of the Soul, Chapter 7 )
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