Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden

Jonathan Edwards is forever associated with his famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. To read this sermon today without understanding anything about Edwards and his historic context, is to imagine him a wild-eyed fanatic who rejoiced in preaching fire and brimstone judgment to the post puritan masses. In point of fact, Edwards was a studious theologian devoted to caring for his local congregation and his large family. His preaching was nothing spectacular and Sinners was hardly his best work. George Marsden does a wonderful job helping modern Americans understand Edwards and his influence on Christian practice and belief and American culture in general. Marsden helps us to understand the historic milieu of Edwards and the practices of New England society between the Puritan Era and the Revolutionary War. Edwards wasn't an American but a British Colonial who held that God largely governed the world and expanded His kingdom in tandem with established human authority. Edwards was part of that establishment and was well-placed by birth into a dynasty of preacher families who were also tied to governments as well as God. Despite being part of the Colonial establishment, Edwards was a reformer and revivalist who during his times sought to restore the morals, discipline, and Biblical authority of the Church which had grown lax over the years. He was a man often in conflict with authority and with his congregation because he held the Scriptures in greater regard than human ideals. Marsden also paints a warm portrait Edwards and his wife Sarah and how they sought to raise their 7 daughters and 2 sons to carry on the Christian faith and be at peace with God. I have read several other books on Jonathan Edwards and this by far is the best and most engaging. Marsden neither worships nor deconstructs his subject but respectfully and sympathetically tells the story of a truly great man in the Kingdom of God and the American landscape.