“When we promote books by and about one cultural group from one time period to the near exclusion of others, we are limiting our view of God’s image bearers: what about the Christians in our churches who look different from us?”

I am a booklist professional.

I read, save, research, create, and share booklists. I own books of booklists.

And I’m concerned with what I’m seeing amongst my fellow conservative Christians: a heavy leaning on old books for so many school-related booklists.

The fact is, if we submerge ourselves in old books, we run some serious risks.

#1: We risk committing the chronological fallacy.

The chronological fallacy says that it is not logical to preference one item over another just because it is older/newer. There must be other reasons than simply the item’s age for us to choose it.

#2: We risk imbibing unbiblical philosophy and cultural attitudes.

Of course, this is a risk with anything other than the Bible itself. But to spend excessive amounts of time with the late Victorians, for instance, means we are soaking in naturalist, Romantic, and Rousseau-ian philosophy. The child as the blank slate until the enriching, natural environment kicks in and makes it all better? (The Secret Garden, Understood Betsy, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, here’s looking at you!) We also tend to read older books a bit less critically than newer ones; our guard is down.

In God’s marvelous, creative Providence, his Church is composed of people from all time periods, from all cultures, of all ages, races, colors, shapes, sizes. When we read almost exclusively about (or books by) a homogeneous group, we risk unconsciously adopting biased cultural attitudes. Even good older books often show racial prejudice that is unbiblical.

#3: We risk alienating many of our fellow Christians.

When we promote books by and about one cultural group from one time period to the near exclusion of others, we are limiting our view of God’s image bearers: what about the Christians in our churches who look different from us? What about our neighbors who are really into sports? What about our own children who might be passionate about space and rockets? A booklist composed almost exclusively of books from the 1850s-1950s will exclude a lot of people, both in terms of their actual representation and in terms of their interests and abilities.

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