How Deep Reading Forms Our Souls (with Jessica Hooten Wilson)
Good Faith
Good Faith
5 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 27 July 2024
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How Deep Reading Forms Our Souls (with Jessica Hooten Wilson)
Host Curtis Chang and award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson, the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University, discuss the decline of deep reading and how this might impact our lives. Hooten Wilson explains the significant benefits that listeners can experience by thoughtfully re-engaging with books as a regular practice. The conversation explores how deep reading can help individuals cultivate contemplation, love their neighbors, practice humility, and other aspects of deep spiritual growth.
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REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf
Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering by Scott A. Small
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Welcome to the Good Faith Podcast, I'm your host Curtis Chang. The Good Faith Podcast is a production of Redeeming |
| 0:24.3 | Babel and it's where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the |
| 0:29.7 | world. And a key way that Christians historically have made sense of the world is through the practice of deep reading. |
| 0:38.0 | And by deep reading, I mean reading that takes time and attention and is most characterized by reading of books. |
| 0:44.0 | However, countless studies show that the reading of books, this kind of deep reading is in a long-term decline. |
| 0:50.0 | Time studies show that non-utilitarian reading fell 30% between 2004 and 2018, |
| 0:58.0 | falling average of 2% each year in that 14 year span. |
| 1:02.0 | By 2022, time studies show Americans spend on average about 15 minutes |
| 1:06.7 | a day reading. And a 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 23% |
| 1:12.5 | a court of American adults hadn't even read a book |
| 1:16.4 | in the previous year. |
| 1:18.5 | What is this decline doing to us spiritually? |
| 1:21.5 | Should we be concerned? And should you be attending to what is happening to your |
| 1:26.6 | own reading habits? To discuss this topic I've got great guests, her name is Jessica Hooten Wilson. |
| 1:32.9 | She's the Fletcher Jones chair of great books |
| 1:36.1 | at Pepperdine University. |
| 1:37.4 | She's the author of several highly regarded books, |
| 1:39.8 | including Reading for the Love of God. |
| 1:42.4 | Jessica, welcome to the love of God. |
| 1:42.5 | Jessica, welcome to the Good Faith Podcast. |
| 1:45.3 | Thank you, Curtis. |
| 1:46.1 | I'm excited to get to talk about this. |
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