To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
By: Dr. Rob O’Lynn, Dean of the School of Distance and General Education
“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view— ”
“Sir?”
“—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”—Atticus Finch 
I have always loved reading. When I was younger, I would raid my school’s library for collections of Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allen Poe short stories. Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysterious detective engaged my mind and Poe’s dark cadence captivated my imagination. I devoured pages of Holmes brooding while he sliced along on his violin. I returned time and time again to the abandoned cottage where the raven rapped on the window and the disembodied heart thumped under the creaking floorboards.
Throughout my life, books have been a constant. Serial novels, “choose-your-own-adventures” books, Shakespearean plays—I have always loved reading. However, until high school, it was a love to read. I genuinely enjoyed reading books. It was not until I read Lost Horizon by James Hilton (1933) that I fell in love with storytelling and reading. Hilton’s novel is not terribly memorable. Its grand distinction is that it was the first book widely released in paperback, which meant that the publisher planned to lose money on this publication. Set in the years leading up to World War II, a neurologist and his novelist friend are treated to dinner where they hear a tale about the legendary Shangri-La, which introduces the utopian monastery town into Western literature. It did, however, go on to influence a certain filmmaker named George Lucas who gifted us with three excellent Indiana Jones films.
However, this essay is not about Lost Horizon. It is about my favorite banned book. That being said, I would have never developed my love for reading, which would lead me to my selection for this essay. Ironically, it was in that same high school literature course that I was introduced to my selection—To Kill a Mockingbird. However, we did not get along when first we met. Having grown up in the American South, the context was just a little too real and the language just a bit too unfamiliar for naïve high school me. Eventually, my favorite banned book would be F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a novel that both struck with my evolving moral sense (that the Roaring 20s were not as golden as we were led to believe) and also my love for early 20th-century literature.
And, yet, Mockingbird remained. Although I have experienced professional mistreatment a couple of times in my life, I have never experienced ostracism or prejudice because of the color of my skin. I have seen it happen, however. And, disappointingly, I remained silent in the moment. An elder of a congregation that I served told an African American family who pulled into our parking lot in no shortage of wording or tone that their congregation “was across town.” That was 2003. And I was young enough to allow my outrage to get the better of me in a sermon that I preached shortly thereafter.
While I was searching for a new ministry position, I returned to Harper Lee’s narrative version of her childhood. In her story, I was reminded of something that I had learned in college—that I need to see others as Jesus sees them, someone created in God’s image. The quote above reminds me that I need to listen to others and not be so quick to give my opinion. I was also reminded that seeking justice is part of the practice of Christian faith (Micah 6:8; Galatians 3:28). As Christ broke down walls of hostility, we who profess the Christian faith must be about a similar work (Ephesians 2:14-18). Christ
walked around in our skin to better understand how to reconcile us back to God (Philippians 2:5-11), work that we are also called to (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Books are banned not necessarily because their content is graphic or inappropriate for young readers. Books are banned because they confront the status quo and convict us to speak up for wisdom, justice, love, mercy, grace, hope and truth.
