My friends, it's been two years since I dropped the ball on the Company of the Fathers, and though a couple of us have continued half-heartedly, for the most part it's been a wretched hiatus in what should be an admirable plan. And while we were going it was wonderful. So...
I repent. I'm amending my ways.
We're starting again. At least *I'm* starting again and I hope you'll join me, but I don't want to presume upon any of you who were part of the Company before and may not have time now. I just want you all to know what I'm doing in case you're interested, and here are a couple of important points to ponder:
First: because the
Early Church Fathers set is so huge and would take so long to get through even if we were steadily, unswervingly faithful, and because life is short (at least *mine* appears to be) I've changed my mind about the approach we should take. I now think we'll skip more, reading those authors and works that are more important, more interesting, more significant - by what is admittedly my subjective judgment (but *anything* from the set is great, so we can't fail). If we get through all the really top authors we can go back and do the others later. We'll still read entire works, though perhaps not entire volumes. For example, we might read Augustine's
Confessions in the first volume of the Augustine series, but not the letters which are contained in the same volume (of course you should read anything you want to, whether it's part of the Company plan or not!).
Second: We have competition and it's very good competition. As you may have noticed on
pastor Doug Wilson's blog or
pastor Toby Sumpter's blog, Princeton Theological Seminary is sponsoring "
A Year with the Institutes", a reading program taking one through John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" in a year in commemoration of 2009 being the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. I intend to follow this plan too as it doesn't look too burdensome, and they've only just barely started so it should be easy to jump on board. What a combination - the Fathers and Calvin.
So! Having said all that, I would like to go back and start Tertullian again. I didn't get further than the
Apology and
On Idolatry, and I'd like to re-read them. So this weekend I'm going to read just the introductory material, and then on Monday the first four chapters of the
Apology. This will keep us on our previous pace of about five pages per day. If we stick with it, we'll pass our last point in a month and half at most and then press on. I think Tertullian is wonderful and I think you'll think so too.
Please, join me? If you don't want to, that's quite all right! I know (believe me, I KNOW) how busy life can be. But that's why this is a good thing to do. All that business will lead us to old age and regrets that we didn't read and ponder and love and discuss the greatest Christian authors outside the Scripture: the Fathers. If you do think you can join me in reviving our reading together, please let me know who's up for continuing the Company, by posting a comment to this post and just saying waving your hand at me and woohooing once or twice. :) I'll drop anyone's name from the email list who hasn't posted a comment in a few days so you won't be harassed by unwanted emails. And blessings on all of you, whether you join me or not.
