I had two fairly hefty reading goals this year. I wanted to read through Shelby Foote's 3 volume history of the Civil War. I am about two-thirds of the way through and I can say now with a high degree of certainty that you should probably stop what you are doing now and start reading. It is that good. This goal I will probably reach.

The other is not going to be reached this year (I can already see that!). I have started a read through Francis Turretin's Institutes of Elenctic Theology--the most important forgotten book in the Reformed tradition. I am reading through it to be contrarian. I am only twenty pages in and I am reading two or three pages a day (which is the right method for reading the book I think because he breaks it into questions). I want to answer a few questions before I start giving you (hopefully) regular updates on it:

• Why is it so important? It is important because this is the training manual for the Reformed ministers and teachers from 1700 to 1872 (the date of the publication of Charles Hodge's Systematic). The great Princetonians cut their teeth on Turretin--not Calvin. The great Southern Presbyterians were schooled in his work. Those on the Continent knew Turretin. He is the last common language of the Reformed Faith.
• Why has it been forgotten? He is forgotten because we live in a time that hates systematic thinking and loves images and symbols and what theologians call (Biblical Theology). I love both, but worry that a lot of the dismissing of systematics is there because we are just sloppy thinkers or because we have lost the ability and desire to be consistent in what we say or think. Thus, I want to push back in the opposite direction because I do not want to be carried by the tide and because the church needs reminders that this part of theology is necessary and good.
  

Here are a few first impressions:

1. Turretin is a scholastic, but an irenic scholastic. His goal stated in the introduction is to bring clarity so that there can be a real and lasting unity in the church. Clarity allows people to discuss real disagreements rather than getting caught in hot, but meaningless shouting matches.
2. He has a deep knowledge of the fathers. He quoted Thomas and the Three Great Cappadocians (Basil and both Gregorys) in the space of three pages. This knowledge of the Eastern and Western traditions is missing in the reformed world now (or greatly muted). I really want to see how he uses the knowledge of the tradition to explain and confirm the reformed faith.
3. He shocked me today by dividing theology into natural and supernatural--instead of using the common and special/saving that the reformed typically use today.