I'm now the designated Guardian of Orthodoxy at my church. How did I aquire such an august and pretentious title? Well, we're starting a small church library, and we're asking people to donate (non-fiction) books. The pastor recommended me to the project leader as someone who could weed through the donations and throw out all the heresy.

This is an amusing situation. As a college English teacher, I do, in fact, teach banned books. And I take a bit of self-congratulatory pride in it, striking a blow for intellectual freedom against the fascist book-burners. And yet, here I am, deciding what is and is not appropriate reading for our congregation members. (And what will I do with the rejected books? Burn 'em, probably.)

So, how do I handle this strange contradiction? Wouldn't it be enough to (say) put warning stickers on the books to the effect of "This book does not necessarily represent the position of our church. Read prayerfully and at your own risk!"? Well . . . no. I see my role in church as very different from my role as a college professor. As a college professor, my role is to teach college students how to (among other things) think for themselves. But I know the people in my church - while we do have a number of college students and college graduates, we also have many who never went to college, and some who never finished high school. We have many who seldom or never read books. I have a responsibility to them - a responsibility to guide them to those books that will be the most spiritually helpful, and remove unnecessary obstacles to their spiritual growth. (Of course, spiritual growth can happen through surmounting of obstacles - but when reading itself is a difficult obstacle, greater obstacles are usually detrimental to growth.)

I don't even really view it as censorship. I see a very stark difference between censorship and sponsorship. Nobody's telling the congregation that they can't go to the library or the bookstore and read these books. We're simply saying that we will not use church time, energy, funds, or space to retain and distribute them. And the fact that most of the congregation will not go to the library or bookstore to read those books indicates that they are perfectly willing to trust my discretion in the matter.