# Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism



## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 26, 2007)

_Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism_ (June 2007) by Darryl G. Hart & John R. Muether is available here.


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## Richard King (Jul 26, 2007)

Now this is going to sound like I am being a smart aleck but I am completely serious.


I see this book and think MAN I GOTTA GET THAT. Then the little voice of reason in my head says..."why so you can add it to all the other books on your shelf that are half read, nearly completed or still waiting for you to start ? "

I am always amazed at the depth of reading done by Jacob and Andrew and others on this board. I wonder (SERIOUSLY) how to you go about getting your reading done. Do you have a specific time each day, do you speed read, is there a method you use or do you just read whenever and wherever you can...sort of like I eat?


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## VictorBravo (Jul 26, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Now this is going to sound like I am being a smart aleck but I am completely serious.
> 
> 
> I see this book and think MAN I GOTTA GET THAT. Then the little voice of reason in my head says..."why so you can add it to all the other books on your shelf that are half read, nearly completed or still waiting for you to start ? "
> ...




Richard, I don't know about others, but I set aside at least 3 hours each day to read, in addition to what I do at work (which is read!).

It's not that burdensome, at least for me. 1 hour in the morning, 2 in the evening. It helps if you don't have a television. My wife reads at the same time so we are in the same room, occasionally discussing what we've come across.


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## Beth Ellen Nagle (Jul 26, 2007)

This book sounds really good


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## RamistThomist (Jul 26, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Now this is going to sound like I am being a smart aleck but I am completely serious.
> 
> 
> I see this book and think MAN I GOTTA GET THAT. Then the little voice of reason in my head says..."why so you can add it to all the other books on your shelf that are half read, nearly completed or still waiting for you to start ? "
> ...



Outsource. I hire others to do my reading. 

Just kidding. I talked with John Meuther the other day at the RTS bookstore. He is a lot of fun to talk with and hang out with. I met him at Presbytery a few years ago.

I do something sort of like Vic. I read my bible in the morning and read for longer periods at night.


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## RamistThomist (Jul 26, 2007)

Seriously, the way to read is to do a little bit at a time, over a long period of time. In 5 years I have read Calvin 2 1/2 times, 2/3 of Bavinck's _Reformed Dogmatics_, Rushdoony's _Institutes_, everything Greg Bahnsen has written, Frame's book on Van Til 2 times, 1/3 of Carl Henry's _God, Revelation, and Authority_ (2 out of 6 volumes) and a good bit of Thomas Aquinas and Van Til. Am I a great reader? No. I waste a lot of time. But I know that if I read small bits, a chapter here or a chapter there, over several years, I can knock out the major works in history.


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## sotzo (Jul 26, 2007)

> Outsource. I hire others to do my reading.



Now THAT'S an idea!

One of my kids didn't want to stop playing one day and asked me if I could go to the bathroom for them. I told her I knew we are a country in outsource mode but that some things just couldn't cross the seas to be done be someone else.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 26, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Now this is going to sound like I am being a smart aleck but I am completely serious.
> 
> 
> I see this book and think MAN I GOTTA GET THAT. Then the little voice of reason in my head says..."why so you can add it to all the other books on your shelf that are half read, nearly completed or still waiting for you to start ? "
> ...



My free time is less and less these days but I can't help but try to employ what little free time I have in reading good books, it's just in my nature to do so. (HT to Chris for the quotes below.)

C.H. Spurgeon, _Paul—his Cloak and His Books_:



> He [Paul] is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books”—join in the cry.



Thomas Brooks, _Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices_:



> Remember, it is not hasty reading—but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee’s touching of the flower, which gathers honey—but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most—but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.



C.S. Lewis, _On the Incarnation_: 



> The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.
> ...
> Now the layman or amateur needs to be instructed as well as to be exhorted. In this age his need for knowledge is particularly pressing. Nor would I admit any sharp division between the two kinds of book. For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.


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## Richard King (Jul 26, 2007)

Thanks! I am inspired. I knew you guys had some trick like super human powers or maybe self discipline or something.

Yesterday I met this Navy Seal who wrote a book called Lone Survivor. 
Amazon.com: Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10: Books: Marcus Luttrell

I got him to sign a copy for my son in the Army. I was going to just send it on to my son but now I have decided to give myself a deadline of no more than three days to read it myself and then send it on.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 26, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Thanks! I am inspired. I knew you guys had some trick like super human powers or maybe self discipline or something.
> 
> Yesterday I met this Navy Seal who wrote a book called Lone Survivor.
> http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation/dp/0316067598
> ...



That is very interesting, Richard. I read a Washington Post review of that book last month and was fascinated by the account. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it and you finish reading it.


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## Archlute (Jul 26, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Thanks! I am inspired. I knew you guys had some trick like super human powers or maybe self discipline or something.
> 
> Yesterday I met this Navy Seal who wrote a book called Lone Survivor.
> http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation/dp/0316067598
> ...



I skimmed a few chapters on Amazon. It looks like a pretty good read. The fellow mentions his Christian convictions, and how they changed a course of action regarding a crucial decision that had to be made by him during at least one point in the book.

Too bad he had to rip off the end of the sixth stanza of the Ranger Creed for the title of his book.... It's okay though, SEAL's do get Ranger envy from time to time.


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## jawyman (Jul 26, 2007)

VirginiaHuguenot said:


> _Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism_ (June 2007) by Darryl G. Hart & John R. Muether is available here.



Brother Andrew, thank you for the link. What a great publisher and website.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 26, 2007)

jawyman said:


> Brother Andrew, thank you for the link. What a great publisher and website.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Aug 10, 2007)

For those who buy the book, be sure when you open the front inside cover to note the diagram of American Presbyterian denominational history.


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