The ‘3 R’s’: Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. Some say the grouping of these disciplines can be first found in Augustine’s Confessions.¹‘But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, writing and arithmetic [legere et scribere et numerare discitur], I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek.’ Augustine, Confessions 13.1. However, the phrase itself appears to have been coined at an after-dinner toast to the Board of Education in 1807 given by the English banker, alderman and Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Curtis. Known for his eccentric and absurd ‘bulls’,²An archaic term for a piece of nonsense. there is one listed as ‘The Three R’s: “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic’”.³‘Reminiscences No. X’, in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, vol. 5 (January 29, 1825), https://tinyurl.com/jn2v93mf. Whatever its provenance, many of us are familiar with these three R’s of education; and for pastors and theological students, reading and writing are essential—foundational—‘tools of the trade’. This makes a few somewhat eclectic remarks on them apposite for a Themelios editorial. (But what about the maths I hear you say? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in due course.)

1. On Reading

When it comes to reading on reading, there is no end.

I will just comment on one source. A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods is often called a ‘great book’ or a ‘classic’.⁴A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, trans. Mary Ryan (1920; repr., Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 1987). I think I’d heard of it but embarrassingly have only begun to engage with it in recent years. More fool me. I wish I’d read it thirty years ago. I was prompted to read it by Prof. Craig Bartholomew, who was leading some training on how to be a PhD supervisor. He began by saying that this little red book (no, not that one!) is the first book off his shelf to give to his doctoral candidates. For ‘athletes of the mind’,⁵Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 4. Bartholomew believes it is the best book for the spirituality of academic work.⁶Craig Bartholomew, ‘Athletes of the Mind: The Intellectual Life Coram Deo’, Nuances in Public Theology 2.2 (2021): 2–6.

(Note: weirdly enough, as I typed this last line, I was messaged, completely out of the blue, by a former student and now PhD candidate who wrote, ‘Every line of The Intellectual Life is gold. Thanks for the recommendation. It’s like he’s looking into my soul and telling me what I need to hear, even though I didn’t know I needed to hear it.’ This interaction is somewhat ironic, as I know Sertillanges would certainly not have approved of me looking at a phone message while writing … mea culpa.)

Now, let’s be honest, an Evangelical in 2025 coming to the work of Sertillanges has to do some critical thinking and contextualisation. First, the book was written in 1920 for the pre-digital age. Sertillanges was a French Dominican monk writing to those wishing to be Catholic intellectuals. In other words, it’s very Catholic and shaped by fin de siècle French intellectual discussions: ‘St. Thomas of Aquin’ is ubiquitous. It also comes across as rather austere and idealistic in places. However, Sertillanges himself gives us permission to interact and read it critically when he argues that ‘it is often necessary in the course of one’s reading to filter what one reads so as to purify it.’⁷Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 151. When we do this, there are, I suggest, great riches to be found. Although it is ‘big C’ Catholic, may feel somewhat intimidating and has goals that might seem unobtainable, it is in practice ‘small c’ catholic and has something to say to all kinds of people in differing life situations:

You, young man who understand this language and to whom the heroes of the mind seem mysteriously to beckon, but who fear the lack of necessary means, listen to me. Have you two hours a day? Can you undertake to keep them jealously, to use them ardently, and then, being of those who have authority in the Kingdom of God, can you drink the chalice of which these pages would wish to make you savor the exquisite and bitter taste? If so, have confidence. Nay, rest in quiet certainty.… Many have declared that that two hours I postulate suffice for an intellectual career. Learn to make use of that limited time; plunge every day of your life into the spring which quenches and yet renews your thirst.⁸Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 11. It’s not lost on me that speaking exclusively to men is not inclusive!

Chapter 7 of The Intellectual Life is entitled ‘Preparation for Work’ and is devoted to reading, the ‘universal means of learning’.⁹Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 145. He starts by asking us to ‘read little’, meaning that we read intelligently with a plan and purpose in view, like a housekeeper who goes to the market with her menus already planned. Intelligent reading is contrasted with passionate reading which dulls the mind: ‘this uncontrolled delight is an escape from self.’¹⁰Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 147. He sums this section up thus: ‘Never read when you can reflect; read only, except in moments of recreation, what concerns the purpose you are pursuing; and read little, so as not to eat up your interior silence.’¹¹Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 149.

We are to choose books and choose in books. Concerning the question of how we choose books, he suggests that we don’t do this alone but instead ‘have devoted and expert advisers. Go straight to the fountainhead to satisfy your thirst. Associate only with first-rate thinkers.… Read only those books in which the leading ideas are expressed first hand.’¹²Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 151. Concerning the latter, our relationship to a book is not that of a judge but rather a ‘brother in truth’, approaching it without pride whilst remaining responsible, ‘hold back sufficiently to keep possession of your own soul and if need be defend it.’¹³Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 151.

After giving this advice on how to choose what to read and what our posture should be when reading, Sertillanges goes on to distinguish between four types of reading: for formation, for information, for inspiration, for relaxation. Let’s just unpack briefly what he says about each of these.

The first, reading for formation, is what he calls ‘fundamental reading’. Here we sit at the feet of three or four of our intellectual fathers and mothers, treating them as trusted guides and giving them our respect, confidence, and faith. In this reading we are to be relatively docile and passive, ‘no one is infallible, but the pupil is much less so than the master.’¹⁴Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 153. The second type, reading for information, is what he calls ‘accidental reading’. Here we read for a particular task. Rather than being like a pupil to a teacher, we read as a master to a servant, consulting and not studying. Instead of diving into this type of reading and being swept along in the current, it is as though we are standing on the side of a river, taking water from it and, as we do so, preserving our freedom of movement, confirming our own ideas, and following our own plan. The third type is reading for inspiration, or what he calls ‘stimulating or edifying reading’. This reading is like medicine for the soul and to be pursued with earnestness: ‘It is an immense resource in movements of intellectual or spiritual depression to have in this way your favourite authors, your inspiring pages; to keep them at hand, always ready to invigorate you.’¹⁵Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 155. Finally, there is reading for relaxation, and what Sertillanges calls ‘recreative reading’. This reading demands liberty, yet its purpose is not mere distraction or meaningless diversion (which can be a temptation) but precisely the opposite: these are servants to refresh and reinvigorate us as we return to the task at hand.

Sertillanges has more to say on reading in this chapter, and it is certainly worth your time, whether you read him for formation, information, inspiration, or relaxation.¹⁶For your information, the later sections of this chapter are sub-titled, ‘Contact with Writers of Genius’, ‘Reconciling instead of Accenting Opposites’, ‘Assimilating and Living by One’s Reading’.

2. On ’Riting

When it comes to writing on writing, there is, once again, no end.

Again, I just want to mention one source of a much more recent vintage. Brad East is Professor of Theology at Abilene Christian University in West Texas. His 2023 reflection, ‘Four Tiers of Christian / Theological Publishing’, is an insightful reflection being referenced and used by many contemporary writers, editors, and publishers. For pastors and teachers who assign and recommend authors to students and church members, it is very helpful.¹⁷Brad East, ‘Four Tiers of Christian/Theological Publishing’, 24 August 2023, https://www.bradeast.org/blog/tiers-theological-publishing. East focuses on Christian writing that are ‘(a) books, (b) composed in English, (c) published by Christian authors (d) about Christian matters, and (e) meant for a readership in North America.’ It’s also a pretty sobering read and provides much food for thought. East’s focus is not on the quality of writing but on issues of genre and audience, and he summarises these into four ‘Tiers’: Universal, Popular, Highbrow, and Scholarly. As we did with Sertillanges, let’s look at each of these briefly.

Tier 1in this taxonomy is ‘Universal’. It refers to books which are for anyone and everyone and found everywhere and, in East’s estimation account, for 90% of Christian publishing sales.¹⁸East includes in this category writers such as Beth Moore, Max Lucado, T. D. Jakes, and Joel Osteen. In this tier, ‘the content is usually geared toward uplift: the reader is meant to be inspired toward hope, courage, and personal change in his or her daily life. These books often contain practical advice. They’re about how to love God and follow Jesus in the most ordinary life possible—in other words, the life available to 99% of us.’¹⁹East, ‘Four Tiers of Christian / Theological Publishing’.

Tier 2 is ‘Popular’ and aimed at ‘college-educated Christians who enjoy reading to learn more about the faith.’²⁰His examples include: Tim Keller, John Mark Comer, Dane Ortlund, Tara Isabella Burton, John Piper. Once again they are accessible, often shorter and well written. Even when they are explaining theological concepts, they are completely free of theological jargon and use high-school level language.

Tier 3 is ‘Highbrow’²¹His examples include: Beth Felker Jones, Wendell Berry, Alan Jacobs, N. T. Wright, Miroslav Volf. (Keller, Piper, and N. T. Wright appear in both Tier 2 and Tier 3.): ‘This level includes authors who write for a wide audience of non-specialists who are otherwise interested in serious intellectual and academic Christian thought. Think of books in this group as a way of making the insights of academic scholarship available to folks who either are not academics or, being academics, do not belong to the field in question.’²²I think Themelios aims to be in the center of the Tier 3 category.

Finally, Tier 4 is ‘Scholarly’.²³His examples include: Kathryn Tanner, Justo L. González, David Bentley Hart, James Cone, Paul Griffiths, John Webster, Cornel West. These are ‘academics producing professional scholarship for their peers. They have an audience of one: people like them.’ Over time, this writing can be disseminated down through the other tiers, but writing in this tier is not about book sales.

Having described these tiers, East now makes a number of astute observations only some of which I can mention here.²⁴I should point people to East’s final reflection, which is a longer and admittedly ‘delicate’ one concerning ‘the legitimate concern to create space, in scholarship as well as classroom syllabi’, for women Christian writers and living Christian writers of color. In his experience, when academics say they are writing at a ‘popular’ level they actually mean Tier 3. In other words, academic training ‘seriously warps our ability to tell what kind of writing ordinary people—my term for non-academics—find accessible and engaging.’ Jargon, complex syntax, lack of simple declarative statements, and presumption of background knowledge are the killers here. For an academic like East, who aspires to write accessibly, Tier 2 is his sweet spot but presents the most challenges:

Why? Because I had to let go of all my crutches and shortcuts. I had to say in ten words what I’m used to saying in fifty. To say in four sentences what I want twelve for. To make a claim without a footnote defending me from attacks on all sides. To say something about God, Scripture, or the gospel that a Christian of any age who’s never read another theological book in her life could understand without a problem. It’s hard, y’all! And for that reason it’s really nice to work with editors who get it.… Get yourself an editor, or at least honest friends, who will tell you exactly how unreadable your “popular” writing is. Then get revising.²⁵East has written a subsequent reflection on ‘Writing for a Tier 2 Audience’, 29 September 2023, https://www.bradeast.org/blog/writing-for-a-tier-2-audience.

Commenting on East’s original piece, Samuel James asks a question relevant to Themelios readers: ‘What moral obligation (if any) does a Christian writer have to try and move their writing from the higher tiers to the lower tiers?’²⁶Samuel James, ‘What Do Christian Writers Owe Their Readers? Interacting with Brad East on the 4 Tiers of Christian Writing’, Digital Liturgies, 2 October 2023, https://www.digitalliturgies.net/p/what-do-christian-writers-owe-their. James offers a number of related principles for considering this. Christian writing that bears witness to the truth of the gospel has weighty implications for those writers. It means that biblical ‘teachers’ have a heightened responsibility to handle it well. Teachers have a responsibility to teach and preach the word clearly so it can be understood by the church.²⁷I have made this point in a previous editorial, ‘Selfish Preachers’, Themelios 49.3 (2024): 531–35. However, such communication is not straightforward given the diversity of the church and our mission to connect with people outside of the church, those who are not biblically literate or familiar with ecclesial language. How do we provide both milk and meat? This diversity means taking care to identify our audience and acknowledging that we can never address ‘everyone’:

Speaking to everyone at the same time is both impossible and, I would argue, an implicit denial of the deeply contextual nature of being a Christian. There are no Platonic forms of Christians.… A recognition of God’s design in turning local embodied humans into his sons and daughters means recognising that we are addressing some people at any given time, and not others.²⁸James, ‘What Do Christian Writers Owe Their Readers?’

That said, a Christian writer who wants to communicate something that they presumably believe to be important does have an obligation to make this ‘as accessible as reasonably possible for the identified audience’. Furthermore, do we not mishandle the Word if we claim our writing is essential for all Christians but then write in such a way that only a few can understand it? Finally, and in conclusion, James notes two errors in North American publishing culture. The first is to make what you deem to be ‘essential’ ideas ‘needlessly complex, verbose, lengthy and challenging’, even if you have the ability to be accessible but don’t because you want to look good. The second assumes that ‘evangelical Christian readers cannot understand a concept unless it is forced into a cliché or turned into a bad metaphor. Implicit in this error is the idea that the church should always be a translator rather than a teacher. As you can probably guess, it’s both.’

3. On ’Rithmetic

So, there is much to reflect on about Readin’ and ‘Ritin’. What about the ’Rithmetic, I hear (some of) you say? Well, to be honest I hadn’t come across much …

… until I came across the gift that is the Course Workload Estimator researched and designed by Betsy Barre, Allen Brown, and Justin Esarey! Originally conceived by Barre at the Center for Teaching Excellence at Rice University,²⁹‘Course Workload Estimator’, Rice University, https://cte.rice.edu/resources/workload-estimator. a newer Enhanced 2.0 version is now housed at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Wake Forest University,³⁰‘Workload Estimator 2.0’, Wake Forest University, https://cat.wfu.edu/resources/workload2/. The Enhanced Workload Estimator 2.0 has additional estimations for video/podcasts, discussion posts, exams, other assignments, and class meetings which all give both independent and contact total workload estimates. where Barre is now Assistant Provost and Executive Director.³¹Interestingly her academic areas of interest are moral philosophy, political theory, and the history of religion. Barre et al. attempt to answer an under-researched but very common question that all teachers and learners face: what amount of time does it take for average college students to complete common academic tasks? To arrive at these estimates (and they stress they are estimates³²And with the facility to manually adjust settings if you disagree with these estimates.) Barre began with what was known from the literature ‘and then filled in the gaps by making a few key assumptions.’³³‘Course Workload Estimator’. . Most has been written on reading rates. The estimator assumes that reading rates depend on three factors, each with a variation of three levels: (1) page density (450, 600, and 750 words); (2) text difficulty (no new concepts, some new concepts, and many new concepts); and (3) reading purpose (survey, understand, and engage).

Now here’s a health warning: once you start playing around with this thing you will be surprised and probably horrified. In my case it was the horror of over-estimating what I think students can read, mark, and inwardly digest. For example, a 450 page paperback I wanted students to survey—with no new concepts—amounts to about 500 wpm. This equates to the average student being able to read 67 pages per hour. Now compare that to a student who I want to understand some new concepts from a 600 page monograph. This amounts to 18 pages per hour. And finally, a student who I ask to engage with many new concepts in a 750 page textbook. This amounts to 5 pages per hour. Now take a breath (and pause in homage to Sertillanges) and consider the hundreds and even thousands of pages we are mandated to assign to modules and seminars, often without any instructions as to how we want the students to interact with the texts we assign. I can only speak for myself, but over the years, I think I have been overly-optimistic and even unfair to my students. Rather tellingly, Barre says in an interview about the Estimator that the difference between an ‘expert’ reader and a ‘student’ reader is that an expert reader will slow down when they don’t know a word.³⁴‘How to Use a Course Workload Estimator’ Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast, Episode 375, August 2021, https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/how-to-use-a-course-workload-estimator/. This means that we probably have many student readers who read swathes of text without ever slowing down and may have little understanding (but carry on regardless)—and, of course, other students who never make any progress because they are always slowing down.

When it comes to writing rates, Barre admits we know much less. Here estimations take into account page density: 250 words double spaced or 500 words single spaced; text genre (reflection/narrative, argument, or research); and drafting and revision (no drafting, minimal drafting, or extensive drafting). Again, let’s compare writing 500 words single spaced. A Reflection/Narrative with no drafting is estimated at 1 hour 30 minutes per page. Argument with minimal drafting equates to 4 hours per page. Research with extensive drafting amounts to 10 hours per page. All in all a very helpful tool to enhance both teaching and learning. It may sound awkward coming from an Englishman, but we owe it to our students to ‘do the math’.

The 3 R’s: Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic. Let’s work at using these foundational tools for learning and teaching with ever more skill and precision, without forgetting that they are tools, serving a greater, indeed the greatest, end. We’ll let Sertillanges send us out, I hope, both inspired and resolved:

Do you want to have a humble share in perpetuating wisdom among men, in gathering up the inheritance of the ages, in formulating the rules of the mind for the present time, in discovering facts and causes, in turning men’s wandering eyes towards first causes and their hearts towards supreme ends, in reviving if necessary some dying flame, in organizing the propaganda of truth and goodness? That is the lot reserved for you. It is surely worth a little extra sacrifice; it is worth steadily pursuing with jealous passion.³⁵Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 11.

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