Reading with Faith, Hope, and Love

12/16/04

NT 400

A Theology of Reading – Alan Jacobs

• book-end with Augustine’s On Christian Teaching
• focus on love in terms of interpretation
• not theology of interpreting scripture but reading
• Auden is lifted up as an example of a charitable reading
• Lessons
• paying attention – Simone Weil’s article
• double command of love applied to reading
• suspend suspicion in order to hear
• on the other hand, do not passively take in the text, look to participate in the dialog
• Criticisms / Questions
• not explicit with the telos of reading charitably
• who is this book written for? critics
• C.S. Lewis – Till We Have Faces (until we can step up as an another that God can address)