My Sermon from Today: Banned Books--Read Some!

This is what I said this morning:

"From the beginning of time, there have been literary critics. Can’t you imagine the first images, drawn on a wall, and two people telling the artist that the feet are too big? Today, I’m not talking about criticism. I’m talking about censorship of written materials. Banned books. Not to be confused with band books (books about bands)—by the way, I would love to read a book about our House Band, if one is ever written!

From the time ideas were first written down, from the time stories were first inked on parchment, governmental officials tried to control who saw them. The word “censor” can be traced back to 443 BCE, when the first Office of Censor was established in Rome, to maintain the census and “supervise public morals”. The first censorship law was found in China in 300 CE. And, many of you probably know that Socrates was forced to drink poison in 399 BCE, for the crime of using his words to “corrupt youth” and “acknowledge unorthodox divinities.” At the very same time, there was pushback; Euripides, in his plays, defended the right of freedom of expression.

But I think it was the invention of the printing press that gave governmental and religious leaders the most reason to panic. Prior to that, they could control what was disseminated to the masses.  When printed material could be easily produced and distributed, the Catholic Church was no longer THE word of God; “other religious viewpoints” could be, and were, read and discussed.  It’s no surprise that it was a pope--Pope Paul IV--who ordered the first Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. The Index was updated and reissued 20 times by different popes; these indexes banned books for their “heretical or ideologically dangerous content”. The most famous author, banned by the early Church, was probably Galileo.

It got better though. The more people learned, the more they demanded to be informed (funny how that works). Sweden was the first country, in 1766, to abolish censorship and introduce a law guaranteeing freedom of the press. Denmark-Norway followed suit in 1770. In 1787 that young country, the United States of America, made the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States one that guarantees freedom of speech and the press. Not all countries that purport to have freedom of speech and press actually do, and not all countries perfectly adhere to those liberties. I remember when I lived in England in the mid 1980’s, and the book, “Spycatcher”, was banned by the British government on the grounds that it revealed secrets about their Intelligence Services. Funny enough, it was banned by an English court, so you could still buy it in Scotland! Guess what book our friends wanted to read? Guess what book we had mailed to us from the United States? Yeah….”Spycatcher”.

I’ve always believed that if you teach a person to read, they are free…to have their own thoughts in their own minds. The ability to read is probably the single most important skill a person can possess. Most of us have seen youngsters struggle to learn to read. They look at the letters, try to make sense of the order of them on the page, try to sound out that first word. Then another and another. They read and understand their first sentence and it’s like a literal lightbulb goes on in their head—wow!!! I read that and understood that!!! I think I might need to do that again!!!

We probably don’t notice that moment in a child’s life when an idea is read and understood by them, or when they suddenly disagree with something they’ve read, but it does happen…and more lightbulbs go on. These are important moments too; ones that set them up for a lifetime of thought and contemplation and reasoning.

For some of us, our parents taught us to read. For a majority of us, we learned to read in school. Most of us learned to read by looking at a book, and as we became more proficient, we read another book, and another, and so on. If we were fortunate, our classroom might have a small bookcase of books. If we grew up in a good school system, we had a school library. And, if we were lucky, we had a public library in our town, with shelves and shelves of all kinds of books for all ages. Free to read. Or, free to take home if we had a valid library card.

But where there are books, where there are pages and pages and pages of different thoughts and ideas, where there are gathered authors’ tomes about magic, farting dogs, menstruation, spirituality, communism, or evolution, there will also be people who are trying to prevent others from reading those pages--censors. In extreme cases, censors will burn books. In 1683, on orders from the king, the entire University of Oxford library collection was burned. In 1933, some 20,000 books in Germany were ordered destroyed by Goebbels. In the United States, periodically some religious sect will order its’ followers to bring “offensive material” to a Friday night bonfire, and religious excitement will grow as books, CDs, and DVDs all go up in flames. The thought of all those creations, with beautiful thoughts and ideas and images, just like we’ve been reading to you this morning, going up in flames...it makes me want to cry. Books take me places I’ve never considered going. Books give me important perspective and force me to look at something from another point of view. I cannot imagine watching my favorites, and soon to be favorites, all going up in smoke.

The thought of a free public library, open to all, probably would give some religious leaders of old the vapors! Unthinkable in those days when the poor and uneducated could be told what to think! But today, censorship and book banning in the free world are done more often by private citizens than public entities. Parents are often concerned about protecting children from visual materials. While laudable, there is a fine line between protecting their child, and preventing ALL children from reading a certain book. If only everyone’s morality included the declaration “to seek the truth in love”….

It’s also important to realize that a book can be “challenged”, but until it’s actually removed from public view, it’s not considered “banned”. Currently, parents are the top challengers, and school libraries are their main target. Today, the top reasons books are challenged are for sex (sexual acts AND sexuality), profanity, or racism. Every school district and every public library district in the U.S. should have developed a set of questions that are asked when a book is challenged by a patron. That’s what good librarians do, after all. At the library where I work, we have a document titled, “Complaint/Book Action Request”. It asks for the author, the title, the publisher of the item. It asks for the name and address of the person initiating the request, and asks if the person is representing themselves, an organization, or “other”. Then there are a set of questions: 

1.      To what in the book do you object (cite pages)?

2.      What do you feel might be the result of reading this book?

3.      For what age group WOULD YOU recommend this book?

4.      Is there anything good about this book?

5.      Did you read the entire book? If not, what parts?

6.      Are you aware of the judgment of this book by literary critics?

7.      What do you believe is the theme of this book?

8.      What would you like the library to do about this book?

While I work in a public library, I am not a librarian; I do not have a degree in Library Science. That doesn’t mean that patrons never come up to me and give me their opinions—they tell me, frequently, that a book is terrible or a movie is too violent. It’s been a long time since someone has told me that we should remove something from our collection. About 10 years ago, a young woman came up and flung a video on to the counter. “You shouldn’t have this in your collection,” she said. “It’s not historically accurate!” Clearly angry, she turned and stomped off. When I opened the case to check the video in, I noticed the titled:  “Noah’s Ark”!

In closing, I would like to take a moment to tell you how important your tax dollars are for the survival of your local library. A large part of library funding comes from local property taxes. In 2010, the Indiana Constitution was amended to include a property tax cap. While some may argue the cap was great for landowners, it was (and is) a disaster for local services, including your local library. So, public libraries in Indiana are struggling—struggling to provide services to their patrons while dealing with ever decreasing funding. Libraries need you; they need your support. So, pay those fines, attend those book fairs, and for goodness sakes, when someone complains about paying too much in taxes, remind them that their tax dollars fund libraries…places that have books that open minds and educate the willing and take you to exotic places, right from the comfort of your easy chair.

Let’s talk books! Do you have a favorite “Banned Book”? I’ve provided lists, found in your Order of Service, to maybe prompt your memories.  And, to open this discussion, as you peruse the list, I have to say I found it interesting to learn that Mark Twain's “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, was first banned in 1885 by the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts, and this same book was still in jeopardy of censorship in 1984. At the same time, I’m a bit in awe of an author whose work is still talked about 99 years later!"