What Are the Must-Read Books for Presbyterians/Reformed?

[jinc1019]

Looking to read both the classics and the newer stuff...Any suggestions would be great!

 

[AMR]

Calvin's Institutes
Luther Bondage of the Will
Francis Turretin's Institutes
Works of Thomas Brooks
Ames - Marrow of Theology
Works of John Owen
Anything by Jonathan Edwards
a Brakel's The Christian's Reasonable Service

See also:
http://reformedforum.org/resources/readinglist/

Of course, the WCF is a must read: Westminster Confession of Faith



You might also want to review the statements and other resources of the conservative Reformed Presbyterian churches: Member Churches - NAPARC

Finally, see also this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7398432/

 

[jinc1019]

Calvin's Institutes
Luther Bondage of the Will
Francis Turretin's Institutes
Works of Thomas Brooks
Ames - Marrow of Theology
Works of John Owen
Anything by Jonathan Edwards
a Brakel's The Christian's Reasonable Service

See also:
http://reformedforum.org/resources/readinglist/

Of course, the WCF is a must read: Westminster Confession of Faith



You might also want to review the statements and other resources of the conservative Reformed Presbyterian churches: Member Churches - NAPARC

Finally, see also this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7398432/

Hi AMR,
Thanks for providing this! I look forward to digging deep into these resources.
-Justin

 

[AMR]

There is nothing better than reading the old dead guys, other than the Bible, of course!

Too many today suffer from chonological snobbery, thinking that we know better than those that have come before us that were illuminated by the same Spirit of Truth. Today the best we can do is stand atop the shoulders of others from the past.

When I read these old saints their Scripture-soaked and Christ-drenched thoughts often drive me to my knees. May it be the will of God to bless you with insight and wisdom in your forthcoming readings.

 

[jinc1019]

There is nothing better than reading the old dead guys, other than the Bible, of course!

Too many today suffer from chonological snobbery, thinking that we know better than those that have come before us that were illuminated by the same Spirit of Truth. Today the best we can do is stand atop the shoulders of others from the past.

When I read these old saints their Scripture-soaked and Christ-drenched thoughts often drive me to my knees. May it be the will of God to bless you with insight and wisdom in your forthcoming readings.

I greatly appreciate that AMR. I totally agree with you about the classics. I look forward to reading them. Thanks again!

 

[AMR]

Looking forward to any future questions or discussions you may have as you dig in!

 

[hedrick]

Calvin's Institutes is important even to liberal Presbyterians.

I would also suggest some history. Perhaps McGrath: Reformation Thought for the 16th Cent and something by R C Sproul on the Puritans.

Since the OP has expressed some interest elsewhere in mainline Reformed thought, I’ll try to add something about that. it’s a bit early to declare classics. But pretty much everyone agrees that Barth is a key 20th Cent classic. Church Dogmatics is probably more than you want to read, but there are several single-volume extracts. For the earlier tradition some would suggest Schliermacher’s Christian Faith, but I suggest Walter Rauschenbusch, A Social Gospel. It has set the mainline agenda for a century. It is probably not what most people would expect. It’s more about theology than social action.

But most mainline Reformed theology and Biblical exegesis is ecumenical. There are a number of introductions to contemporary theology. I don’t have a special recommendation.

Current theology also tends to take account of current historical Jesus work. However at this point you risk being overly affected by my own biases. I want to base theology upon Jesus' actual teaching. That tends to tie my theology to historical Jesus research. If you don't know anything about it, one brief introduction is The Meaning of Jesus (Plus) by N T Wright and Borg. That gives the conservative and liberal ends of mainline Jesus scholarship. However there is a great concern about building faith upon this week's scholarly consensus about the Gospels. And in fact Wright may not be so popular with actual theologians of the PCUSA. (I can't speak for the other mainline Reformed church.) Thus as a guide to the way that leaders of my church actually think, in some ways the best introduction is probably something like Gerrish, Saving and Secular Faith. Gerrish is one of the most influential theologians in the PCUSA today.

 

[jinc1019]

Calvin's Institutes is important even to liberal Presbyterians.

I would also suggest some history. Perhaps McGrath: Reformation Thought for the 16th Cent and something by R C Sproul on the Puritans.

Since the OP has expressed some interest elsewhere in mainline Reformed thought, I’ll try to add something about that. it’s a bit early to declare classics. But pretty much everyone agrees that Barth is a key 20th Cent classic. Church Dogmatics is probably more than you want to read, but there are several single-volume extracts. For the earlier tradition some would suggest Schliermacher’s Christian Faith, but I suggest Walter Rauschenbusch, A Social Gospel. It has set the mainline agenda for a century. It is probably not what most people would expect. It’s more about theology than social action.

But most mainline Reformed theology and Biblical exegesis is ecumenical. There are a number of introductions to contemporary theology. I don’t have a special recommendation.

Current theology also tends to take account of current historical Jesus work. However at this point you risk being overly affected by my own biases. I want to base theology upon Jesus' actual teaching. That tends to tie my theology to historical Jesus research. If you don't know anything about it, one brief introduction is The Meaning of Jesus (Plus) by N T Wright and Borg. That gives the conservative and liberal ends of mainline Jesus scholarship. However there is a great concern about building faith upon this week's scholarly consensus about the Gospels. And in fact Wright may not be so popular with actual theologians of the PCUSA. (I can't speak for the other mainline Reformed church.) Thus as a guide to the way that leaders of my church actually think, in some ways the best introduction is probably something like Gerrish, Saving and Secular Faith. Gerrish is one of the most influential theologians in the PCUSA today.

Great suggestions...I appreciate them. I have read Borg and Wright (The Meaning of Jesus) in the past and enjoyed it greatly. In fact, it was one of the first books I read about Christianity prior to actually becoming a Christian.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Looking to read both the classics and the newer stuff...Any suggestions would be great!

Anything by Calvin
Anything by most of the Puritans (Brooks, Boston, Manton, Owen, Bunyan)
All of the Reformed Confessions (especially the major ones) and there are many of them, volumes and volumes of them to be sure. The Westminster Standards and what's known as "The Three Forms of Unity" would be the way to start.

A few other names:

John Gill (known for his exposition of the Whole Bible and "Body of Divinity" and "Cause of God and Truth")
William G.T. Shedd (recognized today especially for his "Dogmatic Theology")
Charles Hodge (recognized today especially for his "Systematic Theology")
A.A. Hodge
Archibald Alexander
Herman Bavinck (Reformed Dogmatics 4 volume set)
B.B. Warfield (10 volume works set)
C.H. Spurgeon
A.W. Pink ("The Sovereignty of God" is a modern classic, another to look for "The Attributes of God", and honestly most everything else he wrote, despite the fact he was more of a Calvinistic Baptist than Presbyterian/Reformed, despite the fact he was a dispensationalist. Pink is always worth reading when it comes to soteriology.)
Loraine Boettner ("The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination" is a modern classic)
Louis Berkhoff (recognized today especially for his "Systematic Theology")
Cornelius Van Til ("Christian Apologetics", "The Defense of the Faith", and "Introduction to Systematic Theology")
R.C. Sproul (start with "What is Reformed Theology" and "Chosen By God")

Well this is a start

 

[pilgrim1999]

Anything by Calvin

A.W. Pink ("The Sovereignty of God" is a modern classic, another to look for "The Attributes of God", and honestly most everything else he wrote, despite the fact he was more of a Calvinistic Baptist than Presbyterian/Reformed, despite the fact he was a dispensationalist. Pink is always worth reading when it comes to soteriology.)

Pink later abandoned dispensationalism and repudiated his earlier dispensationalist works. While Pink often makes for profitable reading, if the OP is already a Presbyterian or is looking to only read Presbyterian and (paedobaptist) Reformed authors, sticking to the kind of things that AMR posted (all Presbys I think except for the congregationalist Owen) is better, especially with regard to where to start first.

With regard to what separates liberal and conservative Presbyterians (and Protestants in general), J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism is a must read.

 

[jinc1019]

Pink later abandoned dispensationalism and repudiated his earlier dispensationalist works. While Pink often makes for profitable reading, if the OP is already a Presbyterian or is looking to only read Presbyterian and (paedobaptist) Reformed authors, sticking to the kind of things that AMR posted (all Presbys I think except for the congregationalist Owen) is better, especially with regard to where to start first.

With regard to what separates liberal and conservative Presbyterians (and Protestants in general), J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism is a must read.

Good suggestions, I appreciate them!

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Pink later abandoned dispensationalism and repudiated his earlier dispensationalist works. While Pink often makes for profitable reading, if the OP is already a Presbyterian or is looking to only read Presbyterian and (paedobaptist) Reformed authors, sticking to the kind of things that AMR posted (all Presbys I think except for the congregationalist Owen) is better, especially with regard to where to start first.

Gill and Pink are the only two Credobaptists I mentioned btw. The OP is a "seeker" from the faith icon. One of the reasons I mentioned Pink is because he is easier to read than others I mentioned.

 

[hedrick]

With regard to what separates liberal and conservative Presbyterians (and Protestants in general), J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism is a must read.

I hope this isn't Machen's best work. It attacks a type of liberalism that certainly does exist, but which I've seldom seen in actual PCUSA churches. By his own definition I'm not a liberal, and I'm theologically (although not politically) to the left of most of our members. The tendency does exist, and mainline theologians need to face it. But if anyone intends to apply his critique to anyone other than the extreme left in most mainline churches, they're not being very careful.

The problem with the book is that he uses the absurdity of these atypical liberals as a way to defend his own understanding of Jesus and Paul. But the real issue isn't with people who deny miracles and the importance of history, although the certainly exist. It's with scholars whose work suggests that Machen has misunderstood significant parts of what Jesus and Paul teach.

There are certainly conservatives who engage in these issues. However I'm not seeing many of them in the reading lists. Most of the lists from the conservative posters contain classic works from people who either precede 20th Cent scholarship or largely ignore it. They are worth reading. We certainly should not ignore Calvin or the Puritan writers because scholarship has progressed since. I find Calvin's theology and Biblical commentaries well worth reading. But this doesn't mean that modern Reformed folk have to believe the same thing, any more than modern scientists have to believe the some things as Newton.

To see what modern Reformed theology should look like, we need to engage the results of science and scholarship in detail. In this, the conservative cause deserves better than Machen, or at least Machen as he appears in that book. There are conservative equivalents of Wright and Borg out there. It would probably be good to read them alongside of folks like Wright and Borg to see who you think does a better job of understanding the Bible. I'm not the best one to recommend specific authors. The most prominent tend to be the most extreme, but those tend to be the ones whose names I know. I've read several things by R C Sproul. He's does a great job presenting Puritan history and beliefs, and also a good job writing popular presentations of conservative Reformed theology, but I haven't read any serious Biblical scholarship or theology by him.

----

His book may also require fact checking. He cites as an example of liberal overreach a law passed in Oregon in 1922 that required all students to go to public school. Several articles say that this bill was actually sponsored by the KKK, and was aimed against Catholics. It was overruled by the Supreme Court in 1925. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mcnamarasblog/2009/11/the-oregon-school-bill-1922.html and http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/kkk_i49.htm. Last time I heard, the KKK was not motivated by liberal theology.

Another of his examples was a law prohibiting the teaching for foreign languages in Nebraska. Again, this was not an example of liberal overreach, but was anti-German. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_v._Nebraska

His book doesn't actually say that these laws resulted from liberal efforts at control, but it seems clearly implied by context. Perhaps he only meant them as examples of governmental overreach, with the implied claim that conservative theology does a better job of liberal theology protecting from that kind of thing. I can only say that conservative theology in the South didn't do a better job resisting KKK-sponored laws than liberal theology has done. I am actually very concerned with overreaching government. But so far as I haven't observed any superiority of conservative theology in restraining it. It seems to me that liberals and conservatives are equally willing to trample the rights of other in order to enforce their own views. At any rate, when he cited the examples he didn't do it in that way. The clear implication was that they were signs of the impact of liberalism.

These are the only two things in his book that I looked up. Let's hope the rest survives fact-checking better.

 

[pilgrim1999]

I hope this isn't Machen's best work. It attacks a type of liberalism that certainly does exist, but which I've seldom seen in actual PCUSA churches. By his own definition I'm not a liberal, and I'm theologically (although not politically) to the left of most of our members. The tendency does exist, and mainline theologians need to face it. But if anyone intends to apply his critique to anyone other than the extreme left in most mainline churches, they're not being very careful.

The kind of antisupernaturalism he opposed is alive and well in mainline churches. For starters I would cite the virgin birth and deity of Christ. It is not hard at all to find mainline ministers who deny both. And it wasn't hard to find them 20-30 years ago. And I live in the so-called "Bible Belt."

The problem with the book is that he uses the absurdity of these atypical liberals as a way to defend his own understanding of Jesus and Paul. But the real issue isn't with people who deny miracles and the importance of history, although the certainly exist. It's with scholars whose work suggests that Machen has misunderstood significant parts of what Jesus and Paul teach.

Surely you are not suggesting that the mainline churches (I'm referring to denominations as a whole, and the PCUSA in particular) are more conservative now than in the 1920's? (Machen's book was published in 1923 during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.) That's basically the way your argument reads. Or were you simply unfamiliar with Machen?

There are certainly conservatives who engage in these issues. However I'm not seeing many of them in the reading lists. Most of the lists from the conservative posters contain classic works from people who either precede 20th Cent scholarship or largely ignore it. They are worth reading. We certainly should not ignore Calvin or the Puritan writers because scholarship has progressed since. I find Calvin's theology and Biblical commetaries well worth reading. But this doesn't mean that modern Reformed folk have to believe the same thing, any more than modern scientists have to believe the some things as Newton.

Is it your position that Wright's work on the resurrection, for example, is widely accepted and lauded in the PCUSA, etc.? (Particularly, PCUSA seminaries?) Perhaps we live in two different universes, but the mainliners I've known would regard Wright as being quite conservative and just to the left of being fundamentalist. (Everybody is somebody's fundamentalist, etc.) Besides, unless he's given indication elsewhere, I doubt the OP is looking for higher criticism, the latest quest for the historical Jesus, etc., none of which are Presbyterian specific anyway. Is there a distinctively Presbyterian way to do that?

To see what modern Reformed theology should look like, we need to engage the results of science and scholarship in detail. In this, the conservative cause deserves better than Machen, or at least Machen as he appears in that book.

Machen's book was published 91 years ago. It wasn't recommended with that in mind.

There are conservative equivalents of Wright and Borg out there. It would probably be good to read them alongside of folks like Wright and Borg to see who you think does a better job of understanding the Bible. I'm not the best one to recommend specific authors. The most prominent tend to be the most extreme, but those tend to be the ones whose names I know. I've read several things by R C Sproul. He's does a great job presenting Puritan history and beliefs, and also a good job writing popular presentations of conservative Reformed theology, but I haven't read any serious Biblical scholarship or theology by him.

I'm guessing that the OP is looking for "popular presentations" of Presbyterian and Reformed theology but my apologies if I'm wrong. But that's what I assume based on the brief question posed in the OP and not knowing the poster.

Why not recommend some works for the OP to read then? Out of curiosity, who do you consider to be the conservative equivalents of Wright and Borg?

And I say, most mainliners in my experience consider Wright to be a conservative (or maybe a rather conservative liberal) and not at all in the same category as Borg. Indeed, much of Wright's work seems aimed against things like the Jesus Seminar with which Borg was so prominently involved. If anything, Wright is the "new Barth" with him being sort of in the middle and having a large influence throughout the spectrum. Do you not realize that Wright has considerable influence among evangelicals, including some in more conservative Presbyterian denominations? You are quite right however, to assume that those who identify with Old School Presbyterianism and the Westminster Standards as adopted by denominations like the OPC and PCA don't find that to be a positive development.

----

His book may also require fact checking. He cites as an example of liberal overreach a law passed in Oregon in 1922 that required all students to go to public school. Several articles say that this bill was actually sponsored by the KKK, and was aimed against Catholics. It was overruled by the Supreme Court in 1925. The Oregon School Bill, 1922 and Ku Klux Klan in Washington State, 1920s. Last time I heard, the KKK was not motivated by liberal theology.

Another of his examples was a law prohibiting the teaching for foreign languages in Nebraska. Again, this was not an example of liberal overreach, but was anti-German. Meyer v. Nebraska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

His book doesn't actually say that these laws resulted from liberal efforts at control, but it seems clearly implied by context. Perhaps he only meant them as examples of governmental overreach, with the implied claim that conservative theology does a better job of liberal theology protecting from that kind of thing. I can only say that conservative theology in the South didn't do a better job resisting KKK-sponored laws than liberal theology has done. I am actually very concerned with overreaching government. But so far as I haven't observed any superiority of conservative theology in restraining it. It seems to me that liberals and conservatives are equally willing to trample the rights of other in order to enforce their own views. At any rate, when he cited the examples he didn't do it in that way. The clear implication was that they were signs of the impact of liberalism.

These are the only two things in his book that I looked up. Let's hope the rest survives fact-checking better.

While not identical of course, there was actually no small degree of overlap in the KKK program and the progressive program of that era. (This was the second KKK, which had considerable influence outside of the old CSA.) That overlap included anti-Catholicism (which naturally included anti-immigration), disenfranchising blacks and other undesirables, eugenics, forced sterilization, Prohibition, etc. Woodrow Wilson was a theologically liberal Presbyterian who thought Birth of a Nation was fantastic to give one very prominent example. The methodology may have been different, but the ends were not all that different in some cases.

The Catholic school system was built in large part due to their perception that the public schools were pervasively Protestant. Machen's approach to that kind of issue as well as Prohibition (with both liberals and fundamentalists overwhelmingly supported) was essentially libertarian.

You are quite right about governmental overreach. Another conservative Presbyterian, Francis Schaeffer, warned that that could come from the left or right and warned against identifying too much with the "establishment." Unfortunately, many of those who would cite him as an influence did not take his advice.

 

[alton3]

A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life by Beeke and Jones is an essential introduction to systematic theology from a Puritan perspective.

 

[jinc1019]

A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life by Beeke and Jones is an essential introduction to systematic theology from a Puritan perspective.

Thanks for the input!

 

[hedrick]

The kind of antisupernaturalism he opposed is alive and well in mainline churches. For starters I would cite the virgin birth and deity of Christ. It is not hard at all to find mainline ministers who deny both. And it wasn't hard to find them 20-30 years ago. And I live in the so-called "Bible Belt."

Surely you are not suggesting that the mainline churches (I'm referring to denominations as a whole, and the PCUSA in particular) are more conservative now than in the 1920's? (Machen's book was published in 1923 during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.) That's basically the way your argument reads. Or were you simply unfamiliar with Machen?

I don't know the PCUSA in 1920 in as much detail as now, so it's hard to be sure. More on the deity of Christ in a minute.

Is it your position that Wright's work on the resurrection, for example, is widely accepted and lauded in the PCUSA, etc.? (Particularly, PCUSA seminaries?) Perhaps we live in two different universes, but the mainliners I've known would regard Wright as being quite conservative and just to the left of being fundamentalist. (Everybody is somebody's fundamentalist, etc.) Besides, unless he's given indication elsewhere, I doubt the OP is looking for higher criticism, the latest quest for the historical Jesus, etc., none of which are Presbyterian specific anyway. Is there a distinctively Presbyterian way to do that?

Wright is classified as conservative by UK standards, not CF standards.

I consider Wright and Borg to be the two ends of a single spectrum because they’re both participants in the same historical Jesus work, with the same assumptions and the same basic set of evidence. Wright is at the conservative end. Borg is somewhat left of center, though certainly not the furthest out.

Why do I consider Wright part of the same movement, and not a real conservative? He doesn’t hold to complete inerrancy. He rejects Chalcedon. He thinks evangelicals have a substantially wrong understanding of what the Gospel is. He thinks standard Protestant theology seriously misunderstands justification. I haven’t found a direct source, but he is quoted as not accepting Pauline authorship of the Pastorals.

I agree that he’s on the conservative end. He thinks the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth happened literally. But I don’t think Machen would be happy with him.

What I’m looking for as a conservative equivalent is someone who is involved in the same kind of historical Jesus scholarship, but whose conclusions are a bit more traditional. In a previous generation Donald Guthrie would have been an example, but I don't know who his current equivalent would be.

Borg is closer to what Machen criticizes, though even with Borg I’m not sure real anti-supernaturalist agenda that Machen describes is there. In particular, Borg rejects the Enlightenment view that there is nothing beyond the space-time reality, believing that there is a “non-material layer or level of reality, an extra dimension of reality.” That is, he accepts some kind of supernatural. But he also advocates panentheism, which is certainly not the traditional way in which Christians view God. Borg is also less inclined to see the NT as speaking directly of historical events than Wright is, seeing what look naively like stories that happened as a kind of allegory. In that way the two of them are on opposite sides of the main division that Machen was worried about.

There is probably no specific Presbyterian way of doing historical Jesus work, but if you want to understand the PCUSA you need to understand the mainline, so I think historical Jesus work is relevant. Within the PCUSA I currently see the whole spectrum from Wright to Borg. That's why I recommended some sources that showed both.

Actually, I see real conservatism as well, but those folks clearly realize that the PCUSA probably isn't the right place for them in the long run (and hasn't been since the 1920s; why do we keep refighting these battles?)

If evangelicals accept Wright, I wonder if they aren't appreciating him selectively. Wright sees Christ as a human being who had a mission "to do and be what, in scripture, only YHWH, Israel’s God, gets to do and to be." But he rejects Chalcedon. As I read him, he tends to define Jesus' identification with God in functional rather than ontological terms. This is a classic approach of the more conservative part of the liberal tradition. E.g. Donald Baille's "God was in Christ" and Robinson's "The Human Face of God." (It has been associated with Theodore of Mopsuestia, though historical work on him casts some doubt on that identification.) If evangelicals find this acceptable, great, but it's not what I'm familiar with from evangelicalism. It's certainly not Machen's anti-supernaturalism. Rather, it is based on a reading of Scripture that's more informed by Second Temple Judaism and more free from traditional doctrine than is typical among evangelicals.

Part of the problem with Machen is that I think he's at least in part engaging in ad hominem. He is claiming widespread anti-supernaturalism when a lot of it is people who think traditional Protestants have misread the Bible, reading later philosophical and theological positions into it. But this is only true in part. There is also a wariness about the supernatural, both in the 1st Cent and now.

My personal position is that God is an actual entity, and his influence goes beyond the normal functioning of natural law. But I also think that humans have a tendency to attribute things to the supernatural when they don't understand them, and that Christians are not immune from this. Thus Scripture and our traditions have a mixture of actual experience with God and people who think they're seeing the supernatural when they're not. Of course this can be interpreted in traditional Reformed terms via the understanding that God normally works through secondary causes. Even fairly traditional Reformed folk tend to be suspicious of supernatural claims for events in our own time. It's just that many are not wiling to consider that the same kind of thing may have happened among the community out of which Scripture came.

I think Machen incorrectly describes as anti-supernaturalism this recognition that even 1st Cent Christians may have understood things as supernatural things that we would not. That's what is behind skepticism about the virgin birth, I think. I's not that people think it's impossible or deny that God did anything miraculous. It's that this looks too much like the kind of supernatural legend that tends to grow up. I'm not prepared to argue whether that's a true assessment, but I can tell you that that's why most people who reject the virgin birth do so. Machen is wrong if he thinks it's due to a desire to remove the supernatural. Rather, it's due to a desire to treat Scripture honestly and not make a special exception for it from the way we normally treat reports of events. Machen would surely disagree with this -- he think Scripture is special. But it's the disagreement over whether Scripture should be exempted from our normal examination of reports of events, not an alleged preconceived rejection of the supernatural.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Michael Horton's God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology is an excellent introduction to the Reformed reading of Scripture.