"One thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they do not read. They do not read the Bible, they do not read the great Christian thinkers, they have never heard of Aquinas. If they're Presbyterian, they've never read the founders of Presbyterianism. I do not understand that. As a Jew, that's confusing to me. The commandment of study is so deep in Judaism that we immerse ourselves in study. God gave us a brain, aren't we to use it in His service? When I walk into an Evangelical Christian's home and see a total of 30 books, most of them best-sellers, I do not understand. I have bookcases of Christian books, and I'm a Jew. Why do I have more Christian books than 98 percent of the Christians in America? This is so bizarre to me."
- Dennis Prager in an interview from The Door magazine
14 comments:
What exactly is an evangelical? I hear and use the term but I'm not sure if I really know what it refers to.
Hey smokey.
Check out the wiki entry. Some people refer to it as primarily a cluster of theological positions, others refer to it as a historical movement.
Yike! I accidently went to soylentgreen.blogspot.com. For Mon. sushi were you planning on just you and me? Because I think I assumed to just invite other people that would want to, so I wanted to touch base first. Also, who were some of those names you mentioned that were major christian impactors in philosophy?
Invite the pope, dude - as long as I get my face in some raw fish, I'm good.
Which names did I mention, and where?
Great observation. Do you think it is just an American thing? Or a Christian American thing? We seem to be such an action-oriented society now. We are always on our way to somewhere, on the way to work and activites and "fun" at a dizzying pace, when maybe we should all sit around and look at each other or think to ourselves for awhile.
This is something I read in my philosophy class the other day,
"...we must free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who relises that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind..."
-Bertrand Russell
In addition, maybe some Christians look at books with fear? They worry that they will be swayed by anything that is outside of their Christian circle, when it seems to me that they are not giving themselves enough credit, that they will be able to use discernment and that they won't become a heretic by reading something that challenges their world view.
May we all take a deep breath and bite into a book today. :)
"A house without books is like a room without windows."
-Horace Mann
We don’t have time for books because we’re reading and writing blogs. Doing an Advanced Google Blog search for entries featuring Christ or Christian turned up 14,264,835; entering Jew or Jewish gave 1,134,614 results, Muslim or Islam, 1,301,382.
Frankly, I’m amazed at the sheer volume of Christian blogs and the remarkable depth of some. Why, just check out greensoylent.blogspot.com. The dude reads stuff like Alasdair MacIntyre and Kevin Vanhoozer and still knows who Sponge Bob is.
(There’s no Rule 40 here, is there?)
Thanks, Michael!
Really I'm just happy to be called a "dude".
Dude, 'sup?
Kante (haha):
Oh you were just looking through my philosophy class book and were saying how they don't even have a lot of the more recent philosophers that have largely impacted philosophy, and you pointed out how most of them are christian.
I think I get the term 'evangelical', or rather what it implies, I just wasn't sure if I was using it correctly. So we just use it to refer to Christians who....what? Just have a diff. theological approach, or how would you say it?
Hughes Girl:
I read that same Bertrand Russel quote in my philosophy class- (I believe it was from 'the value of Philosophy' or maybe that was my professors title, I think it actually came from 'Problems in Philosophy'- but I haven't the care reasure myself by looking.) Is your prof. Jim Stockton?
Sushi is GOOD!
True, blogging. Although I don't look at a lot of blogs, the depth of some has surpised me too, in addition to the fact that I realize what a pea brain I am. And only dude's read Alasdair MacIntyre in ADDITION to knowing who Sponge Bob is.
Weswise, The quote was from "The Problems of Philosophy." Nope, my professor is a woman.
Shoot, I have 30 books on my night stand... of course they're all part of the "left Behind" series.
Wow, so true.
I did a response blog to reading. Check it out
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