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Hostile
Witness!
Approaching Literature With Christian Discernment
Suppose
I asked you to read a book whose pages were sprinkled with murder,
rape, incest, adultery, mutilation, blasphemy, idolatry a virtually
inexhaustible catalog of human sin? Perhaps you would take offense.
But if you have grown up in church, this same book has been recommended
to you by the most upright and moral people you know. It’s the Bible.
God’s Word pulls no punches when it comes to the depravity of man’s
fallen nature; even the heroes of the faith are depicted in a stark
light, from the sexual sin of King David in the Old Testament to
Peter’s prevaricating weakness in the New Testament. The Bible is
the most frank and open book ever written, which makes sense when
you consider the Author’s intention.
There is a difference between the sin depicted in the Bible
and what we find in our own literature: God does not glorify, condone
or rationalize evil, but men do. Even authors with a healthy fear
of God and respect for His Word remain fallible, and so they build
fault lines into their fictions. As a Christian, you must develop
the habit of reading everything
with discernment, no matter the source. Sometimes unbelievers touch
on God’s truth in their writings, and sometimes believers, despite
their best efforts, miss it entirely. So we must learn to enjoy
discernment or give up on enjoyment altogether!
One
of the questions I have asked myself in starting a Christian reading
group is what kind of books to read. My training in literature demands
that they be well-written. My commitment as a Christian demands
that they offer opportunities for growth. In a sense, every book
I have considered has proven objectionable on some grounds, so I
have developed a methodology for approaching them that I wish to
share. I call it “Hostile Witness.”
Putting
Sin on the Stand
Every
Christian educator is faced with the dilemma: how do you teach your
students about things like literature and the arts without exposing
them unduly to corrupting influences? The answer is to equip them
with a mechanism for discernment. Christians turned loose in the
world without this mechanism either revert to insularity and close-mindedness,
which makes outreach difficult, or succumb to worldly influences,
which makes holiness impossible. So the question is, how do we promote
discernment?
In
the courtroom, prosecutors are often put in a similar situation.
They want to call a witness to the stand to provide valuable information,
but they are suspicious of the motives this witness brings to the
case. How can they extract the testimony without introducing a misleading
bias in the jury? They designate the individual as a hostile witness.
With a hostile witness, the prosecutor has more freedom in his tactics
and more importantly, the jury entertains no doubts about the
relationship between the witness and the facts. What the witness
says may be true, but it must be tested.
The books we tackle in the Reading Group should be approached
in the same way. They contain important information sometimes
they will deepen our faith, sometimes they will help us understand
the world better but they are not entirely reliable. Where they
glorify, condone or rationalize sin, we must call them to order.
But where they present truth, we should remain open to it.
What
About Sex, Violence and Bad Language?
Perhaps
the most difficult aspect of literary discernment is figuring out
what to do with books that are well-written and worth discussing,
but include references which ought to offend a Christian (whether
they do or not is sometimes in doubt, but they should). There are two approaches I have seen others take:
The
appeal to maturity.
Some would-be sophisticates say, “Hey, we’re all grown ups here.”
As Christians, we enjoy a certain liberty, and if we exercise
discernment we should be safe from corrupting influences. To an
extent, I agree, but we should never get too comfortable with
this position. The moment we lose our uneasiness around sin, we
undermine the whole purpose of discernment.
The
washing of hands.
Some take the opposite approach, trying to make the world we live
in cleaner than it really is. They are more scrupulous than the
Biblical authors on some points! On the other hand, is there such
a thing as being too
safe? We shouldn’t dismiss this position out of hand.
I find myself looking for a middle ground. One compromise I have attempted
is to look for books published prior to the general relaxation of
morals in society. This way, we can look at books that accurately
represent life under the sun, without having sin flaunted in our faces.
This approach probably doesn’t satisfy either argument entirely, but
it addresses in part each concern. We don’t confine ourselves to a
ghetto of inferior literature, but at the same time we take seriously
the need to avoid getting cozy with unrighteousness. (Interestingly
enough, my spell-checker doesn’t recognize “unrighteousness” as a
word sign of the times?)
Authors
and Authority
Stories
are driven by characters and conflict in other words, people faced
with moral choices. Our everyday lives are the same, only the choices
are not so dramatic. One of the benefits of studying literature
is having the opportunity to examine the relationship between the
author and his text. Writers create a certain environment in which
their characters live, and the choices the characters must make
are dictated by the author. That means the author’s beliefs and
convictions will color the way he presents the choices.
Have you ever found yourself reading a book or watching a
movie and feeling good
about a character’s sin? Suppose an independent young woman finally
builds up the courage to leave her boring husband and run away to
the islands with that cute guy from the office. You know it’s wrong,
but within the story it feels right. Why? Because the situation
has been constructed by an author, and that author’s moral framework
shapes how you feel about the work. In a sense, you are being manipulated,
although the author may not have intended this. Moral choices are
sometimes presented in such a way that the traditional white hats
and black hats are exchanged the good guys become bad and the
bad guys become good. This is particularly
true when you look at the representation of Christians in the media.
Telling you all this is one thing. In the Reading Group,
I want to show you. Some people would argue that this is a good reason never
to read a “worldly” book, but I would suggest that even the titles
available at your Christian bookstore must be read with discernment,
and that reading the so-called “great” books with discernment is
better for you than reading the so-called “safe” books without it.
The
goal is to develop an understanding of how stories are shaped by
their authors and how this fashioning introduces influences you
have to guard against. You have to recognize the author and audit
his authority.
Man’s
creation, including his literary work, is necessarily flawed. But
God reveals truth even through flawed work.
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