JONATHAN EDWARDS

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards

Statement

Stanlick and Silver seem to suggest that Jonathan Edwards was an “evangelic mystic” and an “analytical philosopher”.

Introduction

Jonathan Edwards, an anti-slavery activist and son of the famed Congregationalist minister of the First Great Awakening, composed a sermon that denounced 10 common pro-slavery positions. The 1791 document, Injustices and Impolicy of the Slave Trade and of the Slavery of Africans, exemplifies some of the religious concerns that would eventually effect political change.

Jonathan Edwards' sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached during the Great Awakening, has become the classic example of a “hellfire and brimstone” revivalist sermon. It is unfortunate that Edwards is remembered primarily for this, given that he was one of the most learned men of his time in America (1703-58), a philosopher, theologian, and the third president of Princeton. But he was also a powerful orator, and the sermon reminds us that this kind of preaching was not confined to poorly educated ministers (Stanlick, Silver, 2003). A few examples of the depictions of hell presented by later revival preachers serve to illustrate the thinking of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

In 1734, Jonathan Edwards ignited the Great Awakening in New England with sermons on themes that highlighted the sulphurous dangers of hell and the need for immediate penance before an “angry God.” The movement became a background theme in the colonies until the time of the American Revolution, when again a time of great social upheaval made “true believers” of even more.

Discussion on Evangelicalism and Edwards Ideas

Evangelicalism first reached colonial America during the revivals of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening. In these revivals, Anglo-American evangelicals like Jonathan Edwards developed the emphases that became central to evangelical Christian constructions of manhood: (1) an emphasis on faith-based personal experience rather than ritualized forms of worship; (2) an antiestablishment ...