Nothing to Read

What a depressing visit to Barnes and Nobles book store. A couple of days ago I went into the Barnes and Noble book store in Raleigh, N.C. I was looking for something to read in the religious dimension of life. I did find a very large section of books, but I could not believe the stuff that was included there. If St. Paul was concerned that disciples who should have been ready for meat were still taking milk and toast, then we are back to formula. The shelves seemed to stocked with only the prosperity gospel, personal achievement, sentimental stories, and the road to happiness. (In 1960 a retiring minister in England told me that the greatest change in people in his ministry was that when he started people wanted to be good. When he retired they wanted to be happy. He was not sure the Gospel was about either.) So the publishing business is not into producing for mass consumption solid religious reflection and study.

That must mean that nobody buys that kind of book. Not in numbers big enough to make it worth the printing. The religious reading public wants what is being produced. The people seem to want easy reading, simple answers, and happy endings. A religious romance novels.

Of course, the other possibility is that there probably are not many religious thinkers and writers who can write for the general public and present the challenges of the religious life, the journey into the mystery with faith, and the high cost of living ethically in a moral confused world. It seems that C.S. Lewis is still the only one who is published who raises some of these questions and tries to answer some of them. I only saw the new book by Harvey Cox in the whole section. Harvey Cox did raise some great questions with his first book.

The search will go on. I know it is not at the seminary in Wake Forest. So the search something to read will continue. But I do pity the faithful disciple in a local congregation who is hungry for meat.