I am obviously obsessed with spiritual matters. It is one of my main preoccupation's. It keeps me awake at night, proverbially mostly but literally at times. The essential contradictions are endless: between what I understand and believe, between what I cannot accept and what I have been taught, between what I need and what I want... Now, if only my actions weren't as contradictory as my thoughts and feelings. Which could be dissected as something else altogether... but for another time.
Anyway, it makes sense that I would end up reading up on spiritual material, or at least that I would want to. The problem is that quality spiritual reading is hard to come by. Not to say that there isn't a vast quantity of it out there.
But most books of a Spiritual nature tend to be quite... bad. You have the self help ones, the mushy sentimental ones, the hallmark card ones, the fire and brimstone ones, the "12 step" ones, the "inspirational" ones... Not that what they are trying to say is necessarily bad, it is just that the way they do it is terrible.
You may think I am talking specifically about Christian stuff, but hells no, it seems like every religion has its mediocre literature. Just go by any religious or spiritual bookstore to see what I am talking about. The New Age crap, the Evangelical slop, the Buddhist tripe... Its hard to come by good stuff these days. Half of those spiritual writers just dont know how to write.
For now, I will focus on the Christian writers, because those are the ones I have had the most experience with. Evangelical writers in particular.
Most of them are too watered down. Pop-spirituality and self help. I just cant get into them. I am reticent to say any names, lest people who actually enjoy them get offended, but I will mention a few. There is nothing innately wrong with these books, just as there is nothing innately wrong with pop culture in general. If it has an audience that gets a kick out of it, then why not? I love TV programs, who gives? But when it comes to books and especially religious material... I can't take oversimplification or triteness.
Or the ones that are supposed to be inspirational and just end up being cheesy, like Max Lucado. I've tried to read him and his kind several times and found myself rolling my eyes.
Or the authors that attempt to write prose fiction or something like that, like Brian Mclaren and his New Kind of Christian books. I had those books recommended to me by several people I respect and ended up giving up after the 70 pages due to its terrible writing. There is a whole slew of emergent-christian, post-modern evangelical "lit" that has come out lately in the attempt to say the same things over again in a cool new voice that have failed miserably. I recently got through a book by Rob Bell that wasn't terrible once you got over his pretentious writing style. Blue Like Jazz had a couple decent points but played dangerously with some of these same issues. Like I said, many of these people have some good things to say, but they have no idea how to say them.
And then there are the books that interest me more, those on theology. These books have problems all of their own though. Harold Bloom said of Theology: All theologians, from Philo to the present, are allegorists, and since allegory is irony, and demands great literary insight, theologians almost always fail..." This kind of sums up the two problems I have with reading theology. The study of scriptures is an intensely literary affair, but this aspect is missing from most of its researchers and theorists. Not to say that that invalidates their work, but it does limit their interpretation in many ways. And, of course, it kills any possibility that most of them will be enjoyable to read. Dry. Dry. Very Dry.
Anyway, that is my opinion on the general mainstream of Religious writing, especially christian. I will write more on this later though, mentioning exceptions and spiritual writing I have found out of these types.
3 comments:
Well stated! I was thinking, as I read this, that you may want to try some older authors - authors not influenced by pop culture. But then I couldn't think of anyone to recommend. I was disappointed when I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis because some of his comments had nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with 1940's British culture (particularly his section on marriage and women).
Having read both Buddhist and Hindu literature as well, I would tend to agree that this isn't just a Christian problem. I think some of it boils down to the inability of language to truly express spiritual reality. But then again, some of it may be that current authors lack a mastery of language or maybe a mastery of spirituality. I don't know.
yeah, in my Part 2 I will touch on some of those other things
So true! McLaren is practically unreadable. Thus far, the only real spiritual writer I've gotten into who wrote after 1940 is Thomas Merton. I really need to read his autobiography, 'The Seven Storey Mountain.' I don't remember if you are familiar with Merton or not, so I thought I'd throw that out there.
Blue Like Jazz was a fun read, but not very helpful as spiritual guidance. That's how things tend to be these days - theologically negligible and fun or trying to be theologically important but poorly written. (And then there is the dry academic stuff that is theologically sound, but mostly irrelevant to everyday life.) Doctrinal accuracy is becoming increasingly important to me, as is emotional experience. The marriage of those two is rather rocky, though. I'm not quite sure how the relationship can be maintained.
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