On Easter Monday, I read a meditation that a friend had given me. I believe the publishers strive for—what shall we call it? Balance? Variety, maybe? Whatever they might call it, their aim must be an attempt to please everyone, which, as we all know, displeases everyone at some point or other. On Easter Monday, I was a displeased reader.

Readers were to meditate on Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalene: “Touch me not,” the writer pondering what he meant by that. I was left wondering what the writer could have meant until it dawned on me that he was assuming a context of an “intimate” relationship. It’s only with that assumption as a given that the meditation made any sense—couched as it was in poetic “love-language,” we might call it.

Once past an initial horror, I was simply disappointed. But it started me thinking about how often it happens that “spiritual” writers beg questions. When does necessary assumption become question-begging? It has to do with the writer’s audience perception, and more importantly, with his purpose. Perhaps more in these modern days than at any other point in history, readers must read critically, analytically, must ask questions about the writer’s thesis, purpose, and his perception of us, his readers. What does he assume about us? The writer of Monday’s meditation, for example, assumed that I had read the gospel according to Dan Brown and that I believed it. Or perhaps he assumed that I would accept it as a given, even unconsciously, if he wrote words inviting enough, lovely enough, emotionally elevating enough. A few years ago, there was a film called The Gospel according to John. It was advertised as faithful to the exact words of the Gospel. It was. But in Jesus’ discourse during the Last Supper, a woman is present, a woman who looks lovingly at our Lord, rises and goes to him at a certain point, touching his arm when he speaks of his coming departure from his disciples. Yes, the words of the characters are true to the Gospel with some small debate about translation, maybe, but look at the visual non-verbal context. Like all question-begging, it’s subtle, not at all in-your-face.

So much “Christian” writing these days, of all kinds—fiction as well as non-fiction, and even poetry (maybe especially poetry)—is like that. I’ve read—and put down—so much that assumes, a priori, as a basis for its thesis or theme, that Christian theology is a doctrine of social justice, or that it’s a doctrine of love—fraternal, erotic-romantic, any kind of love (as long as it’s human love, and not agape). Under these two assumptions, often unstated altogether, or merely referred to briefly in introductory terms as inarguable foundations, we are flooded with question-begging, best-selling, error-filled, trivial and trite—trash.

We can’t go back to the days of the imprimatur, but we can do some things to avoid cluttering our minds with garbage: We can read the reviews first, and read only trustworthy, credible reviewers. We can avoid making choices based on sales figures or jacket blurbs, and remember always that booksellers are in business, motivated by profit as much as anyone else. We, the readers, might seek edification, enlightenment, or even just healthy entertainment—they seek only profit. And some of them, I am convinced, seek things far less innocuous than profit.