I am a person of the Book. I am a Christian, so my guide to faith and life is the Bible. It is a book made up of 66 different kinds of documents. There are laws, there are stories, and there is an awful lot of poetry. It was written over the course 3000 years, and the last parts of it that we have was written about 2000 years ago. So, because it was written so long ago, I find it difficult to understand. The culture was different, the economics was simple, and the two languages that it was written in, Hebrew and Greek, I do not understand. I am committed to better understanding the Bible every day, but it challenges me every day.
So I read the New Yorker magazine to better understand my faith. The New Yorker is not a Christian publication. The articles in the magazine talk about anything and everything. Their writers write about politics, movies, books, faith, contemporary issues and fiction. The people travel all over the world to try to explain present and past events. And the writing is so good.
I do not know much about Islam and the politics of the Middle East, but articles in the New Yorker have given me insight about what is going on there. These items have helped me look back at the words of Jesus and the prophecy of Isaiah for me to make better sense of today’s world.
I do not agree with everything that is written in the New Yorker, and that is probably true about the Bible as well. I do not understand everything about the Bible, so I how can I agree with it all the time. I am still learning, and still trying to live my own life of integrity and honesty, and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekial (Old Testament books of prophets) cause me problems. Jesus is my Saviour and Lord, but his words and actions are so challenging that I have trouble reading them.
The New Yorker is the same way for me. When a writer talks about how we humans are destroying our environment and the planet, I do not not want to read it. I know I am part of the problem, and I would rather read something about music. An article about how we treat the poor and disadvantaged often disturbs my own understandings of the way that the world should and does work.
But the real reason I subscribe to the New Yorker is the cartoons. They are the best..They often speak so much truth of male/female relationships that I forget about reading the articles. In a recent edition all the cartoons were about Donald Trump. They even have one cartoonist who often will write about some biblical story as well. Then there are all those cartoons about God waiting at the gates of Heaven ….. The Bible does not have cartoons, so I have to make up those on my own.
A famous theologian, Karl Barth, wrote that we must have a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other. So, what are you reading besides the Bible to make sense out the world and salvation? The Woolwich Observer, the Record, The Globe and Mail, Macleans? Alice Munro, John Grisham, Amish/Mennonite fiction, Malcolm Gladwell (a staff writer for the New Yorker)?
And what do you read in the Bible? The words of Genesis, or the Psalms (it is all poetry) or Micah, or Jesus or the apostle Paul. If you want a really wild ride, read the last book of the Bible, Revelation.
And what do you watch on T.V.? Oh wow, that is for another article. Blessings in all your reading as your guides to faith and life.
Fred Redekop
May 11, 2016