My Idea for a Church Library (A Library for Church Rebels of the Future)

Some time ago, our church took the books out of the church library and turned the space into a coffee bar (which is nice enough--if you like coffee). I'm in need of projects, and I would like to find some other space in the building and turn it into a library. Anybody who knows me knows that I have spent a good chunk of my life in libraries (library cards from three states, Russia, and two counties in Oregon, not counting university id cards that work as library cards), and some of that time has been in church libraries, and I've volunteered for the WV library as well. This close familiarity of religious libraries has allowed me to observe the strength and weaknesses of these types of libraries, and, if I were to able to organize such a library, I would set if up in such a way that it would be strong so that it be both unique and helpful to lay congregants.

The weaknesses are simple, and I've read my fair share of crap, but I've grown past it and I have dispensed with it. These books are romances, end-times conspiracy theory books, hackneyed testimonials and books by Chuck Colson, who is a real piece of scum. (Would I say that to his face? Yes, though I would try to be more polite than that, maybe saying "Sir, you are a real piece of scum".)

So that is simple enough, and now what should be included? Things to be included should be commentaries and other such books that would be helpful in a lay scholarly. Likewise, books that accurately describe other religions and traditions should be included as well. I'm not terribly knowledgeable, so I'll let this part go without specifics, though it should be chosen thoughtfully. The thing that most interests me about church libraries is the necessity for readers to encounter lives outside of themselves, and to be able to better understand their lives, through books that explore the peculiarities of life. In other words, an ideal church library would have books about social justice, novels and poetry. The great theme that unifies all of these works is human suffering. To bless and alleviate human suffering is part of the original command to the church as outlined, directly or indirectly, in every part of the Beatitudes. There would be lighter works, sure, but, seriously, what do we need with them? Every three minute song on the radio would confirm and speak to someone's happiness, and if people are in a neutral emotional place, they should be led to consider the state of others, and bring comfort to others in their actions as they might be encouraged in a book by Ron Sider, Tony Campolo or Wendell Berry, or they should be encouraged to understand through fictional works the emotional pain experienced by those around them, and seek to ease that pain through empathy. As the great reverend John Donne once wrote "No man is an island entire to himself; every man is a piece of the continent, apart of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind", and to forget our elemental humanity means that we forget that we are not individuals 100%, but rather we are like leaves on tree--alone but still connected to a broader form. A serious lack of empathy is also a lack of reflection and honesty, and so we should recognize it in others, and offer comfort.

I want to talk further about sorrow and empathy and the ultimate necessity of these things at some other later point, but for the moment I need to answer some possible questions. What kind of novels and poetry? Religious? For the first--many kinds, and for the second--no, and certainly not just Baptist or Protestant writers, but writers of any religious persuasion or even those without any sort of faith. The reason for this is that these selected writers are concerned with the human condition, and read as a diary after the Fall, containing greater and more subtle shades of the human experience than it is usually displayed in canonical texts. These great texts were written with inspiration coming downwind of Heaven, so the scheme is usually greater than what we really can articulate. Likewise, the great human error has been to quarrel endlessly about the author of our mortal "narrative", when often we are in agreement of its themes and signs. To illustrate by example, Lev Tolstoi, the great Russian writer of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", even now buried in the ground belongs to no established religious tradition (even his bones are in excommunication from the Orthodox church), but his writings (sometimes) belong to the looser, un-established trends of Christian Anarchism, which in turn nicely dovetails with the traditions that fall within the Anabaptist spectrum. Where would we be without Shakespeare, Dostoevskii or Camus? A bit of scum, floating in the sea, isolated from our brothers and sisters.