Written by Dr. David S. Steele |
Monday, December 20, 2021
Some young evangelicals bemoan the discipline of reading, they sever the root of the tree which is designed to help them grow and flourish. Malnourished and immature Christians will populate our pews and propagate a new breed of spiritual immaturity.

Modern technology has launched us into the stratosphere of learning. With the click of a mouse or a few keystrokes, we can access information from around the world and gain a treasure chest of knowledge. Smartphones are at the forefront of the new technological frontier and provide users with a massive array of educational and intellectual tools. These ingenious devices have “thirty thousand times the processing speed of the seventy-pound onboard navigational computer that guided Apollo 11 to the surface of the moon.”1 Never before have we been able to access so much information. In addition, the rise of podcasting and audiobooks allow us to connect with current and previous generations in a way that was once impossible.
Despite the benefits of recent technological tools, we are also experiencing a phenomenon that should be of grave concern to pastors and Christian leaders. Many people, especially millennials (people born between 1981 and 1995) are eager to learn but appear resistant to reading. They are “on the verge,” in the prophetic words of Neil Postman, “of amusing themselves to death.”2 They may eagerly listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video, but a growing number of people pass when it comes to the written page. They are quick to listen but slow to read. Thus, we stand at the crossroads. We have a wealth of information at our fingertips but many resist the challenge to read books. Pastors should be especially concerned as they seek to train and equip the next generation of Christian leaders, who are in many cases, reluctant to read.
Unpacking the Christian Reading Manifesto
Mark Noll laments, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”3 Thirty years earlier, Harry Blamires offered an even grimmer assessment: “There is no longer a Christian mind; there is no shared field of discourse in which we can move at ease as thinking Christians by trodden ways and past established landmarks.”4 These allegations should serve as a warning and alert Christians, thus refueling their resolve for learning and spiritual growth. My own view is one of cautious optimism. That is, I maintain (despite the evidence) there is still hope for the evangelical mind. But a new awakening will require a commitment to, you guessed it…reading.
I offer this Christian Reading Manifesto as a brief rationale and apologetic for evangelicals, especially young people. My hope is that many will respond to the challenge and enter a new era of learning which will accelerate their Christian growth and sanctification. Lord willing, this new resurgence of learning will impact countless lives in the coming days and help spark a new Reformation.
Reading Forces Us To Think
The very act of reading is an act of the mind. Our culture invites and even demands us to have “open minds” about everything under the sun—religion, philosophy, and politics, to name a few. G.K. Chesterton warned, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” Given the current trajectory, the next generation of Christian leaders will be open to almost anything. Thus, they will fail to discern between truth and error. They will be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Their failure to invest in the life of the mind will result in a gradual epistemological erosion that will affect generations to come. They will bear a strange resemblance to Paul’s kinsmen who had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2). They will, in the words of Hosea 4:6 be laid to ruin: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge…”
God gave us minds. He expects us to use them. Paul charged Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The Greek term translated, do your best means “to be eager or zealous; to show a keen interest in something.” One of the ways we present ourselves to God is through consistent study: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God…” (KJV). Paul’s command to Timothy is no less a command to each of us. The fruit of such diligent study has three important results.
First, such a person is approved. This person has been tested and is shown to be genuine. The prerequisite for this approval, however, is a zeal for the truth. The person who is approved has committed himself to study and has a passion to pursue the truth and practice the truth. “So I will keep Your law continually, forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts” (Psalm 119:44-45, NASB95).
Second, this kind of person has no need to be ashamed. This person is not open to blame. He is irreproachable. The great benefit of this quality is a life characterized by freedom. Lifelong learning characterizes the one who is committed to passionately pursuing the truth. But the prerequisite for such a pursuit involves reading.
Third, this kind of person handles the truth with precision. The person who commits to diligent study is in a position to handle the Word of God with accuracy. He is committed to reading and analyzing Scripture correctly. Such a person cuts it straight and maintains strict standards of orthodoxy. He will rise up with men like Athanasius by opposing false teaching and clinging to the truth.
Paul’s command to Timothy and every subsequent follower of Christ involves careful thinking. “Deep within the worldview of the biblical authors and equally within the minds of the earliest church fathers was the understanding that to be fully human is to think.”5 And careful thinking involves reading. There is simply no way around this principle. People who resist reading will likely be quick to appeal to other learning venues like audiobooks and podcasting. But the written word is the gold standard of learning. Reading the written word is the great equalizer. John Piper reminds us:
The way we glorify him is by knowing him truly, by treasuring him above all things, and by living in a way that shows he is our supreme treasure…I am pleading that in all your thinking you seek to see and savor the Treasure. If thinking has the reputation of being only emotionless logic, all will be in vain. God did not give us minds as ends in themselves. The mind provides the kindling for the fires of the heart. Theology serves doxology. Reflection serves affection. Contemplation serves exultation. Together they glorify Christ to the full.6
To ignore reading, then, is tantamount to turning away from a treasure chest filled with precious jewels.
Reading Cultivates Discipline
While audiobooks and podcasting have their place, one of the major drawbacks is a passive approach to learning. Very few people will commit to sitting down with pen in hand during a podcast session. It is not unusual for audio content to go in one ear and out the other.
Reading, on the other hand, cultivates discipline. It forces us to follow the arguments, reasoning, and rationale of the author. It invites the learner to pay attention to key words and phrases. Reading requires taking notes and highlighting for future reference. The very act of reading promotes attentiveness. The precursor to attentiveness is discipline.
The connection between doctrine and discipline is unavoidable in 1 Timothy 4:6-8. Paul admonishes the young pastor:
In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
Paul’s passion is that Timothy would be constantly growing and learning. Instead of fixating on worldly things, Paul instructs him to discipline (or train) himself for the purpose of godliness. Reading, therefore, is an essential aspect of Christian discipleship.
Reading Forces Us To Reckon With Words
The historic Christian faith is one that is built around words. In Genesis 1:1 God spoke the cosmos into existence. God uttered three words, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Gen. 1:3).
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The sexual arena has become deeply contested and perverted in modern culture because Satan himself knows that by striking at this—by stirring up sexual confusion, apostasy, and disobedience—he is undermining a vital element of human life and thus bringing devastation on the human race and God’s people. 

We have grown accustomed to a great deal of concern over the recent trajectory of males, particularly boys and young men. These concerns are well-founded. Addiction to porn and video games, the lack of fathers modeling positive masculinity in the face of high divorce and out-of-wedlock birth rates, and lower levels of academic achievement for men are all well documented. So are men’s higher levels of suicide, substance abuse, crime, and delinquency.
However, there are frightening trends among females that deserve our attention as well. Nowhere is this clearer—at least for conservative Christian believers concerned with transmitting a sound, biblical sexual ethic to the next generation—than in matters related to beliefs about sexuality and sexual practice. Here especially we often assume that females are at least doing better than males, even while recognizing decline among both. Yet overall, this is not true, and in a handful of important ways women are doing worse. Regardless, there are serious problems among religious females. Those charged with providing moral direction for young believers, including not only parents and Christian school teachers but also pastors and youth workers, need to pay more attention to what is happening among young Christian women.
Allow me to set forth a sampling of facts from my own, recently published work on sexual activity and beliefs, focusing on professed Evangelicals: the largest conservative wing of Protestantism.1 I do this not to scandalize or humiliate, but to inform.
First, let’s take a look at behaviors. As I set forth in my just-released Against the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical (Lexham Press, 2022), in the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a huge survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one-third of evangelical girls ages 15 to 17 admitted to having had sexual intercourse. This compares to 22 percent of evangelical males of that age. By ages 23 to 32, 83 percent of both unmarried evangelical males and females had engaged in sex.2 Among all evangelical women, regardless of marital status, who had ever had sexual intercourse, 9 percent had begun by age 13, 18 percent by age 14, and 33 percent by age 15.3 To be sure, on this last point, males didn’t do much better (or surprisingly, worse). However, considering the greater risks this activity poses to women, especially at these ages, this should be a matter of great concern not only spiritually, but practically.4
Same-sex sexual relations among evangelical women are quite concerning, and dramatically more common among them than among evangelical males. As I documented recently in the pages of this publication, 17 percent of evangelical women ages 15 to 44 in the most recent NSFG admitted to having had sexual relations with another female, up from 13 percent only about six years earlier. For those 23 to 32, at least one in five had. Male percentages had changed little and stood at about 5 percent. Meanwhile, while evangelical males 15 to 44 were more a bit more likely to identify as homosexual or gay (1.7 versus 1.1 percent), evangelical females were much more likely to identify as bisexual (1.4 versus 4.6 percent). Combining these, we see that at least 5.7 percent of these evangelical females claimed something other than a heterosexual orientation, compared to 3.1 percent of the males.5
With regard to sexual beliefs regarding heterosexual sex outside of marriage, the moral drift among young evangelicals is alarming, but do not show clear gender differences. The vast majority of professed evangelical older teens and younger adults no longer believe that consensual heterosexual sex outside of marriage is always morally wrong.6
The NSFG provides a detailed look at the degree to which evangelical teens and young adults believe that same-sex sexual relations are morally wrong.7 55 percent of females either thought that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” were “alright,” or took a middle or agnostic position on the issue. This compares to 46 percent of males holding similar positions on this issue. Moreover, while both genders have become much more liberal on gay sex since the NSFG first started tracking this in their 2006 through 2010 cycle8 (among evangelicals, 22 percent of males and 28 percent of females approved of same-sex relations in that period), females have consistently been more likely to be so. The gap between the sexes on this for the five NSFG surveys conducted between 2006-10 and 2017-19 had been as high as 14, and never lower than 6, percentage points.
But this is nothing compared to what we see among the youngest groups of evangelicals on this issue. In the latest NSFG, 70 percent of females ages 15 to 17, and 63 percent of those 18 to 22, refused to say that gay sex was immoral. This compares to 45 and 50 percent among males, respectively. In every age group I examined between 15 and 49 years of age except those 23 to 27 and 43 to 49, females were more likely to hold the liberal view. And it was only among the last group of evangelical women that a majority of females held a conservative position (62 percent rejecting the idea that gay sex is alright, versus 57 percent for males).
A decisive majority of young evangelical females reject the biblical teaching that same-sex relations are sinful. Yet I see few evangelical leaders speaking about this, and little being done directly to fix it.
Overall, as both my aforementioned book and article underscore, sexual orthodoxy in belief and practice is much higher among those evangelicals who show higher levels of commitment to their faith. For example, those who attend church more regularly, and rate their faith of greater importance in guiding their daily lives, do markedly better.
However, this makes the gender breakdowns we are seeing—both where the views of the sexes are about the same and especially where the females are more liberal—more puzzling. After all, women are generally more religiously active and committed than men. For example, in the last NSFG, among evangelicals 15 to 49 overall, females were significantly more likely than males to attend church at least weekly. Although it is not as different or statistically significant, this pattern continued to be true among younger believers 15 to 22. And for both those 15 to 49 overall, and for those 15 to 22, evangelical females are much more likely than males to consider their faith to be very important to their daily lives, and much less likely to consider it unimportant.
We can confidently say that on any sexual area where evangelical females are more liberal or sexually active than males, gender differences are not due to women being less religiously committed. Quite the contrary.
Moreover, even when we look only at those who claim to be more religiously committed, evangelical females are not doing that well. For example, in the most recent NSFG, among those who claim to attend church once a week or more, an incredible 14 percent of those 15 to 17 have already had sex with another female, then 11 percent at ages 18 to 22, 8 percent for those 23 to 27, then up to 12 percent at ages 28 to 32 and an astounding 16 percent for those 33 to 37. As for sexual intercourse among the unmarried, among evangelical females who attend church at least weekly, 37 percent have done so by ages 15 to 17, and well over half of those 18 to 22 and 23 to 27, respectively. Among those who are still unmarried by ages 28 to 32, and 33 to 37, the percentages are 88 and 97, respectively. How well are evangelical pastors grasping, much less responding to, these kinds of statistics among their regular church-going young people and singles?
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In our battle to protect the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the Law of God disappeared from the church, and then it disappeared from America as a country.  Christendom was first killed by the church and then by the civil magistrate.  We need to consider looking at these events as a result of corporate sin, and providentially a warning sign from God.  Mental health experts cannot save us.  Education cannot save us. Politicians cannot save us. Sadly, even the modern church today cannot save us. Revival and Reformation are the only things that can save us as a nation. 

Like most other people, I’ve spent a lot of time the last few days watching TV about the murder of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas.  Everyone has an opinion.  Generally, the solution among the political and media elite ranges from a call for more gun-control, more mental-health expenditures, better security at schools, improved training for the police, and better police equipment for dealing with these calamitous and horrendous events.  I have not heard much about more education.  I think the modern generation has given up on education as a cure for all the evils in the world, except maybe for fighting against what they call racism.
The only person I heard who seemed to be asking the right question was Greg Gutfeld, not particularly one of my favorite TV personalities. He asked the question as to why these massacres were a such a common occurrence today and were not so just fifty to seventy years ago.  What has changed in America?  Well, he was at least getting close to asking the right question. It was a good question.  But, like most other commentators I’ve heard, he really does not have a clue as to the right answer.
Jesus was once asked about tragedy and massacres. In Luke 13: 1-5 he was asked about a tragedy in Galilee which occurred without any apparent reason. It just seemed senseless.  There was nothing evil done by the victims that would call for such carnage.  It appears that the people were just worshiping God, and suddenly their “blood was mixed with their sacrifices” (v. 10).   A bloodbath, of all places, in the house of worship.  He went on to speak about not only that tragedy but also about another dreadful event that killed 18 people at the tower of Siloam.
His answer today would seem rather abrupt and terse. He made sure first that they understood that such human disasters are not always correlated with some particular sin on the part of the victims. There was no sin on the part of these Galileans that was any greater than other Galileans.
But, what does he say?  I tell you “unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.”  He speaks to them not only as individuals, but also as a corporate people.  He goes on in the following verses (6-9) to give a parable about the barren fig tree, and how it will be cut down unless it starts to produce fruit. The caretaker of the tree asks for more time before the tree is cut down, and the owner appears to be compassionate and grants more time.  However, the owner reminds the caretaker that the tree’s day of being cut down will indeed come unless it produces fruit. That tree was cut down in AD 70 with the complete destruction and devastation of Jerusalem.
The reason for such providential injections of heart-rendering calamities into society is very often a result of the awful religious condition of that society. In other words, our culture has rotted, and senseless tragedies can be viewed as a warning sign.  Israel had rejected the Savior and they would face judgment unless they repented.  Such events as the Galilean catastrophe and the Siloam disaster cannot be tied to the condition of the victims in particular, but to the condition of religion in the nation as a whole.
America was once a part of Christendom.  Even though not everyone was Christian, the values of the Christian faith permeated not only the church, but also civil society as well. Her culture had a Christian base.  Our eighteen-year-old boys used to go off to war to fight for their country, but now some of them take up arms and murder our own people, especially our own children who are the most vulnerable of all.
Jesus’ answer can only be understood in terms of religion.  In a secular world, religious answers are not relevant, because religion is not relevant.  But as Christians, we know that the religious condition of the people is the most relevant issue of all.  We know why America has changed in the last 50-70 years.  America has cast off the Christian Faith as a nation, and we are suffering the consequences of that rejection.  Rampant divorce, broken homes, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, adultery, and mass-shootings are the result of a change in religion.  Unless we repent and turn back to the Triune God as a nation, things will only get worse.
Who then is to blame?  I blame the church.  The church has ceased to be the salt of the earth.  Liberalism captured the church in America in the early 20th century.  Rapturism captured the church in America in the mid-20th century.  Radical Two Kingdom Separation (R2K) has captured the church in America in the early 21st century.  We have now been told that the two kingdoms refer only to the battle between God and Satan, and how dare we cross over the holy line of telling the civil magistrate that he is accountable to the God of the Bible.  I believe that the Law was never meant to convert nations, but it can be a restraint on 18-year-old boys full of hate and anger.
In our battle to protect the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the Law of God disappeared from the church, and then it disappeared from America as a country.  Christendom was first killed by the church and then by the civil magistrate.  We need to consider looking at these events as a result of corporate sin, and providentially a warning sign from God.  Mental health experts cannot save us.  Education cannot save us. Politicians cannot save us. Sadly, even the modern church today cannot save us. Revival and Reformation are the only things that can save us as a nation.  And even if we see Revival and Reformation, it will take decades to see the resultant fruit that may be the only hope to recover our nation.  Get ready for a long hard ride!
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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