The Darkness That Is Engulfing Our Land

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When the chips are down and i am actually needing to dig deep into the wells of my being to access some strength or capacity, it's not i don't turn to some non fiction. I read ten times more, not fiction than fiction, but exactly like you. And so i'l give anexample. Now, read it, and readers will know where this comes from. It is a passage that always wilh me. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end, the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

This week David and Curtis are joined by Karen Swallow Prior, writer, thinker, and research professor of English and Christianity and culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Karen talks to us about the current state of affairs in social media, particularly Twitter, and compares its impact on culture and the church to another critical technology, the printing press. She discusses how these modern technologies are impacting our brains, and how we can push back against this through the simple act of reading, especially the (necessarily slow and contemplative) reading of literature.

Show Notes:

-National Endowment of the Arts - “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America”

-Caleb Crain (The New Yorker) - “Why We Don’t Read, Revisited”

-Sign up for David’s French Press newsletter

-Follow Curtis’ work at RedeemingBabel.org