What would you say to a preacher who feels intimidated by all he feels he needs to read in order to “speak to the culture”? Where should he start?
He needs to start noticing the cultural water he swims in every day. You don’t need to start with heavy tomes. Look at the music videos on YouTube getting tens or hundreds of millions of views. They’re almost always about cultural narratives of identity, freedom, and so on that shape us at our roots. Make them visible by reflecting on them. James K. A. Smith’s How (Not) to Be Secular [review | interview], which is a guide to reading Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, is a good starting point.
(HT: Tim Keller)
CWoznicki Think Out Loud 