Rev Aaron Long: What are You Reading?

As I get into conversations today on social media and even in the real world around us, I am slowly coming to the realization that nobody reads anymore.  Due to my position I talk to a lot of people, socialists, nationalists, every form of ism that exists in the modern spaces of thought, and strangely enough I have discovered that most of them have the same problem, the same Achilles’ heel so to speak.

Now, you might ask, what is that problem?  They don’t read.  The majority of our modern society bases their thoughts, their opinions off of twitter and Facebook, tick Tok and other social media blurbs and short videos.  I have even seen this in my beloved Christian Churches where people would rather quote a verse out of context that they read off a T-shirt or a piece of decoration junk in someone’s house.

This blurb mentality as I have started calling it is rotting away the American mind and actually setting us at each other in dangerous ways.  People espouse beliefs and ideas that they really don’t know or understand, taking hard line positions that they aren’t informed enough about and starting fights with each other and tearing the fabric of our communities apart.

If you are going to claim to be a socialist read Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto, actually know what you are talking about instead of reading someone’s twitter page, if you are a hard line nationalist, actually read the constitution, the federalist papers, the declaration of independence and know what you are arguing for.  I would encourage all African Americans to actually read the letters of Martin Luther King Jr and the autobiography of Malcom X to find out their true positions and thoughts on subjects rather than just parroting back something you were told.

All of this goes doubly if you claim to be a Christian.  If you are saved you will love the bible because it is how God talks to you, actually read it.  The most dangerous thing to the modern church isn’t the atheists and such attacking from the outside, it is the Christians inside the doors that just let their bibles collect dust that are sitting on the pews. Stop simply trusting every word you hear and actually read what God has said.  Stop allowing false teachers to shape your beliefs and start reading the Creeds (Apostle’s, Nicene), the Confessions (Westminster, Augsburg, Methodist 25 articles), and the Catechisms (Heidelberg, Luther’s), all of which were written by people so drenched in the Word of God that it might be said that if you cut them they would bleed bibline. Actually become in the process of renewing your mind with reading what you claim about being saved.

All in all READ, think for yourself, really dig deep and ponder over what you say you believe.  Stop being sheep and actually become contributing members of society.  Stop simply believing people’s little blurbs and actually make informed decisions.

Cut off your social media for a second, all of these books and documents I  have listed above you can find for free on the internet or order off of amazon, and read real books.  Shape your thoughts, become informed, use the mental gifts God has given you. 

Social media isn’t bad, but it is junk food for your mind.  It’s time for us to stop eating candy and start eating our vegetables, the great books, especially the bible which we have in front of us.  Let the great thinkers from the past speak into our present situation.