Folks who know me know that I am a word nerd and a Greek Geek, with a smidgen of Coptic, Latin, and Hebrew tossed in. I love exploring the evolution and etymology of words, concepts, and ideas. I have been spending a whole lot of time recently with the word rea-.

Morpheme – any of the minimal grammatical units of a language, each constituting a word or meaningful part of a word, that cannot be divided into smaller independent grammatical parts

The tiny frame rea in Latin is the feminine form of reus, which means “accused, guilty, or sinful.” Ironically, this derived from the concept of “regency” or the nature of kings/queens. Hmmm.

Jump to Anglo/Germanic/Euro-filters and a really cool progression. From the negative of guilt and culpability emerged the concept of human nature – people are essentially corrupt and sinful. But nature is orderly, so rea become the root of many words implying order. To order something indicates effort to make things fit or align. To fit, to align, to order became the core root of such words and concepts as to read, to realize, to reason, to reach, to ready, and dozens of others. Think about it for a moment. When we read we are trying to fit meaning into the words, and fit the message into meaning in our minds. To reason is to align and order thoughts and ideas in a sensical and meaningful way. When we realize something, it suddenly fits and makes sense. We reach for things outside of order and alignment to bring them within our control. To ready is to prepare – order, align, and fit (as anyone who has ever packed a suitcase can readily – ooh, ooh, readily – understand).

So what? Why does the word nerd think this is interesting or important? Well, for nerdy reasons, basically. You.Gov just released an assessment of reading in the U.S. in 2025. 40% of Americans read 0/zero/nada/no books in 2025. 6% read a whole book! A whopping 10% read 2 books, 7% read 3 books, 5% read 4-5 books, 7% read 10-14 books, averaging one book a month. (Now, 4% read 50 or more books, which is great – because I was sick and laid up most of January, I finished 53 books, so I am good for 2026!) Fiction far and away outpaces nonfiction.

Multiple studies have shown strong correlations between reading and reasoning. Those who score most highly on intelligence, critical thinking, reasoning, and problem solving tests are readers. Those able to make connections, discern interrelationships, synthesize new information are readers. Those able to fit, order, and align information into useful, clear, progressive knowledge are readers. And our current trends away from reading are directly causing a decrease in ability to comprehend, understand other points of view, engage in positive and productive debate and disagreement, and communicate in healthy and honest ways.

The vast majority of those who read nonfiction tend toward confirmation bias, reading only that which affirms (aligns with) the readers worldview. Academic reading tends toward liberal and progressive information and ideas. Popular fiction – mysteries, fantasy, and romance – tend toward the seedier and unseemly side of life. Bodice-ripper romance, tell-all prurient celebrity biographies, and serial-killer police procedurals are the bread and butter reading of evangelical Christians. The fastest growing publishing wing is LGBTQ fiction. For those reading only 1-3 books a year, conservative political pundit writers are the soup of the day. So, even when we read, we may not actually be learning much, and we may be simply fitting, ordering, and aligning our thinking in rigid and biased ways.

In the next blog I am going to tie all this to what I believe was the single-most damaging shift in the 20th century to an authentic, integral, and trustworthy Christian faith – the death of the philosophy of religion.