Dale Davis
Dale Davis, Bristol, Virginia, has melded his spirituality and his love of “excellent” writing into one passion – a collection of theology books.
“When I was fresh out of school and already beaten up by life I stumbled upon some old curiosities from the days of yore. Little did I know that they would cause a positive revolution in my life. Both were dusty copies of once standard works of penetrating thought and passionate conviction. The first was a sweet, tattered hymnal displaying the genius of Charles Wesley who could well write a song. The other was from colonial America’s own genius, Jonathan Edwards, writing on religious experience, separating true from doubtful. I was impressed and moved by both. Not far into Edwards’ ‘Religious Affections’ I said to myself, ‘Man, I never really thought deeply about such things, and not from this angle.’ Then a little embarrassed, I said to myself, ‘And you know what? On my own I never would have.’
“That is when I became a reader in earnest. Who would have thought a young man out on his own in the world didn’t know everything there was to know. I swallowed my pride and dealt my stupidity a mortal blow. I began to trust words on paper more than my own fickle heart. People read for different reasons. Whatever is your reason it’s good enough if it gets you to read. I read for comfort, to be changed, to be challenged, for instruction, information, discipleship (learning), pleasure, to know someone and something other than myself and my myopic culture, etc.,” he says.
When he bought those first two books, he was living in San Angelo, Texas, and was a bookbinder and book conservator for the University of Texas, Austin, Texas. He held that position from 1985-1995. He and his wife, Ann, then moved to London to work with the Church of England. They worked as missionaries and started a tutoring program to work with the Asian community, particularly immigrants from Bangladesh. After six years in London, they spent a year in Cambridge and then three more in Sheffield near the Peak District. While he was living overseas, his collection grew quickly. When they returned to the states, they looked for an area that was similar to the Park District.
“When I was a strapping young buck in my 20s, I began taking advantage of the general prejudice in the antiquarian book world against religious books. Because of certain philosophical convictions I am and was always going to be a pauper, a man unconscionably feigning sainthood living as poor among the poor, an enigma at home among foreigners and society’s cast offs. But why should that stop me from amassing a load of literary treasure? And it happened something like this.
“A few years ago, CNN’s Anderson Cooper while interviewing comedian Stephen Colbert observed that, ‘Though you are obviously a rather serious Roman Catholic you don’t appear to be much of a proselytizer.’ Colbert responded something to the effect that he’s more than fine when people reject Christianity because it just means he can keep more of it. ‘More Jesus for me,’ he quipped. Well, that’s certainly the sentiment and approach I’ve taken towards book dealers who scorn old books with Christian themes. ‘You don’t think much of George Burder’s ‘Village Sermons?’ Fine, more Jesus for me.
“Thirty years ago, in Austin I used to restore books for antiquarian dealers and collectors who paid tens of thousands of dollars for books that chronicled the exploits of certain Texas heroes who did nothing but kill countless buffalo, Indians and Mexicans. But that same book community transparently had no interest whatsoever in books of say classical learning or of theology, the queen of the sciences. I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re spending a fortune on hideous rubbish, but yet you’re starving your soul and abandoning the life of the mind.’ I was dumbfounded and disappointed while at the same time exceedingly pleased. I became the canary that swallowed the cat. ‘You’re happy to get rid of this 300-year-old vellum edition of Bishop Jeremy Taylor’s classic on ‘Holy Living’ for $15? Well now, glad to meet you. Don’t want this polished calf and gold-stamped copy of ‘The Great Exemplar,’ Taylor’s unparalleled work on the life of Christ? Fine, more Jesus for me! Oh, okay, if I have to, I’ll pay a whole 50 pence for this gorgeous volume of eloquent and profound learning from Thomas Chalmers, Scotland’s theological prodigy. Don’t really want this 21-volume set of Charles Simeon’s celebrated ‘Homilies?’ Don’t care for the sermons of one of England’s greatest preachers in her long, unrivaled history of oratory and homiletical discourse? I guess I’ll take them off your hands.’
“And so little by little I filled my coffers, my library, full of gospel treasures that others saw fit to throw away. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Keep the trash, thank you, more treasure for me. And so, this has been a large and closely held part of my life for 40 years now. And so here I am, now secreted away in a large decrepit Victorian house surrounded by a substantial and rather handsome special collection library of some of the finest Christian divinity ever penned in the English language — leaves of gold to a page all zeroed in on the glorious person and work of the savior of the world. More Jesus for me,” he says.
Other than a few irresistible to him books on random topics and a few art books, he has limited his collection to Christian divinity — focusing primarily on books from the last 500 years, particularly those that have shaped Christian thought in the English-speaking world.
Other than those first two precious books that Davis purchased, two of his favorites are “Practice in Piety” by Lewis Bayly. “It was a huge bestseller for 100 years, similar to John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress.’” The second is Wilbur Wilberforce’s “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.” Wilberforce was a leader in the abolitionist movement.
Davis even melded his passion for books into his wedding.
“Instead of exchanging rings to cement our wedding vows, my wife and I chose things closer to our hearts, we contextualized our wedding to fit our own interests. I gave my wife a slice of early medieval antiquity, a bronze cross pendant from fourth century Byzantium. She gave me a handsome first edition set of Philip Doddridge’s ‘New Testament Expositor and Paraphrases,’ six volumes, 1750, large quarto (a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves) in divinity calf. We also got married midway through a normal Sunday church service in an otherwise under the radar manner,” he remembers.
Those wedding books now reside in a bookshelf next to the homilies of Charles Simeon of Cambridge, under John Calvin of Geneva’s scripture commentaries, and over a set of the works of John Owen.
“Please don’t leak word to my wife but I have no less than three 19th century editions of John Owen’s collected works — both the one edited by Orme and the other by Russell. Over the years I also have managed to acquire several 17th-century editions of individual Owen books published during his lifetime, some firsts some later. Why Owen? Well, I got kind of lucky. Several times I have hit a kind of antiquarian Jesus jackpot. Besides timing, stealth, being lucky for the Lord and all that, there are other reasons why I have Owen. The doctor needs disciples. And ignorant and no-account men like myself need learning and transformation. We are a convenient match made in heaven — the doctor and the dunce.
“And that’s about as much as one modest bookcase can hold,” he says.
To see more information about Davis’ collection and his thoughts on theology, visit his Facebook page.
