Last week the editors of GQ.com published a piece called “21 Books You Don’t Have To Read.” They wrote the blog in response to the long-held idea that some books are “great books” which everyone should read. But they excised these 21 books from their list of great books because, the editors sniffled, “Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring.”
For the moment, we will pretend like we care what GQ’s editors think about great works of literature, and we’ll ignore what it says about them, and their readers, that they find some of history’s greatest works of literature to be snoozers.
What matters here is #12 on the list. Included on their list of books you “don’t have to read” was the Bible.
The editors sniped:
The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned.
Christians on social media were livid. And rightly so. But if you read this article, in your ire you might have overlooked that GQ’s editors not only tossed 21 books, including the Bible, they also recommended books to replace each of the books they found boring. In place of God’s Word, a literary critic at GQ offered this:
If the thing you heard was good about the Bible was the nasty bits, then I propose Agota Kristof’s The Notebook, a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough.
Other books they discarded include Lonesome Dove (“the cowboy mythos, with its rigid masculine emotional landscape, glorification of guns and destruction, and misogynistic gender roles, is a major factor in the degradation of America”), The Old Man and the Sea (“It left me unmoved. Mostly, I kept hoping the fish would get away without too much damage”), John Adams (“McCullough is one of our foremost historians, and his books are written with great care and impressive attention to detail. They also happen to be the driest, boringest tomes you’ll ever sludge through”), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (“The worst crime committed by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first-time Twain readers think Twain wrote tedious, meandering stories”). And, of course, The Lord of the Rings (“while Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books are influential as exercises in world building, as novels they are barely readable”).
And there it is. A glaring example of the conclusion of postmodern self-centeredness. People who are paid to write have not a clue what people should be reading. They have distracted themselves with snippets of truth and pithy articles to groom male egos. And like most of postmodern culture, they have lost the big picture.
The glaring truth is that the shadow of the Bible, its rich history and influence, lies over each book that the editors jettison as well as each book they recommend.
The Bible is God’s Word. Holy, transcendent, inspired, unchanging, and universal. And it is the foundation for Western civilization. All great themes of literature are found there—including “a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough.” John and James. Or who learn the outcome of not getting along. Cain and Abel.
The struggles of life. The indictment of racism. The purpose of humanity. The problem of sin. All there. And the Bible echoes through all great literature—and much that is lousy. Whether unintentionally (Lonesome Dove) or with resolute intentionality that drives the story (The Lord of the Rings), the Bible is there.
By adding the Bible to their list of books people “don’t need to read,” the editors have exposed their ignorance. And worse, they have explained the reason we are losing Western culture.
Not only should we read the Bible. We need the Bible. There is a reason it has lasted for thousands of years. It is our story. It is God’s story. The Bible reveals our problem, and it explains why we keep talking about it in art and literature.
And the Bible reveals God’s answer, and it calls us to respond, to read, to grasp, to comprehend that we have a Creator, and we have abandoned Him. Our story needs His story to make it all make sense.
Though we have turned our backs on Him, He loves us. He sent His Son to die for us.
Don’t throw out the Bible. Put it on the top of your reading list. Everything else depends on it.