My Religion and My Banned Books A minha religião e os meus livros proibidos 我的宗教和我的禁书

Good morning Hank it's Tuesday so, lately my books, especially Looking for Alaska

and Turtles All the Way Down, have been removed from libraries and schools

in the U.S. due to their purported obscenity. I've talked about book banning before,

and I don't want to talk about  it directly today, instead

I want to talk about what I think  books do, and why I write them.

So half my life ago, I  worked as a student chaplain

at a children's hospital. While there, I saw much of what I consider obscene.

I saw children die. I saw parents terrified not just about whether their kids would survive

emergency surgery but also about how they would ever pay the accompanying medical bills.

I saw things I don't care to  repeat. All of it, obscene.

The fact that I was a chaplain  often surprises people

who are familiar with me or my work. I think it surprises many evangelical Christians,

because they do not understand  why a fellow Christian

would intentionally pollute  the minds of young people

with books that include  premarital sex and alcohol abuse.

And of course it also surprises many people who aren't religious because they're like,

why would a seemingly thoughtful person believe  that every Sunday, all around the world,

bad wine suddenly turns into God's blood.

Now I don't generally talk much  about my personal beliefs online,

because you, know, this is the  internet, and I don't wanna.

But I continue to find religion a helpful approach

to the ancient conversation about how to live as a person in a world full of other people.

That said, one of the first  things I learned as a chaplain

is that it's not about me and it's  definitely not about my beliefs.

Right? Because, like, if somebody drowning in an ocean of grief, said to me that

their loved one had no afterlife,

it was not my job to question that; and if somebody told me that their loved one

was now in heaven, it was not  my job to question that either.

My job was to listen–to really listen. I wasn't there to solve or

fix their pain, which could not be fixed; I was there to hear their pain and acknowledge it.

As my supervisor often told me: Don't just do something. Stand there.

That is what I have tried to do with my work. I have tried to write books that

don't just do something they stand there. I believe

that by just standing there, without judgment, stories can

proclaim the full humanity of their characters, and

in doing so can help us to see the humanity within ourselves.

But just as importantly, stories  also invite us into other lives.

They help each of us to understand the richness and complexity of people who aren't like us.

In this sense, I kind of  understand book banning because

I think books are a threat to many  contemporary power structures–

because many of those power structures

want us to see other people–  especially marginalized people–

whether they're marginalized because of race or sexuality or gender identity or mental illness

or whatever–power structures want us to see those people as less than fully human.

And so I would argue that if  great books have an agenda,

it is not a liberal agenda or a gay agenda or a christian agenda–it is a humanizing agenda,

a mission to recognize and acknowledge human value within ourselves and others.

So Hank, in my faith tradition, we are called in the gospel of Matthew

not just to treat our friends or our neighbors as we would want to be treated,

or to treat people with similar value systems as we ourselves would want to be treated,

but we are called to treat all others  as we would want to be treated.

To me, that does not mean  deciding on someone else's behalf

what books they should be allowed to read, nor does it mean hiding from high school students

the realities of the human  condition both sexual and otherwise.

To me what it means is working  to make space so that others–

all others– can be treated,  both by individuals and society

with the same rights, dignity, and respect that I would want for me, or for my family.

And I think efforts to restrict  stories are often efforts

to restrict empathy. That's  not in keeping with my faith,

but more importantly I don't think it's  in keeping with a functioning society.

Hank, I'll see you on Friday