People of the Book Who Don't Read

Christians have been called ‘People of the Book’ for centuries, which is ironic now because so few Christians read.  You might object that more and more books are sold through Christian book stores and online than ever before, but I would counter that most of what is sold is largely shallow and often even less useful than that, and how much of that is actually read?  I often run across Christians who want prayer and input on difficult situations in their lives and it is common for me and people in my position (pastors, etc.) to suggest books to help with the process.  More often than I would like to count, I receive the response, “I’m not a reader.”

It is an oxymoron for a Christian, someone whose faith is explained in the pages of a book, not to be a reader.  There are a myriad of reasons for why people read less and less, but I’m interested here with what happens to you when you don’t read – the Bible or good books.  You can’t not read and get away with it.

So, what happens to the Christian when they do not read?

Over time they can no longer understand their Bibles.

There is a lot of information in a Bible.  There are a lot of themes that trace themselves over hundreds of pages, through dozens of stories, several different forms of literature, and in plenty of doctrines and exhortations.  If a Christian’s primary source of analysis of the world comes in 6-minute increments with commercial breaks severed into even smaller segments then biblical comprehension will be difficult to say the least.

Over time they will misunderstand their Bibles and their faith.

Years ago I was teaching a college/young adult Sunday school class of about 60 people.  We did an exercise in which we traced a quotation from the Old Testament in the New Testament.  The plan, which I thought was highly useful, was to read the context of the OT passage and use that to help us understand the quotation in the New.  The first reaction I received was from a young school teacher who asked, “What do you mean by the context?” The exercise went downhill from there.

Modern media is almost utterly without context, or is at least designed to be consumed without context.  Sitcoms need laugh lines every few seconds.  Linear thought is unnecessary to consume most pop culture.  Popular songs are 3 ½ minutes long as opposed to the popular orchestral pieces played to the masses 250 years ago.  A Christian must fight against the soul malformation that happens in pop culture, tune out of it, and learn to read and think.

Over time they will be mislead about what their faith teaches.

Your Bible requires attentive reading.  Without it individual passages become bludgeons in the hands of all kinds of nefarious and heretical schemes.  Many aggressive atheists do not understand Scripture because they believe they have a handful of knock-down passages which show the Bible to be awful and irrational.  Every one of those I have encountered have been squeaky toys in the hands of children – a lot of annoying noise, no real damage done.  Cults twist passages in ways that make sense to Christians who don’t read.  Pop culture mocks Christianity in ways that frighten Christians who don’t read.

Over time they will stop reading their Bibles altogether.

Why continue to read something so large and difficult to understand when I can get a minute-long devotional from my favorite teacher addressing a practical need in my life which does not even need to reference Scripture or theology?  Isn't it all the same if I come out OK, act like a nice person, and learn how to be a better husband and manage my money a little better? A proof text without context is practically useless.

So what is a Christian to do?  Does it need to be said?  Read.  Read your Bible on a regular basis and read good books which help you understand what is going on in your Bible.  Read an entire New Testament Epistle in one sitting.  Learn to read everything through the lens of orthodox Christian doctrine.  Get used to finishing larger and larger books.  Find a few authors who are good at what they do and can challenge you to reach a little further.

You might be surprised how much better you will be for it.

Technology and the Church

Christians have often been called “People of the Book,” and there is no doubt that recent technologies are changing the landscape of the printed book, so are there inevitable consequences for believers who are tied to the authenticity of and interpretive work done in a book? Lisa Miller thinks technology may pose a serious threat to the very existence of the church itself. She titles this piece, “How Technology Could Bring Down the Church.”

She has a point. It appears that the more available the Bible has become both in print and in virtual form, fewer and fewer Christians read it any more.

According to a 2010 survey, more than a third of born-again Christians “rarely or never” read the Bible. Among “unaffiliated” people - that is, Americans who don’t belong to a religious congregation - more than two thirds say they don’t read the Bible.

Is it really a stretch to believe that our general trend to define genuine engagement down from face-to-face conversation all the way to tweets, will leave the Bible exempt? It shouldn’t surprise us that more Christians read large chunks of the Bible less. While it is becoming more popular to “share” favorite or inspiring verses online, that limits us to our software-induced character limit. Since when had a serious thought been limited by 140 characters?

Skeptics are not exempt from this malady. Often the quotations (or misquotations) used to attack the faith are short, misunderstood, and out of context.

Christians need to recapture the virtue of reading and taking the Bible seriously. Though I don’t believe the church as a whole will crumble under the weight of virtual communities, its value to the individual can be seriously threatened by the thoughtless and unreflective believer.

Is God a Moral Monster? Abraham Sacrificing Isaac

Recently, I have been working my way through Paul Copan’s “Is God a Moral Monster?” It looks to be a promising book, and so far he has tackled some thorny issues very well. What I like about a book like this, is it is not afraid to take a close and honest look at some of the more contentious and difficult issues of the Christian Scriptures. Let’s face it – in the climate of the New Atheists the OT has become a popular target and it is incumbent on Christians to at least deal with the challenges. Not every charge leveled against the OT by the New Atheists is worth time and effort, but some are and Copan has taken up the task.

The first topic that really piqued my interest was the matter of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac. In all honesty, that is a difficult passage to deal with. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son of promise, and Abraham essentially says, “OK.”

One of Copan’s first moves is to examine the text of Genesis 22 itself. Though this seems like an obvious thing to do, it is actually rarely done by stone-throwers. Through the text he arrives at four reasons why the event is not the child-abusing horror it is often made out to be. The one reason he lists that I found particularly convincing is that the whole event is described as a “test.” As such, the point of the story is not to actually take the life of Isaac, but to test Abraham’s trust in God. It appears God’s plan includes not actually taking Isaac’s life, and as such, the story does not include that particular indictment of God.

But Abraham seemed ready and willing to go through with it. Doesn’t that in and of itself make the story unpalatable? At this point, Copan cites the ethicist John Hare and a thought experiment. Abridging the thought experiment, imagine a world with different rules for life and death – like a world in which you were assured of being raised stronger and healthier if you were killed at the age of 18. The wise choice would be to have killing parties at 18, and the less wise choice would be to continue to live less strong and less healthy.

As odd as that may sound, it speaks to the plausibility structure of Abraham at the time of God’s command and what that structure actually made of his rational choice. The story itself tells us that Abraham believed God was able to raise the dead, that Isaac was a specific child given to him by God (the “child of promise”), and that Abraham fully expected the both of them to return home. Because Abraham believed in a God who would keep his promise made to him through Isaac and that he was able to raise the dead, his choice to sacrifice his son was not irrational, but an act of trust in God.

And as it turns out, Abraham trusted God, God had no intention of letting Isaac die at his father’s hand, and God did fulfill his promise through Isaac.

Seen through the lens of naturalism, the story of Abraham and Isaac seems worse than incomprehensible. Seen through the lens of the text itself and the existence of God, we can come to terms with what happened and why.

A Good Review of McLaren's Latest

Those who have read through any of the posts on this blog know I am no fan of the theological trajectory of the emergent movement. I recently posted on Facebook that the more I read emergent authors, the more I am convinced that their whole system is founded on theological, historical, and philosophical straw men. I haven’t read anything to convince me otherwise.

In light of McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity, I recommend Kevin DeYoung’s book review on The Gospel Coalition website. DeYoung does a very good job of pinning down an author who tries (often with a great deal of success) to be un-pinn-downable. Though I have not read this book of McLaren’s, it has all the appearances of having jumped the shark: he is now obviously in the camp of 19th century liberal theology. And DeYoung and I both hope, “this wave of liberalism fades as dramatically as did the last.”

Often people, who want to see the good in everything, will counter that the emergent movement at least has a deep missional motivation – they want to see people…well, what exactly do they want to see people do? McLaren is clear over and over in his writings that he doesn’t want to see them come to a saving knowledge of Christ, and mostly other emergents who have a compassionate heart are primarily about social justice issues while simultaneously wrenching out the inherently theological core to Christian social justice.

If the theology is this bad, chances are the behavior will trend in the wrong direction. In order to recover a Christlike sense of care for creation and its inhabitants, it begins with a holistic view of God’s revelation to us, not by cherry-picking and fuzzy thinking.

Is Christ Ever Safe?

The LHC book club is currently reading through Dorothy Sayers', Letters to a Diminished Church. A great quote from early in the first essay:

The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore - on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

Berlinski’s book is a masterful romp through the pretentions of modern secular atheism and scientism. It is surprising on many levels. First of all, though Berlinski claims no religious affiliation, he is no water-boy for scientific naturalism or Darwinism. Then his broad grasp of the science involved is impressive. Someone who clearly keeps up with the literature (knows several Nobel laureates in the sciences) and who understands it all, Berlinski has a useful perspective as he critiques everything from gradual Darwinian processes to string theory to molecular biology. And on top of it all, his dry and cutting sense of humor adds to instead of detracts from his philosophical acumen.

As I progressed deeper into the book, I was reminded of the boy who famously cried out that the emperor had no clothes. Not only does Berlinski deny the general, and often unsupported, claims of the secular Darwinian project, he skewers it. He deals with the usual suspects – Dawkins, Harris, Dennett (he reserves special distaste for Dennett), and Hitchens – and he deals with the real mathematicians, biologists, physicists and so forth. Sometimes critiques of the New Atheists suffer from the vapidity of their subject matter. If the book you are critiquing is without real substance, what else can be said? But Berlinski has the capacity to discuss and analyze on every level.

As an interested follower of the subjects Berlinski covers, I appreciated his ability to make the complex understandable without making it sound simplistic. His firm grasp of the details enables him to talk of the grand scheme with authority and insight. If you are interested in the issues raised by the New Atheists or the Darwinian project, this is a wonderful and insightful read. If you would like to have a fresh perspective on the place of science in our culture from someone who considers himself “part of the church” of science, Berlinski’s book will not disappoint.

Great Advice on Reading Good Books

Douglas Groothuis has some good advice on reading books.

Reflecting On Preaching

Written at a point of personal crisis, Why Johnny Can’t Preach puts across ideas and arguments that reflect a crisis in the larger evangelical world. T. David Gordon decided to put these ideas on paper while facing a diagnosis of terminal cancer, so there is an air of urgency to the work. He wanted to discuss why preaching (specifically among evangelical and reformed circles) is so bad. I, too, feel his sense of urgency.

The book begins with the sobering revelation, “Part of me wishes to avoid proving the sordid truth: that preaching today is ordinarily poor.” Drawing on his teaching, preaching, and academic background in media ecology, Gordon proceeds to lay out the case that most preaching misses all the foundational homiletical principles. The most glaring of which may be what is labeled “Evangelical Tone,” or the sense that the preacher is proactively proclaiming Christ and Him crucified.

The middle two chapters make the case that Johnny can’t preach because he can’t read and he can’t write. We live in a culture that creates a kind of “aliteracy”: pastors can read, but they can’t read for meaning or significance. In addition, pastors by-in-large can’t communicate well in writing. And if our future pastors enter seminary lacking these foundational tools, all the theological and homiletical training in the world can’t save future pulpiteering tragedy.

Gordon ends up arguing for training our missing “pre-homiletical sensibilities” in seminary and Bible colleges. He is most assuredly right. Without an analytical eye to deep reading for meaning and flow, and without the ability to sift through the insignificant to get to the significant, expositing a text becomes an exercise in futility.

While there is a lot to commend, Gordon fell a little short on treating Johnny’s inability to write. His short chapter on this issue dwelt entirely on telephone conversations, and I am sure there is a lot more he could have said. I addition, Gordon placed a lot of weight on the usefulness of yearly reviews of the pastor’s preaching by his congregation or peers. If the trained preacher lacks the necessary skills to tell good preaching from bad, how can the untrained public be any better?

All in all, however, Gordon’s book is a tremendous work and deserves to be read by those who are interested in reviving the Church through Christ-centered and life-giving preaching.

Screwtape Letters - The Audio Book

The more I reflect on and reread The Screwtape Letters, the more I am struck by its insight and power. Now it has been made into an audio drama, which should help make it a bit more accessible to more people.

Do Christians Cherry-Pick The Bible? Pt. 2

In his short article on this complicated topic, it seems Barna takes the position quoted at the end of the piece:

The Rev. Kent Ingram of First United Methodist Church, which is within a denomination undergoing its own internal squabbles over gays in the church, views the Bible to some degree as a Rorschach ink-blot test – what we see and choose to emphasize in it tells us more about ourselves than anything else.

“We read the Bible to defend our orthodoxy,” Ingram said.

This position is a kind of appeal to relativism: different people appeal to the same document to support different points of view; therefore, there really isn’t much else to say. Far from being an argument against the other pastors in the article who allegedly cherry-pick from Scripture, it is the ultimate justification for cherry-picking. Ingram’s apparent deconstructionist/reader-response version of interpreting Scripture might argue that cherry-picking is all there is. If the Bible doesn’t shape our orthodoxy, then our “orthodoxy,” or presuppositions about God and the spiritual life shape the Bible. If we then become those kinds of interpretive authorities, the only right thing to do is affirm what we agree with and deny what we don’t.

In the end, this view of reading any document doesn’t settle any questions. It avoids the substantive questions of what the original authors intended, what principles are being communicated, and how should I best understand this piece of literature, and replaces them with an appeal to the subject – an appeal to the reader’s preconceived feelings about things.

Every reader carries their culture, upbringing and their prejudices with them when they read anything. But the decision to turn those subjective realities into interpretive devices is ultimately self-destructive. A goal of good reading is to challenge those preconceptions and wrestle with the truth.

So while it is true that some do read the Bible to defend their orthodoxies, it is not true of most serious Christians. We read the Bible to find its orthodoxy.

But there is still so much more to say.

Do Christians Cherry-Pick the Bible?

The religion reporter at the local paper, The Gazette, recently did a short piece titled, “Is Bible an all-or-nothing proposition?” The piece was precipitated by the recent move in the ECLA regarding homosexual lifestyles and marriage, and was intended to ask the question whether Christians cherry-pick from the Bible. Barna notes:

The crux of the issue comes down to the Bible — or, more specifically, how one views it. Is it the literal word of God, and if so, shouldn’t the faithful follow everything in it? You might be surprised by how some religious leaders answer the question.

Several Colorado Springs evangelical pastors I interviewed contend that the Bible is the absolute word of God, yet they acknowledge that they dismiss or de-emphasize various biblical passages.

In other words, they cherry-pick the Bible. (To be fair, most everyone else does, too, but biblical literalists sometimes criticize other Christians for not accepting Scripture in its entirety.)

After very short blurbs from each of three interviews, Barna accuses the pastors of cherry-picking from Scripture. The only minister not accused is the one who agrees with the premise of the article.

So, is it true? Do Christians simply agree with those portions of Scripture they find comfortable and gloss over the rest? Because this is such a serious, not to mention complicated issue, I am going to split my thoughts up into a couple of posts (at least).

First of all, let me say I feel the accusation. I have spent my entire adult life dealing with Scripture, and there are still plenty of stories and passages I don’t know exactly what to do with. But, after my time in Scripture and the development of my own belief system, I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis when he says in Mere Christianity that the God of Christianity is far too uncomfortable to be made up by us. So, if we believe in someone who betrays our natural comforts, chances are good we aren’t making him up or cherry-picking according to our own pleasures.

Secondly, the Bible is not a simplistic document that can be handled with simplistic notions. The Christian Scriptures contain the legal and cultic (cult = having to do with the practice of religion) documents of an ancient middle-eastern people, the religious documents of a theocracy, history, prayer and wisdom books, prophetic oracles, spiritual biographies, epistles, apocrypha, and more. Each literary milieu comes with all the standard hermeneutical principles, just like we would expect to use when comparing the writings of Abraham Lincoln, Emerson, and Emilie Dickenson. It would be simplistic silliness to “exegete” all three of those authors the same way. So it follows it is simplistic silliness to exegete Leviticus, Psalms, Jeremiah and Paul in exactly the same ways.

Therefore, we need to avoid the phrase, “I take the Bible literally.” You don’t. Even if you say you do, you don’t. What should be asserted is something more like: I take the Bible seriously, or, I affirm all the Scriptures affirm. Take for instance my belief that I take the Bible seriously and Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” I don’t take that to literally mean that the sky speaks like humans speak. Taking it seriously avoids the silliness of taking it “literally,” and yet allows me to believe what the original author intended to say. The complexity and beauty of creation reveals to me a God.

But, of course, Barna is not that worried about my hermeneutical method and metaphor. He wants to know about the biblical injunctions about homosexuality. So then we will need to continue…

Wesley, Pastors, Reason and Logic

I recently picked up John Wesley’s Address to the Clergy. I had a great time reading it through, being motivated by almost everything he said and laughing out-loud at the silliness of our own age.

Imagine an Address to Clergy being written (or Power-Pointed) by a leading minister of our day. What specific advice would it include? What kinds of traits and habits would it tell clergy they would need to have in order to be good and effective pastors?

Here is just a smattering of the first three or four pieces of advice from Wesley to clergy:

To begin with gifts; and, (1.) With those that are from nature. Ought not a Minister to have, First, a good understanding, a clear apprehension, a sound judgment, and a capacity of reasoning with some closeness? Is not this necessary in an high degree for the work of the ministry? Otherwise, how will he be able to understand the various states of those under his care; or to steer them through a thousand difficulties and dangers, to the haven where they would be?

Secondly. Is it not highly expedient that a guide of souls should have likewise some liveliness and readiness of thought? Or how will he be able, when need requires, to "answer a fool according to his folly?" How frequent is this need!

Thirdly. To a sound understanding, and a lively turn of thought, should be joined a good memory;

Fifthly. Some knowledge of the sciences also, is, to say the least, equally expedient. Nay, may we not say, that the knowledge of one, (whether art or science,) although now quite unfashionable, is even necessary next, and in order to, the knowledge of the Scripture itself? I mean logic.

Wesley mentions many other things, including knowledge of history and geometry.

Honestly, has our culture changed so much that now none of these things are mentioned when it comes to a healthy and effective pastorate, or have we dumbed-down the role of pastor so that these things just aren’t on our radar screens anymore?

The Ordering of Our Affections

I have recently started Naugle's new book, Reordered Love, Reordered Lives, and am already excited. I enjoy good books that combine Christian spiritual formation and sound thinking, and this one falls smack in the middle of that category. So, unless I radically change my mind, this book is worth the price and a good, slow read!

The book's website is here.

New Book Review Blog For and By Pastors

Another pastor and I have begun a blog dedicated to books for pastors reviewed by pastors. Take a look!

Pastor's Books

Mediums and a Gospel Message?

Shane Hipps is the recent author of two books on how media and mediums change the way the messages are conveyed. The interview below is specifically in regards to his book, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith. I have not read the book, but the few minutes of the video below are provocative.

He goes after the fairly conventional notion that though mediums change, the message stays the same, and concludes, ostensibly with McLuhan, that the medium is the message. On several levels, I find this a very important reality for pastors and churches to reflect upon. We often swallow and use technologies without reflecting first on what they are doing to the message. What happens to a sermon when it is simulcast? What happens to community when more and more of it happens “on-line”? What happens to worship when it is programmed like a Yani concert? And so forth.

On another level, I am curious about how deep his conviction goes. Is his argument that we need to scale back our reliance on technology and be much more cautious? (He is a Mennonite pastor, so that is entirely possible.) Is he traveling down a path where the message of the Gospel itself becomes a little fungible and begins to change in significant ways? (He wrote a book endorsed by Brian McLaren, so that is also possible.)

In any event, enjoy the brief provocation.

HT: Out of Ur

Apologetics Study Bible

I was given the Apologetics Study Bible for my birthday, and though I haven’t read every single word (I received it yesterday), I have spent a lot of time reading articles, text notes, and the editors’ explanation for the way they put it together. I have to say I am extremely impressed. I am impressed by the wide array of philosophers who contributed articles throughout the text, and I am impressed with the annotated bibliography on different apologetic issues. I was also impressed, reading through several biblical texts, on the focus of the textual notes. They really did focus on apologetic issues and, where I read them, handled the text well.

A “bonus” feature for me was a set of comments called the Twisted Scripture notes. At several important places, the editors stuck a brief note on how this particular verse of set of verses has been taken out of context and used to justify some pretty bad thinking. If there is any kind of draw-back for me, it would be the Holman translation, and only because it is brand new to me. Now I have a new translation to get used to.

If you are looking for a new and useful study Bible, I highly recommend the Apologetics Study Bible!

Dead People Have Nearly Nothing To Say

Andy Crouch tells the story of a friend who made the mistake of looking for a book by a dead author in a Christian bookstore.

"Do you have Henri Nouwen's Show Me the Way?" he asked, referring to the late Catholic writer's collection of Lenten meditations.

"Oh no, dear," answered the clerk at the cash register. "He's dead. We don't carry books by dead authors."

I was told the same thing once. I was searching for eight copies of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters for some of my teens at church. The Christian bookstore didn’t carry it and told me the same thing. They didn’t carry books by people who were dead.

A policy like this in a Christian bookstore should raise one glaring question. After lamenting the culture this “no dead authors” policy reflects, Crouch wonders out loud:

Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the one part of the Christian store that clearly violates the "no dead authors" dictum: the Bible section. To be sure, the hundreds of lifestyle-oriented Bibles do include the original text, but too often the tedious, dead-author part of the Bible is in the smallest, least appealing type, while the easy-to-read study notes, helpful hints, and contemporary stories offer their assistance with lively type and colorful graphics.

I am more and more thankful for other book outlets. After my futile search in the Christian bookstore, I found all eight of my copies of Screwtape at Borders and Barnes and Noble and enacted a public boycott on such trite institutions as my local Christian bookstore. And as time goes on, I grow more and more attached to Amazon. If websites will make their way into eternity (in a good way), that one has a real shot.

A Cautionary Tale

One of the best compliments I can pay a book is that it sticks with me and comes to mind often as I interact with life. Reading Fame Junkies was sometimes disturbing, always revealing, and it has stuck with me. I am not a fan of pop culture to begin with. I have the same problems with it many people do: the rampant consumerism, the inherent shallowness of it all, the oversimplification of necessarily deep concepts, and the outright narcissism. But this book helped me see it all on another level.

The book is split into three basic “takes” on the culture of fame, each of which is full of enlightening interviews, anecdotes, studies, and commentary. It is hard to say I was impressed by one part more than the others, but I continue to think through the act of giving up a “normal” life and career to become an assistant to a star. Halpern does a great job of telling some of those stories and allowing the reader to hear from their own mouths why assistants do what they do.

I have since quit watching any form of celebrity TV. I used to unwind from time to time with a little Leno or Letterman, but now all I see is narcissism. And not just on the part of the “stars” – it is the cash currency of the world of fame. If self-absorption disappeared and humility reigned, well, things would be different for the world of TV, print, and movie media.

In that vein, Fame Junkies is a modern tale of the consequences of meaninglessness and vice. The people represented in the book are nice and normal people (for the most part), and they are presented fairly by Halpern, but theirs are cautionary tales. Because their lives seem to lack any over-arching meaning, they seek for it through the fleeting attention paid to them by others. Or in other cases, they live their lives vicariously through the famous.

These are among the morality tales of our culture. Read them and learn.

Reading Old Books

I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but I have already decided on my goal for 2009.

I recently became a little tired of reading about the things John Wesley wrote, and broke down and purchased his collected works. I have only had a chance to scratch a couple of surfaces, but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Wesley on Wesley.

As a result, I have decided to read one book or work at least 100 years old for every other book I read. There are a few on my shelf I have been through before that I intend to read again like Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (it is honestly one of the most stimulating books I have ever read) and works new to me like Augustine’s City of God.

There are several I have read before but will not read again in 2009, so I am looking for a few good ideas. Do you have any suggestions? I am open to just about anything from Cicero to St. Patrick to Chaucer to Edwards to Bradford’s History of the Plymouth Plantation.

If you have a suggestion, please elaborate on its value to you.

Digital Reading

USA Today reports that Random House is going to publish more of its books in digital format to meet a growing demand for digital reading. I have to admit I don't get it.

What is the benefit of reading a book digitally? I would rather have a real, "flesh and blood" book in my hands. Some say a digital book has an advantage in that it is searchable--you can find any word you want. But, isn't that what a pencil is for? There is just something fulfilling about a physical library growing as you read new books and they find their proper place on the right shelf. Its a great day when you need to reshuffle books on other shelves so you can make room for the latest tome on some other shelf. It means I need to get used to a new configuration of shapes and colors in my library. I can't imagine just having one device sitting all by itself on a coffee table. Seems boring to me. I love those moments when I need to search my shelves for old bookmarks because I have too many books going at the same time. A digital bookmark is too intangible to be of any value to me.

Do you purchase and read digital books? Have you purchased a digital reader? Am I a bilioluddite?