Birthright Citizenship, War’s Moral Hazards, and Can Literature Save Men?

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I'm Clarissa Mall.

Today, Russell Moore might cause for an eye-join with guests to talk about new perspectives

on the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship case, the moral hazards of the U.S.-Israeli

War on Iran, and weather-reading might save young men in crisis.

Welcome to the show.

On February 26, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Legal

Immigration Network issued an amicus brief for a Supreme Court case on birthright citizenship

that is set to be reviewed next month.

An amicus brief is a legal document that presents important perspectives that parties in a particular

case are encouraged to consider.

This brief included 11 scripture passages, as well as references to Thomas Aquinas and

St. Augustine.

Joining Russell Moore and me to understand the arguments presented to the court and why

birthright citizenship is so important for Christians to consider is Anna Gallagher,

executive director for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.

Anna, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

Anna, as we begin to give us some context, could you tell our listeners about your organization

and what your interest was in contributing to writing this brief?

So, a clinic, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network was an organization that was started

at a time of great hope.

It was immediately after the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in the late 1980s.

And at that time, the conference, bishops at the USCCB, realized and recognized so many

of their parishioners were immigrants.

And they also were wise because they saw the great need for immigration legal services.

So, they started small and was Bishop DeMarsio, who is a retired bishop now from Brooklyn.

In his wisdom, said, we need to set up a couple offices.

We need to help our people.

So, it started with three or four offices in the United States to help people fill out that

amnesty application.

At that time, I think that we regularized our people three to four million people

obtained immigration status.

It was a time of great joy and hope.

Since that time, clinic has grown from that small couple offices and we are now an affiliate

network of over 400 immigration legal service nonprofits across the United States

that support working and poor immigrants.

So, birthright citizenship reflects the idea, the basic idea that every child born in this country

belongs to the community from the very beginning.

And clinic in the US conference of bishops filed the Amicus Brief because birthright citizenship

is both a constitutional principle and a moral issue tied to the inherent human dignity

of every person.

And for organizations like clinic that works so closely with immigrant families,

the implications of this abstract, they affect real families,

real children and real communities.

Russell, what is the Trump versus Barbara case before the Supreme Court?

And what particularly is being decided here?

Well, the question is whether or not the 14th Amendment applies to everybody,

which says any person born or naturalized, the argument that the Trump administration

is making is that if someone should not be here in the first place, that means that if they

have a baby, that baby does not have birthright citizenship, that's part of what they're claiming.

This is something that really a year ago or two years ago, nobody would have even imagined

being argued at the court because there was just complete consensus as to whether people liked

birthright citizenship or not.

There was complete consensus that that's what the text of the Constitution says.

But we're in a different time now.

And as somebody who's bought a lot of amicus briefs and a lot of amicus briefs with the Catholic

bishops, I was stunned by this one in terms of how forceful it was.

The bishops tend to be kind of understated, not that their convictions understated,

but their wording tends to be a little understated.

And this was very, very clear.

And the other thing I think is interesting here is there are some people who,

when they look at a document like this and say, well, the bishops are giving Catholic

social teaching as the reason for this, which is itself kind of a

theocratic Christian nationalist type of argument because the United States does not obey

Catholic social teaching.

They're misunderstanding the point of an amicus brief.

And an amicus brief is not saying, here are all the reasons why you should do this.

Amicus brief is to say, here are all the reasons why we care about this.

And we're motivated by this.

And therefore, this is what we're asking you as a friend of the court to do.

So in that sense, coming in and laying out, here's how my religious faith motivates me.

In any number of issues is not saying my religious faith now settles the issue.

It's to say, we have a special interest here because we care about these people.

And because we care about these people, we want to pay careful attention to what the

Constitution says and how the Constitution protects them. That's why we're speaking to this.

And so it's a completely appropriate thing to do.

The primary argument is that the church teaches we must well from the strangeness

and the migrant as the experience of migration accompanies the history of the people of God.

And Matthew 25 reminds us that the truest measure of morality lies in how the most vulnerable

among us are traded. Whatever you did for one of these least of my brothers, you did for me.

So it's extending to mercy to our neighbors as a mystery of the good Samaritan,

whose love transcended ethnic division of the time.

And in addition, in terms of why we did this, the Catholic social teaching begins with the guy

given digging the ever human being. Every person is created in the image of God and has

inherent dignity regardless of their immigration status. And there's no exceptions on that.

And then are concerned for the vulnerable because scripture repeatedly calls believers to care

for migrants' childrens and those in the margins. And then the notion of family unity.

Birthright citizenship upholds a Catholic principle subsidiary. Teaching that larger social institutions

cannot and must not displace smaller and media communities, and particularly the family,

which the church recognizes as the first and vital cell of society. And of course, we know

children are embedded in our communities, right? A child is embedded from the very beginning,

from birth, a family, a neighborhood, a parish, a civil community. So all of that is reflected in

the amicus. Evan Jolklism also would share many of the biblical resonances there.

Care for the sojourner because you were a sojourner in Egypt. But also there's a special emphasis

in evangelicalism on the individual, on the personal. And so to say a person's legal status

shouldn't be determined by some sort of signaling that one has to ward that person's parents.

And that each individual is to be received on his or her own. That's an emphasis.

It belongs to the rest of the body of Christ, but we tend to emphasize it quite a bit. And then

along with that is the question of the Constitution. I mean, we have concerns as Christians, and then we

have concerns as Americans. And those things are not the same, but they're often related,

which is to say we want due process, we want public justice. So a lot of what is happening through

especially in the prophets and the Old Testament is to say you don't use the legal system to punish

people who should not be punished. This is unjust. And that's one concern here as well. Let's say if

the Constitution can be read in such a way that it no longer means what it says as a way of expressing

some sort of hostility to people, then you're going to have problems downstream with almost every

other issue, including religious freedom. Talk to me a little bit more about that idea of how

the Constitution is read. The Trump versus Barbara case relies quite a bit on history.

How did the 14th Amendment originate? And how do you see the Trump administration working with

or against the historical understanding of that? The context, of course, was coming out of the

Civil War and after the abolition of slavery to make the point that we don't have these categories

of citizens and almost citizens in the United States of America. And so everybody who is born here

or naturalized here is actually a citizen with the exact same status legally as everyone else.

So what the Trump administration wants to argue as well, this is dealing with the question of

this entire category of formerly enslaved people. It's not addressing the issue of immigration,

which, of course, the way that this has been interpreted all long in American history is

the text of the 14th Amendment could easily have said those formerly enslaved are now citizens

full stop. But it redefined something that's present in the precursors in English common law and

other places that those who are born here are protected. I mean, it's a matter of fact, when the

Trump administration said we're going to go to the court with birthright citizenship, most people

even who agree with them on immigration said, ah, this is not. I mean, of course, you're going to

lose there. So that's why it was such a surprise. The concerns we see are about securing the border.

It's about people that are in the United States non-citizens in the United States who commit

serious crimes should not stay in the United States. There has to be processes that are respected

and procedures to identify threats to our country and to be able to provide due process to the people

that we are seeking to deport because that when we follow due process for the least of our brothers,

we follow due process for all of us, right? They get due process, they go to a hearing, they do to

and then the immigration judge and the illegal authorities determine whether they should be deported.

And there's also concerns that are legitimate if dangerous people are in its society and they

don't have status to be here. The government has the right to look at that, provide the deep

process and make a decision and determine whether they should be deported. Of all of the arguments

that we have over the appropriateness of ICE deportations or how the border should be secured,

which even isn't itself much of an argument, it's more of an argument, well,

did President Biden adequately secure the border or why haven't people done this, not really

about whether or not we ought to secure the border, what we do with those who are in the country

right now who don't have status, what can they do to try to make that? I mean, all of those

conversations are going on, but I can't think of a single time other than once when I've had someone

who has said, well, I think the Constitution made a mistake with birthright citizenship because

they didn't understand as they were crafting it what this would lead to. But I have never had

a conversation with someone saying the Constitution doesn't give birthright citizenship.

If the court were to rule with the Trump administration on this one, I think it actually would be a

big problem for the Trump administration as well as for the country because I don't think

their people are there. And as we close, I'm curious what your vision would be for these families

for these children who were caught in between. They are born to parents who are not legal citizens,

they are in a way stateless if they cannot rely on birthright citizenship. What is your vision or

hope for these children? I mean, first is that this Supreme Court rules consistent with the law

and consistent with this Catholic social teaching. And also, I think about DACA. I think about

the kids from DACA. I think about first-generation children. I'm a first-generation. My parents

were born in Dunningall, very poor, and especially my father's family. So he had to leave.

And there's something about when you grow up in an immigrant and mixed family,

I grew up in a mixed family that had status because then the laws permitted people that had very

little formal education could come to work. They gave them green cards. My parents were lucky.

But there's something about growing up in a family of immigrants because of the needs and also

the journey. They work so hard. They're so grateful for opportunities in this country that they

didn't have in their country of origin. And they don't have to buy it, loyalties. And the children

learn this because my parents love my mother's soul with us, loves America and cherishes Ireland.

My father was the same way he was a veteran. And they could live between these two worlds

and be very American. And children of immigrants, what I hope for them is that this is just a

little teeny bump that'll make them stronger. Because when you see things like this that people

want to reject you, that this administration wants to reject children born of parents who don't

have status, that's just an additional huge worry for the children. So we already know that all

the DACA kids who don't have status worry about their status but worry about their parents.

And then we always know, and I see this up front, you know, when I do pro bono clinics and

my clients, how terrified children are that their parents are going to be ripped away from them.

So I hope and pray that all those children feel our prayers, that they know something about what

the Catholic Church is doing for this Supreme Court decision. The people of faith support this,

and it just makes them more resilient. And they feel like we're holding their hands frankly.

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The U.S. Israeli attack on Iran continued this week with six Americans killed in Kuwait,

and both President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth, saying the war might take longer than

Americans expect. We are only four days into this. Metrics are shifting, dust is settling and

more forces are arriving. It's very early. And as President Trump has said, we will take all the

time we need to make sure that we succeed. Whether the war lasts 12 days like the conflict that

erupted back in June last year, or it drags on for months, we're convinced that Christians need

to develop a mindset that helps them face the reality that war always brings. Today, Russell,

Mike and I want to talk about that. Russell, as you reflect on this last week of the conflict,

what stands out to you in terms of the American response to the war?

Well, one of the things that stands out immediately is confusion. And I don't mean that necessarily

confusion on the part of the people carrying the war out. But on the part of the American people

who are looking at this and trying to decide, I mean, as you said, earlier with the 12-day war,

initially, it felt like, oh, could we be back in another Iraq or could we be watching another

Iraq unfolding? And then it was over and everybody moved on. A lot of people are thinking, is it that?

Or are we looking at something where we're going to look back and say, oh, that was the tinderbox

that really started a regional years-long war? We just don't know. And then you add to that the fact

that normally in any case of American military action, there's a lot of, here's why this needs to

be done. I mean, even think about that with World War II, which was probably the clearest case as

to why the United States needs to be in a war that we've seen in a long time. We have got the Uncle

Sam posters. Rosie the Riveter saying to people, here's why we need to be doing this. Or when you

come to the Iraq war, most of us would say that did not go well and should not have happened. But at

the time, the case was being made by President Bush, the Axis of Evil conversation, the sense of

coming out of 911, what a nation that had weapons of mass destruction could actually do. I mean,

that case was being made. You come to this right now and there seems to be 10 or 12 different

reasons. And so one administration official will say regime change. The Iranian regime is awful.

It needs to be God. Another will say, no, it's not regime change. It's delaying the nuclear

program. But then of course, the administration said that the nuclear program was devastated by

the bombings before. So it's, well, it's not the nuclear program. It's the funding of Hezbollah

and the terrorists. I mean, you have all of these different reasons being given. And I don't think

people have a very clear view. I think people are okay with the idea of a quick bombing. And then

the people of Iran rising up and taking the reins of their government and going forward, we would

all think that that's a good result. A democratic free Iran. But war doesn't tend to work that

tidally. And if it does, it's very rare. Mike, it makes me think of the death of the Iatola

this past week. Just taking away a nation's bad leader doesn't mean that something good will

happen as a result. Jonathan Chancellor has alluded to this on the show before that a leadership

vacuum like that could be advantageous for opportunistic bad actors. The Iatola is a person who

is responsible for the deaths of so many people. The fact that he's not in charge anymore. People

are celebrating his death. At the same time, there's a moral issue. This is a person that was made

in the image of God. The Bible explicitly says don't celebrate the death of the wicked. So I

think there's some complex layers that are happening here at the same time. The next leader that

could take his place could be worse. Nonetheless, I think we are in a place where there's a lot of

uncertainty about what comes next. A plurality of Americans are opposed to this action. I think that's

very soft on both sides. If things were to go well and we're out, a lot of those people who are

opposed to it would say, okay, I get it. I see it and move forward. And if it were to drag on

for a long time, a lot of the people who are supportive would say no, this is not what we signed

up for. That one person said to me, after President Trump said, you know, maybe five weeks,

said I'm having flashbacks to COVID when we were hearing just another six weeks to stop the

spread. This will all be over by Easter. That kind of thing. There's just a lot of ambiguity.

What would remedy that ambiguity? Would it be a congressional authorization at this point? Do we

need a speech from the president to outline the plan? All of those. I mean, constitutionally,

the legislative branch has the power of declaring war. And so when you have people who will say things

as Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania said, well, we haven't had a declared war since World War

2. Well, we actually have. We haven't called it a declaration war, but we've had authorization

and military action. That was what the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was. That was what the Persian

Gulf War authorization in 1991 was. That was what the authorization for military force

won the war on terror after 9-11. And then another authorization of military force in Iraq.

We have had all of those things. And that authorization for military force that gave the authority

to carry out the war in Afghanistan and the occupation in Afghanistan essentially for 20 years

was then repealed. The Congress has always allowed the president to respond to an imminent threat.

So if there were Iranian missiles headed toward the United States or toward a United States military

base, bombing back and stopping that would not require the president to say, wait, everybody,

let me go find Mike Johnson. That's not what that means, but that's not what we have happening

here. I mean, we've had weeks of lead up here and there's not been congressional authorization.

So that is part of it. The other part of it is, yeah, you need a president who is speaking to the

country. We had just a week ago, a state of the Union address, which other presidents used to

stand up and say, here is why this crisis that's emerging in the Middle East, we are going to have

to get ready to do this because if American history and world history has taught us anything,

it's that militaries don't fight wars, entire countries fight wars. And if you don't have the

support of the people behind a military action, it's not going to be able to be successful long-term

because people are going to get resentful. And that's especially true once you move from the kind

of shock and awe. Let's watch it on TV and see what's happening to, oh, Johnny from our church,

small group is having to be deployed. That's a very different conversation.

People don't like sitting in ambiguity. We tend to force clarity wherever we can attempt it.

How do you see Americans trying to force clarity? You wrote this week that war is not just geopolitical

risk, but personal temptation. Do you see us looking for clarity, perhaps in unhealthy ways already?

Well, usually that's what has happened because there's a sense of threat.

People typically mobilize and move into a certain mindset. And that's not only true in terms of

the people who are charged up to fight the war. Those of us who were here after September 11th,

remember the way that every aspect, really, of American culture was getting prepped.

From the yellow ribbons people would put on their trees outside their house to Toby Keith's songs,

you had all of this happening that was really expressing where people were. You also have,

I mean, think about, for instance, Vietnam and anti-war movement. It was very mobilized and also

manifested itself in Joan Baez's songs and Bob Dylan's songs and everything else.

So there is that tendency. What I'm really worried about right now is I'm not as worried

about militarism in people's minds because I think that is a real temptation often.

Even when it's something that is a good and just military outcome,

there can be this sense of bloodlust of actually enjoying this and getting a charge of life out of

it. I think that's a dangerous thing. Right now, I'm more worried about the opposite,

which is the fact that I just don't think people are taking this very seriously at all.

They're just not talking much about it, which I think will be really, really hard

if this does take a turn in a bad direction.

In conversations that mention vengeance or avenging an enemy, I think it's interesting that we almost

hit the override button on one giant vulnerability that we are all mortal. And Russell,

you wrote about that this week. What is the temptation of sloth as it relates to Iran?

When I say that sloth is a temptation, I'm not talking about laziness.

I'm talking about it the way that the church fathers often would speak of it as a kind of

deadness or numbness. That's what we're seeing right now. And some of that has to do with the fact

that people are getting hit with a thousand huge news stories a day, even when you can trust them.

And then they're getting hit with all kinds of AI Slop in their social media feeds where they're

saying, I don't even know if that's true. And that can give a certain kind of numbness and

deadness. When in reality, a time of war ought to at least cause us to step back and to say,

let's be reminded right now of our mortality. I think about what C.S. Lewis was saying to those

students at Oxford and World War II started to say, yeah, you're really facing the fact that you

could be killed at any moment. That was always true. It's just that right now you know it.

And so make yourself reachable to something actually transforming in that moment rather than just

trying to shut it down. I think that's a good word for us right now. This is not the environment in

which that kind of formation can happen. But there is a Christian way to talk about justice,

about bearing the sword, about the way that we use our power, the way that we use our influence

around the world. I don't think a short form video world or a social media world is the place

where we regain that sensitivity. The way that formation happens is people learn to love their

neighbor. And then they can extend that love of neighbor to the stranger who's far off. And I

think that challenge is enormous right now. The world in which Christians live at the moment

is extremely difficult. There are people who have been saying for a long time that the problem

is intervention in other countries. We shouldn't have it. We shouldn't be in the Middle East.

Who then suddenly when this happens are suddenly cheering for war with the rent. Now it's fine to

change your mind. All of us have changed our minds and you ought to change your mind if you have

new information. But in these cases, it's not I was wrong before. It's simply a my leaders

going this direction, my tribes going this direction. So I am too. And then on the other hand,

those of us who might be a little more worried about this particular intervention,

some people might have the temptation to really want to be able to say, I told you so,

who actually would be disappointed if it goes well. And so if you see that showing up in your life

really on anything, but especially when it comes to these issues where real people's lives and

futures are at stake, you see that kind of Jonah mentality that comes up that says,

if Nineveh is not destroyed because they repent, then I'm frustrated. That's a personal moral issue

that ought to be grappled with. I think all of us ought to hope whether we support this action or

don't support this action that a month from now, we say, okay, good. That turned out as well as

it as it could have. That would be the best case scenario. Not one group saying, see, look at why

you were wrong. Listeners, as we close this segment, I want to commend to you Russell's newsletter

this week on this topic. You will find a link to it in our show notes. We will be right back.

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Noveless John Steinbeck once said that books are the best friends you can have.

If that's the case, millions of Americans are missing out on one of the greatest

relationships of their lives. A 2022 study from the National Endowment for the Arts found that

only 48.5% of Americans had read a single book for pleasure in the last year. A recent survey

from the New York Times reported that high school English teachers are assigning fewer than three

books a year to students and only 14% of 13 year olds reported reading for pleasure daily

with the most precipitous drop being with males according to Pew Research and the National Literacy

joining us to talk about the crisis in reading and the possibility as some influencers say

that young men can be saved by it is professor of English and author of the new book to live well

Alan Noble. Alan, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. Alan, what's your

response as you hear those numbers? Many of our students are voracious readers but some of our

students like my colleagues across the country have reported to me are struggling to read because

they have not been taught in high school to read. They've not been asked to read and so when we

assign books they can struggle to read but what we've decided to do is invite them to read.

It's an invitation and I think that's often what needs to be done by parents and by teachers is

give them an invitation to read an invitation into a world that is bigger and is good for them.

That's an interesting posture to take. How do you make that invitation appealing?

That's my central job is to teach students to love what is lovely. That's what we try to do at my

school is to model for them that there are beautiful things in books and in literature and in

poetry and in nonfiction that will benefit students that will give them tools that will show them

beauty that will resonate with them in their lives, access to worlds that they don't have if they

are just on TikTok if they're just on watching YouTube videos and just invite them and ask them.

You mentioned that many young men are part of the problem here that their numbers are lower.

Many young men just need to be asked to step up to the plate and invite it to do something

challenging and so when you ask them okay do 30 pages of reading because this is good for you

and this is actually beautiful and you need to trust me because I've done this for a long time

and this is actually four-year good. Some of them are going to resonate with that. Now some of them

aren't and that's their choice and you can't force them but that's the invitation that I like to

put out there and many of my colleagues do as well. I found myself actually cheering out loud listening

to Ezra Klein and not longer but you're not normally what one does. I mean no it doesn't usually evoke

stadium-style chairs but I did at this time because he was talking about AI and about the sense

that some people have that the point of reading is informational and to say well why would you

read Moby Dick if you can just get a summation of what Moby Dick is about and to say that's actually

not what reading is. Reading is the process of struggling and experiencing and grappling with

and being perplexed at places as you're going through Moby Dick so that it's actually the transformation

that happens in the interaction with it which is of course exactly what Jesus is talking about

with the parables when he's saying to those to whom it is given much more will be given to those

who have little it would be taken away he who has ears to hear let him hear. The point of the

parables is to engage the persons the experience that comes out of wrestling with something that

initially is meant to seem bizarre. Wait a minute why would the father take the sun back after

he's gone and spent his inheritance and those sorts of things that's what reading actually is

and so to come in and to say it's not about downloading the information to yourself. That was

never the point but it certainly isn't the point now you can find the little bit of information

if you want to know what do most people think white stands for in the whale and Moby Dick well you

can find that in 30 seconds that's not the point it never was it's what happens to you and so I think

helping people to see that what you're dealing with with reading is not really the same as studying

math problems as much as it is like training for the Olympics in many ways that it is an experience

that then is going to take you into other experiences I think is helpful and part of what that means

is for parents for instance finding ways to introduce reading but not to make this required

reading you've got to know a person to know okay if this isn't what's for him or for her get rid

of it and let's try again rather than simply say you've got to not just sit down and read but you've

got to sit down and read Jane Eyre because that's what is good for you that's not the way to do it.

What you say Russell it brings to mind this dinner I went to one time where this poet was pushing

the scene or songwriter there was a guitar in the corner of the room he was saying you got to go play

you got to go play and she's like I'll play only if you recite a poem and this poet stands up on

this chair and he recited a Robert Lowell poem and the power of those words in that moment by the time

he was done you could hear a pin drop definitely the performance was part of it but the power of these

words to stir something in your heart and kind of turn yourself inside out that's something we don't

experience on a day-to-day basis because we don't wake up every morning and read poetry and I think

that's one of the things that's kind of lost in this tiktok instagram reels twitter culture is that

there are depths to us that only language gets to that's innate to human nature that we are people

who are somewhat defined by language we only understand our world through language so literature

and poetry I think that's key to understanding who we are and how God has made us well it's especially

two for Christians who don't have an understanding that the world is stuff and then words are pointing

to the stuff the word comes first and we see that what is visible is not made out of other things

that are visible but is coming from resonating word and that ought to give us even more of a

sense of something really mysterious is happening here that actually is not just a little evolutionary

blip on the surface of consciousness but is something right at the core of things in his personal

I mean John chapter one right the word is primary in all of creation in a certain sense you think

about the way we consume social media these quick clips these short things whatever read a novel heck

read a short story it will slow you down from the way that you consume social media and you consume

other things and what it does is it primes the mind to actually think to think about people to

think about morals to think about ethics to think about love virtue what matters bravery courage

those are challenges that come to us through literature that I don't think are well represented

all in the media culture that we inhabit right now we are all pro book here on this podcast and

so I want to play the devil's advocate a little bit here because Shiloh Brooks launched a podcast

for the free press call the old school which is basically a podcast with just dudes talking about

books and he says when a man suffers from addiction divorce self-loathing or vanity his local bookstore

can become his pharmacy Allen we have these studies that cite that young men are struggling in any

number of ways is the local bookstore really a pharmacy for these problems the problem with the

local bookstore is the bookstore is filled with lots of things I mean it's filled with terrible books

so many books get published every year and so many of them are terrible you know it depends on

what you read I mean what we've been talking about our great books Mike mentioned Robert Lowell the

great poet but it you could read bad poetry and that's not good for your soul Russell mentioned

Moby Dick right so if you're reading Moby Dick yeah that's good for your soul but if you're reading

a trash your romance novel that's not good for your soul if you're going through divorce and read

some bad self-help book that's not going to be good for your divorce right so no not necessarily

it really depends on what you're reading what I like to teach my students is that we need

the word is foundational to help us discern what is good and right and true but with that foundation

we can glean what is good and true and beautiful the common grace goodness of nonfiction and fiction

and poetry and gain this wisdom and insight and understanding from great books and that does minister

to our soul that does help us it helps us understand our neighbor it helps us understand ourselves

it gives us tools it teaches us empathy it forms you it changes you good literature interprets you

and helps you see yourself in a new light and you do have to have the lens of scripture to help

you see properly what is true and what is not true so you can't just walk into a bookstore and be

cured it's not a pharmacy in that way but there are beautiful true and good things to be found in

bookstores how do you resist the nostalgia that I sense is a part of this conversation it's not like

reading kept past generations from all manner of social is yeah I mean there's attention Alexis

De Toefield talks about in democracy in America the fact that Shakespeare was widely read among

everyday people in America at a certain point in our American history that's a loss that we have

so that's not romanticizing the past that's recognizing we've lost something that Shakespeare is not

widely read among farmers in everyday people I think we can look at that and say we've lost

something good and true and beautiful that everyday people aren't picking up books but we can

also say that during that period as Toefield noted slavery was widely going on in great sins

were happening in our country that picking up books didn't prevent us from doing terrible things

and so that's the tension that we live in but how was slavery ultimately undone it was with the

power of words we hold these truths to be self-evident a nation cannot survive half slave and half

free I mean you think of this sort of language that ultimately was persuasive because it was not

just built with content it also was poetic and we previously had a world where go back and read

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and any Abraham Lincoln speech even if it's a ribbon cutting

and then compare that to Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom and everything that we have right now and

we want to call that nostalgia we can but it is something that's been lost you've referenced

good books what are the qualifications for a good book Alan the canon quote-unquote gets a bad

rap but looking at books that have endured over time that have been recognized by other authors

and other literary experts over time I think is a good place to start so looking at the classics

and reading the classics I mean we've mentioned several of them here and we can mention others you

know Russell mentioned slavery I immediately thought of the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass

you know that's a great example of the way words directly worked to undo slavery and that's a

great classic you can look those up in any great list of classic works and start there and not all

of them are going to be your cup of tea there are some great works that I can recognize is great that

aren't my cup of tea and I can still recognize their greatness but the point is to start somewhere

and to invest your time into as Mike was saying slow down and to allow the works to wash over you

and to invest yourself in them while still retaining that discerning mind and that's an important

point that I would really stress I think the posture of a good Christian reader is one who

humbles themselves before their author so they allow the author to impress upon them their ideas

but they still allow themselves a critical distance so that they're not just passive readers

who allow any critical information to come through and there's attention there there's a kind of

paradox but that's what I try to teach my students to live in humility before the author

with critical wisdom your gene Pearson wrote a book called taken read and it's basically just an

annotated bibliography of books that he just recommends on all kinds of subjects on fiction poetry

and genuinely if you're sitting here listening to this and you're going okay this is not a world

that I've inhabited I don't know a better recommendation to make I think that one of the obstacles

is having too low of expectations for oneself my grandfather had a fifth grade education

knew the King James Bible backward and forward to the point of being able to simply make a little

half sentence that was evocative of the whole thing in a way that a Shakespeare scholar couldn't

do but why because he loved it and he spent time in it and it was maybe slower for him that it

would have been for somebody else but it was worth it he was able to do it so I think sometimes

there's a sense of well I can't really do this and the other thing I would say is two chairs

for bad books one of the reasons that I love Shakespeare is because I was reading Edgar Rice

Burrow's Tarzan books which then ensures you forward into a love of words and so I wouldn't

spend a lot of time worrying about is the book I'm reading at this moment bad or good I would just

read and then say afterward where could this lead me and so if it takes you a little bit of the time

great in the same way that I would say to somebody in reading scripture if what you can do right now

is a couple of verses a day great just keep expanding out from there but don't say I'm going to wait

until I can read and understand all of Leviticus before I'm going to get into it part of what the

spirits meant to do is to have you to say I don't really know what's going on here those words are

able to do their work anyway the act of reading is going to make you a reader and it's going to draw

you further in listen I hate Moby Dick I have read it and it was such a chore to get from the first

page to the last of that thing but I did it the reason I was able to do it is because I had sort of

figured out a discipline of habit a pattern of reading where I could grind my way through it

meanwhile you've got Tom Clancy nobody's going to compare Tom Clancy to Herman Melville but you know

what when red storm rising came out the CIA showed up at Tom Clancy's front door and made him

prove that he was able to come up with the information about the way that nuclear submarines worked

from public sources otherwise they were going to charge him with espionage he got the details right

he's writing these popular stories they have this like energy and movement in them where you

can't stop reading them well as we close it seems like there could be twin ambitions here not just

the duty of reading that we need to resurrect but the pleasure that needs to be reinvigorated as well

and it makes me think of Psalm 119 where it talks about God's law as sweet as honey to my mouth

Alan as we close I want to loop back to that question that we began with can reading save young men

well unless they're reading the word reading can't save young men but what I think it can do is this

I think that reading can provide a foundation for understanding our times and I think it can

provide virtue I think it can provide empathy I think it can provide wisdom I think it can provide

compassion I think it can provide a lot of growth and character and an understanding of the world

that young men deeply need right now I think it can provide a kind of mentorship across time and

space that young men really need right now does that mean it's saving them no I think that's way too

strong of language but do I think it's wise and prudent and good for young men to be reading as

opposed to spending their time listening to YouTube gurus certainly I think that's wise yes

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