Sometimes, It Takes a Book

by Lillian Daniel | published on Sep 15, 2025

Discussion Questions 

  1. Read Acts 15:22-34. Then read the devotional, “Sometimes, It Takes a Book.”    
  1. How do you consume news and information? What are your reading habits? 
  1. What words—from what source, and in what format—are nurturing your soul these days? 
  1. In the reading from Acts 15, several disciples travel with Paul and Barnabas to visit a congregation in Antioch, bringing with them a letter from the Christians in Jerusalem. The letter reminds everyone (letter-senders and letter-receivers alike) that they are part of a wider community. How does your reading focus your attention on the wider world and your connection to it? 

Devotional 

When they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. – Acts 15:31 (ESV) 

In an age of algorithmic indignation and digital squawking, I’m tired of darting from one screenshot to another in a state of online outrage. I’m tired of clicking on links to the latest article someone shared without reading. I thirst for the Peace of Christ that passes all human ranting and writing.  

As a result, I stop reading the news, and then I stop reading deeper articles because I have gotten out of practice, and that keeps me from even hearing about anything longer that would engage my brain over a week.  

There, I have confessed it. Sometimes, I avoid books in order to avoid thinking.  

But after reading Rodney Clapp’s book, Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age, I realize how hungry and lonely I have been—while wandering in the desert of culture wars—for some weight and wisdom from a spiritual tradition that is older, larger, and deeper than I am. Somehow, Clapp uses an overtly political topic to model how to have a rich Christian conversation, across the aisles and the pews. I don’t think he could have done that in a tweet or a post. It took a whole book, and a theological one at that, to convey a contagious hope for a church where God is still speaking louder and more lovingly than all the pundits I have been trying to avoid. 

I’m sure there are a thousand other good books on theology out there that I have been missing. If you have read a long work lately that gave you a sense of perspective, share it and tell people why it was worth the time. As people of the Book, we need to read more deeply than we scan and scroll. 

Prayer
Dear God, restore in us an appreciation of your still speaking word, even when it comes in long form. Amen.

Lillian Daniel About the Author
Lillian Daniel serves as Conference Minister with the Michigan Conference UCC. She is the author of Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To and When “Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough.