On December 25, 1996, when David Gergen, the former presidential adviser to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, asked Peter Gomes, the minister serving at the Memorial Church at Harvard University, where people unfamiliar with the Bible should start reading, Gomes answered: My advice has always been start with an accessible book, and I suggest you start with the psalms. Now people will say, “Oh, but the psalms are so pretty and musical; shouldn’t I take something stronger?” If you read the psalms, read them all, and read them at a pretty intense clip—don’t spend all year doing it, do it over the
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