Lecture (with Q&A): Listen Now | Download

Comments on the reviewed articles will be sent to the author. Once each Spring and Fall, the editors will select appropriate items for the JES online publication.

For more information, see http://jestudies.yale.edu

Where: Hinkson Hall on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

An Edwardsian Second Great Awakening?: The Revival Ministry of Edward Dorr Griffin

The First and Second Great Awakenings are commonly contrasted, pitting Jonathan Edwards’ revival leadership and theology against that of frontier camp meetings and Finneyite New Measures. In this story of contrast and discontinuity, Edwards’ impact on the Second Great Awakening has been neglected. As a result, Edward Dorr Griffin, one of the most prominent and influential leaders of the Second Awakening has been forgotten. This lecture will outline Griffin’s revival leadership and demonstrate the ways in which Jonathan Edwards shaped his ministry, the revivals he led, and large portions of the Second Great Awakening.

The official inauguration of the Jonathan Edwards Center Germany is on July 11, 2012. See the announcement here.

A few of the highlights:

1. Kenneth P. Minkema (Yale Divinity School) and Jan Stievermann (Universität Heidelberg)

Presentation: “What is the Jonathan Edwards Center?”

When: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 6:45-7:15pm

Location: Heidelberg Center for American Studies (Atrium)

2. Peter J. Thuesen, Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Keynote address: “Jonathan Edwards and the Transatlantic World of Books”

When: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 7:15-8:15pm

Location: Heidelberg Center for American Studies (Atrium)

3. Symposium: “New Avenues in Jonathan Edwards Studies and Eighteenth-Century Religious History”

When: Thursday, July 12, 2012

Location: Heidelberg Center for American Studies (Stucco)

– Hermann Wellenreuther (Universität Göttingen): Keynote lecture — “Is Religion Affected by Atlantic Transfers in the Early Modern Period?” (9:30-10:30am)

– Andreas Beck (Evangelische Theologische Fakulteit, Leuven): “Jonathan Edwards and Reformed Orthodoxy on Free Will and Determinism” (11:00-12:00pm)

– *Lunch Break* (12:00-14:00pm)

– Sarah Rivett (Princeton University): “Savage Sounds: Indigenous Words and Missionary Linguistics in New Light Theology” (14:00-15:00pm)

– Reiner Smolinski (Georgia State University): “Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards and the Challenge of Philosophical Materialism” (15:30-16:30pm)

– Round Table: “New Projects and Archives in Eighteenth-Century Religious History” (17:00-18:00pm)

For more information on these exciting developments, please visit  Jonathan Edwards Center Germany.

Steven M. Studebaker, The Trinitarian Vision of Jonathan Edwards and David Coffey (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2011).

Steven Studebaker, a Trinity grad who teaches at McMaster Divinity College in Ontario, has published more than anyone on Edwards and the Trinity–including three books in the past four years. This book, however, is the most revealing and personal of his writings on the subject. It compares Edwards with Studebaker’s mentor, David Coffey, an Australian Roman Catholic who taught for a time at Marquette University in Milwaukee when Steve was a doctoral student there.

Edwards, Coffey, and Studebaker share a strong affinity for the Augustinian mutual love model of the Trinity. And in Studebaker’s telling, this has yielded in all three of them “a way of thinking about salvation that is primarily relational and transformational” (i.e. more than forensic and then moral) and “a theological basis for an optimistic attitude that the grace of Christ can touch those people who participate in a non-Christian religion and have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (p. 2).

Historians of theology will recognize that Studebaker is working in the train of Coffey’s teacher Karl Rahner as he explicates Augustine and especially the notion of anonymous Christianity. Edwards scholars will recognize that Steve builds on the scholarship of Anri Morimoto and Gerald R. McDermott when it comes to Edwards’ understanding of spiritual rebirth and the possibility that non-Christian seekers might experience it.

The book has six chapters, all remarkably erudite. Chapter one lays out the Augustinian mutual love tradition. Chapter two places Edwards and Coffey within that grand tradition. Chapters three and four treat the Spirit-Christology and pneumatological concept of grace found in both Edwards and Coffey, which fill out their Trinitarian understanding of salvation and prepare the way for Studebaker’s constructive contribution. Chapter five maps out what Studebaker calls “A Trinitarian and Evangelical Vision of Redemption.” Chapter six develops “A Trinitarian and Evangelical Theology of Religions.”

This volume is an exercise in ecumenical thinking by an up-and-coming scholar with an evangelical pedigree and sympathy for Roman Catholic history and theology. Studebaker employs Edwards and Coffey in an effort to promote doctrinal convergence among the people he knows best (evangelicals and Catholics) on the issues at the center of their longstanding division (soteriological issues). Conservatives on both sides may dislike his argument. But Edwards scholars will find here a window onto Studebaker’s soul and its passion to promote renewed reflection on the Trinitarian vision of Jonathan Edwards.

–By Douglas Sweeney, Director of the JEC at TEDS

Jonathan Edwards and American Racism:

Can the Theology of a Slave Owner Be Trusted by Descendants of Slaves?

Jonathan Edwards is arguably the most important theologian that North America has produced. He is a hero to many Christians. Yet he also owned slaves, a fact that has raised important questions about his moral credibility. Should we really be holding Edwards up as a theological role model? Should we be trying to learn from him? These are live questions here at Trinity and beyond. Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile has thought about these questions–as a pastor, an African American, and adherent to Reformed theology. We invite you to listen in as he reflects about them personally, engaging two other African-American pastors and the audience in an edifying installment of the Edwards Center series ‘Jonathan Edwards and the Church,’ moderated by Dr. Sweeney.

This event was cosponsored by the Henry Center and the JEC. Pastor Anyabwile’s lecture took place on Wednesday, Feb 1, 1-2:30pm in the ATO Chapel on the TEDS campus. Pastor Louis Love of New Life Fellowship Church, Vernon Hills, and Pastor Charlie Dates of Progressive Baptist Church of Chicago responded to the lecture.

Lecture Media: Audio | Video

Colloquium on Jonathan Edwards’ Global Legacies:

Douglas Sweeney and Oliver Crisp have co-edited an exciting new volume on Jonathan Edwards: “After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology.” Based on this new book, the Jonathan Edwards Center at TEDS is presented a panel discussion on these men’s work. This JEC event was part of the New Directions in Edwards Studies series. The lecture was held on January 6, 2012 at 1pm in Hinkson Hall on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Lecture Media: Audio

This book is dedicated to me (along with Marquette’s Pat Carey). I have also written an endorsement that is printed on its cover. I have a blatant conflict of interest here, so I’d better keep this short.

In my opinion, this is now the place to begin for people interested in the Trinitarian nature of Edwards’ thought and its importance to the history of theology. There is a surge of interest today in Edwards’ doctrine of the Trinity, part of the larger surge of Trinitarian thinking in theology since the mid-twentieth century. Amy Plantinga Pauw’s book, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (2002), is the best known work on the topic. But several other books and articles (by Studebaker, Paul Helm, Bill Danaher, McClymond and McDermott, among others) have engaged this theme insightfully in the past ten years alone. Edwards’ Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith (2003), edited well for Yale by Princeton’s Sang Hyun Lee, has enabled much of this scholarship. But not until now has anyone published such a comprehensive treatment of Edwards’ writings on the Trinity—in his treatises, his sermons, and his “Miscellanies” notebooks—in relation to their own historical contexts.

Part One, “Texts and Doctrine,” reprints Edwards’ most sustained interpretations of the doctrine, the Discourse on the Trinity and the Treatise on Grace, using these and other writings to present Edwards’ Trinitarian views systematically. Part Two, “Historical Context,” lays out Edwards’ views in relation to the Christian tradition generally and his eighteenth-century world. Part Three, “Pastoral Application,” explains what difference this doctrine made as Edwards preached and wrote of the Christian life, the doctrine of creation, and eternal life in heaven.

I recommend this volume highly. It covers difficult terrain, to be sure, but does so with a facility and clarity that makes it easy for most readers to follow—and always with a view to the significance of its contents for theology and practice.

–By Douglas Sweeney, Director of the JEC at TEDS

The Jonathan Edwards Society is extending a call for papers for the Oct 4-7, 2012 conference on the theme of “Jonathan Edwards: An American Apocalyptic Prophet.”

The details below on paper submission are from the Jonathan Edwards Society website:

Some Sug­gested Topics

• Edwards’ escha­tol­ogy and phi­los­o­phy of history
• Edwards’ escha­tol­ogy in its his­tor­i­cal context
• Armini­an­ism
• Amer­i­can utopian and dystopian literature
• Utopian social experiments
• The social, polit­i­cal, and eco­nomic con­text of Edwards’ thought
• Con­tem­po­rary cul­tural trends in light of Edwards’ escha­tol­ogy and ethics.

Require­ments:

• Abstracts: 200-​​word maximum
• Papers: 3,000-word max­i­mum (designed for a read­ing time of 20 to 30 minutes)

Please include the fol­low­ing information:

• Name
• Aca­d­e­mic sta­tus and insti­tu­tional affil­i­a­tion (if any)
• Mail­ing address, e-​​mail address, tele­phone number

Please sub­mit your abstracts or papers (Microsoft-​​Word For­mat) by Sep­tem­ber 1^st, 2012.

The con­fer­ence reg­is­tra­tion fee is $50.00 for adults, $25.00 for col­lege stu­dents, and $10.00 for high school stu­dents. Please make your check payable to The Jonathan Edwards Soci­ety and mail it to the address below.

Richard Hall
Dept. of Gov­ern­ment & His­tory
Fayet­teville State Uni­ver­sity
1200 Murchi­son Road
Fayet­teville, NC 28301
rhall@​uncfsu.​edu

In the nearly 24 years since Sang Hyun Lee published The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (1988), scores of scholars have measured the merits and the extent of what Lee encouraged us to label Edwards’ “dispositional ontology.” In the main, this recent effort has proven a boon to Edwards studies, breathing new life into work on Edwards’ metaphysical thought. But it has also yielded controversy regarding the vexed question of the potential for salvation of the unevangelized–some suggesting that Edwards’ God can grant a regenerate disposition to some too young or too removed from gospel witness to know of Christ, while others criticize this view as far too modern and heterodox for a Calvinist like Edwards with a strong doctrine of hell who taught the justice of God in the damnation of sinners.

Lutheran pastor John Bombaro has now weighed in on these disputes with an excellent book on what he calls Edwards’ vision of reality. He confirms that Edwards developed a dispositional ontology, but argues that he employed it as an orthodox, particularistic Calvinist. In other words, Edwards was not an inclusivist on the matter of salvation. Rather, he taught that God is glorified in the reprobation of unrepentant sinners. Or in Bombaro’s own words: “I argue that Edwards indeed employed disposition(s) in his philosophy, but that his theocentrism, theological tradition, and Calvinist particularism established its boundaries” (p. ix).

Further, the author qualifies Lee’s interpretation of Edwards’ philosophical theology by demonstrating correctly that, “[d]espite his emergent dispositional philosophy, Edwards did not completely depart from the Aristotelian-Scholastic ontology of ‘substance,’ as Sang Lee argues.” Rather, for Edwards, “neither God nor man is to be thought of only in terms of disposition: Edwards retained ‘substance’ concepts and terminology for both” (p. 13).

There is plenty in these pages about which specialists will quibble. But, overall, it offers a careful, well-documented assessment of the issues it addresses. It will be very heavy going for all but advanced students of Edwards, but is now required reading for those who work on Edwards’ thought.

–By Douglas Sweeney, Director of the JEC at TEDS