The Unbearable Lightness of Blogs
Sep 19th, 2006 by Hugh
Scanning the blogs today? Well, Mr. Blog-Surfer, Mark Dever and C.S. Lewis have something to say about our reading habits that you should mark well.
(I must warn you that what I have written here may keep you from coming back to hughbiquitous.com, or any other blog you frequent, for some time.)
A while back, Mark Dever wrote:
One reason that I’ve been reluctant to enter the blogosphere is that I am concerned that blog-writing and reading only adds to a bad tendency that we today already have–a fascination with the newest, latest, and most recent. And the newest and latest also often means that which is of only immediate value, that which is passing. That is opposed to that which is enduring, and which has in fact endured and lasted. We write words here which crawl along electronically and leap out through your fingers and eyes to take precious minutes and hours that the Lord has entrusted to us. Could these small things we write really be that important? …I am concerned that we not neglect reading more important things. Even beyond the Bible, there are 2,000 years of Christian reflections in print before we get to blogs.
This reminds me, perhaps obviously, of C.S. Lewis’s admonition against “chronological snobbery:”
There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books… The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator.
… But if [a student] must read only the new or only the old [books], I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light.
… It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.
– C.S. Lewis, On the Reading of Old Books, as published in The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis, pp. 434-435
So having read this new blog entry, walk away from your computer and read something old, like Paul or Augustine. There are also a few remarkable chaps who are just escaping their adolescence and seem to be worth reading: Pascal, Edwards, Bunyan… We also have a couple of phenomenal rookies named Lewis and Schaeffer who might just stand the test of time.
Then, having taken heed of Mr. Lewis’s advice and having read something of enduring substance, you may return and read my next trifling distraction.
Wow. You’re right - I really should be reading one of the Puritans. This blogging stuff is really very temporal (with the exception of a few, such as the pyromaniac guys, etc.).
I think I’ll go read the Iliad.
I read through 1st and 2nd Timothy yesterday … good stuff.
The following from 1 Tim 6 especially struck me:
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound[b] words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, 4he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, 5and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. 6Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7for we brought nothing into the world, and[c] we cannot take anything out of the world. 8But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
It’s easy to take shots at blogging or reading of blogs. The very same argument could be leveled at newspapers. I really doubt that blogs (or newspapers) are to blame for our not reading Augustine’s ‘Confessions.’ Were you reading more/better before the ‘blogoshpere’ appeared? I wasn’t.
My apologies, Eric. While I wholeheartedly stand behind my advocacy of the “old books,” I’m sorry for not planting my tongue more obviously in my cheek. I was aiming, in part, at irony… that a blog should, as you put it, “take shots at blogging or reading of blogs,” is something akin to cutting off the limb you’re sitting on.
And like you, I would say I’m better read, more informed, and more thoughtful for having taken part in the blog phenomenon.
All the same, I think the opportunity for “deathbed lament” is greater with respect to the classics than anything else.
Yeah, I appreciate the irony. I was aiming my comment more at Dever’s comment.
Something old, something new…
Prompted by the aforementioned blog, I dropped by Barnes & Noble on the way to computer science this morning to pick up something old. Well, I was inexpressibly disappointed when they had neither Augustine nor Pascal. What kind of bookstore is this? …..
I don’t know. I think this makes me want to be more selective in my reading of blogs more than anything else. However, many of those I read (including this one) point me to the saints who’ve gone before us, pointing to obscure quotes or ideas that enhance how I view God, even how I live my life. Regardless, Dever makes me think about my time, energy, and resources - where I exhaust them. Though even typing this reply, I think, this is helping my perspective, is it God-centered? etc.
[...] (See also The Unbearable Lightness of Blogs.) [...]