Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice - Hardcover

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158743525X ISBN 13: 9781587435256

Publisher: Brazos Press, 2023

Synopsis

"A timely and accessible primer."--Christian Century

What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but also a spiritual practice that deepens our faith?

In Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson does just that--and then shows readers how to reap the spiritual benefits of reading. She argues that the simple act of reading can help us learn to pray well, love our neighbor, be contemplative, practice humility, and disentangle ourselves from contemporary idols.

This accessible and engaging guide outlines several ways Christian thinkers--including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers--approached the act of reading. It also includes useful special features such as suggested reading lists, guided practices for approaching texts, and tips for meditating on specific texts or Bible passages.

By learning to read for the love of God, readers will discover not only a renewed love of reading but also a new, vital spiritual practice to deepen their walk with God.

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author or editor of eight books, including Reading for the Love of God, The Scandal of Holiness (winner of a Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit), Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award), and Flannery O'Connor's "Why Do the Heathen Rage?" Hooten Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading.

From the Back Cover

"Makes the case for reading as a means of transformation"

What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but a spiritual practice that deepens our faith?

In Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson shows us how to reap the spiritual benefits of reading. She argues that the simple act of reading can help us learn to pray well, love our neighbor, be contemplative, practice humility, and disentangle ourselves from contemporary idols.

"In her deft and beautiful way, Jessica Hooten Wilson crafts a theology of reading for Christians who have forgotten why it matters. She challenges us to take up and read--not only because it teaches about the faith of our past but because it makes our faith stronger for the present too. Get this book to learn, to grow, and to be inspired."
--Beth Allison Barr, professor, Baylor University; bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood

"Hooten Wilson makes the case for reading as a means of transformation into Christlikeness. Her own meditations on the theology, spirituality, and ethics of reading are punctuated with studies of great Christian readers, male and female, down through the ages, which adds a rich layer of historical insight to her own brilliant reflections. This book is profound and practical at once. As St. Augustine would say, tolle lege (take and read)!"
--Tish Harrison Warren, Anglican priest and author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

"We are what we read. Yet, it is not only what we read but also how we read and to what ends. Hooten Wilson wonderfully demonstrates that reading is not only an art but also, most importantly, a transcendent calling, mission, and vocation."
--Gloria Purvis, host and executive producer of The Gloria Purvis Podcast

From the Inside Flap

Throughout church history, reading was a spiritual practice, but now we have relegated it to a hobby. By doing so, says Jessica Hooten Wilson, we have lost the sanctification found in a life of reading. Instead of reading for passive entertainment or self-improvement, this book encourages us to read for the love of God.

This engaging guide outlines several ways Christian thinkers--including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy L. Sayers--approached the act of reading. It also includes suggested reading lists, guided practices to approaching texts, and tips for meditating on specific texts or Bible passages.

By learning to read for the love of God, we discover not only a renewed love of reading but also a vital spiritual practice to deepen our walk with God.

"This helpful, encouraging guide is both for those who already know they love to read and for those who want to be someone who reads. We all benefit from Jessica's winsome words on these pages, words that inspire us to pull more books off the shelf and ask, 'How might this next one change my life?'"
--Tsh Oxenreider, author of Bitter and Sweet, Shadow and Light, and At Home in the World

"A tremendous gift, one that will shape, reform, and revitalize the way the church reads. By helping us read for the love of God, Hooten Wilson helps us live for the love of God. I'll be recommending this book widely in my parish and beyond for years to come."
--Claude Atcho, pastor of Church of the Resurrection, Charlottesville, Virginia; author of Reading Black Books

Edition details

• Publisher: Brazos Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158743525X
• ISBN 13: 9781587435256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208