Great Books & Big Ideas

Great Books & Big Ideas explores classic Christian literature and the big, often life changing, ideas they invite us to consider.

The Case for Old Books

In a famous essay titled, "On the Reading of Old Books" C.S. Lewis makes a compelling case for reading the classics. The essay was first published as the introduction to a 1942 edition of Athanasius’ classic work, On the Incarnation and latter included in a collection of essays titled God in the Dock. You can still find it in either of those two publications.

In the essay, Lewis suggests that, at a minimum, a thoughtful Christian should read at least one old book for every three modern ones, though his preference would be one for one.

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

He argues, first, that old books have the ability to free us from the intellectual and ideological constraints of our own time, often confronting us with fresh and deeper perspectives.

All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions.

To confront this “great mass of common assumptions” and avoid what Chesterton calls “historical provincialism” Lewis suggests that we should…

keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

Another benefit of reading old books representing many ages, languages, and cultures, is that they give us a sense for what is truly enduring and timeless. By reading the classics, we become intimately familiar with the great consensus of christian thinking that runs down through the ages. Although I could quote several pages of wonderful argument on this point, I’ll include only this defense of “mere Christianity,” which is Lewis’s term for the great Christian consensus:

Measured against the ages “mere Christianity” turns out to be no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible. I know it, indeed, to my cost. In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante…. We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity.

In my long career as a theologian, anglican priest, and church planter, I’ve found Lewis’s advice to be very true. I’ve long assigned his little essay to my students, and I commend his approach to anyone who will listen. With this Substack newsletter, I will continue to make the case, not only for Old Books but also for the big, life-changing ideas they contain, to whoever is willing to listen. I hope you’ll subscribe and engage in this work with me.

About Me

My ecclesiastical title is The Very Rev’d Canon Dr. Bryan Hollon, and I am the 8th Dean & President and Professor of Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary. Before joining Trinity, I served for sixteen years as a Professor of Theology at Malone University in Canton, Ohio and as Resident Theologian and City Director for the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio. In 2017, along with my wife Suzanne, I planted St. John’s Anglican Church in North Canton, Ohio.

As a scholar, I have tended to specialize in ressourcement theology, which is best exemplified in the work of Henri de Lubac. As a seminary Dean and President, I am keenly interested in the ways that Christians and Christian churches engage contemporary culture and remain faithful to the gospel in different contexts. Most importantly, I am a proponent of the great consensual tradition that C.S. Lewis referred to as “Mere Christianity.”

I have been married to Suzanne since 1993. We grew up on opposite ends of the great state of Texas and met at Baylor University. We have three grown children: Harrison, Claire, and John.

About Trinity

For those who do not know of Trinity, we are located in the Pittsburgh area and have approximately 250 students as well as thousands of alumni serving in churches and ministries all over the world, on every continent besides Antarctica. Our seminary was founded to reform and renew The Episcopal Church and was, for many years, one of the eleven official episcopal seminaries. However, we are no longer affiliated with The Episcopal Church but with the Anglican Church in North America, a Province developed by faithful Anglicans from across the globe, many of them Trinity alumni and friends.

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