Reading Great Literature as a Spiritual Discipline

How do we become better people? We often settle for small goals--frugal spending, less yelling at the kids, more time at the gym--but we are called to something far greater. We are created to be holy.

In The Scandal of Holiness, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson shows that learning to hear the call of holiness requires developing a new imagination--one rooted in the act of reading. Reading great works of literature can help us cultivate an imagination that moves us toward holiness, where God opens up a way of living that extends far beyond what we can conjure for ourselves.

"This book will spur you to read more and will show you how to do it. Wilson knows the difference between being well-read and being holy as she calls us to strive for holiness even in our reading. This book illustrates how good literature can stir the imagination and how the imagination can stir us toward holiness. The voice of this book is not of an English teacher asking if you have done your reading but instead that of a smart and humble friend who says to you: 'Let me introduce you to some friends who know exactly what you're going through right now.'"
--Russell Moore, Christianity Today

"Our imaginations will be formed by the stories we see ourselves in, and we see ourselves according to the stories we are most surrounded by. In these pages, Wilson serves as a good guide to good stories that can form our imaginations toward greater holiness and humanity."
--Karen Swallow Prior, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books

"I'll be conversing with, riffing on, and returning to The Scandal of Holiness for months and years to come, because, although it is not fiction, like the best fiction, The Scandal of Holiness prods the imagination. It opens out. It exceeds itself."
--Lauren F. Winner (from the foreword)