Engagement

I want to encourage people to read a post from John Alan Turner's blog called Conversations on an Airplane. It talks about a conversation he had with a philosophy professor, and the interesting thing is how much JAT talks about the other stuff he's read. Hume, among others.

The interesting thought for me and the question I want to pose to others is this: How much reading do we do outside of our own faith? For so long, we Christians have voluntarily ghetto-ized ourselves behind our theological walls and not dared to come out or even let others who don't share our beliefs in. But the truth of the matter is that if we really want to engage the world and have conversation with people who don't believe what we do, then we have to read outside of our walls. We have to be familiar with Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris, and Carl Sagan. I'm not very familiar. I'm more familiar with pop culture, TV, and movies. I haven't read any of the above authors.

So I'm curious. Who do you read that isn't a Christian? And do you feel that reading that helps your faith or weakens it?