Showing posts with label Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edwards. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2007
First Edwards Paper
Just got my first Edwards paper back today, (not this one). I've posted it here. Not sure I really say very much with this paper on Edwards and the incarnation, but I'm still curious about how Edwards manages to be 'at times on the brink of formal heresy' in his understanding. I might also post the complete version of my second paper, which amounts to a summary of The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Counterfeit goods
"It may be observed that the more excellent anything is, the more will be the counterfeits of it. Thus there are many more counterfeits of silver and gold than of iron and copper: there are many false diamonds and rubies, but who goes about to counterfeit common stones? Though the more excellent things are, the more difficult it is to make anything that shall be like them in their essential nature and internal virtues; yet the more manifold will the counterfeits be, and the more will art and subtlety be displayed in an exact imitation of the outward appearance. ... So it is with Christian virtues and graces; the subtlety of Satan, and men's deceitful hearts, are wont chiefly to be exercised in counterfeiting those that are in highest repute. So there are perhaps no graces that have more counterfeits than love and humility, these being virtues wherein the beauty of a true Christian does especially appear."
Jonathan Edwards, in this quote taken from Part I, section VII of The Religious Affections, struggles with the problem of discerning good love from bad love, real love from false love, lasting love from passing love. Edwards was writing in a Christian context, and he was in the middle of discussions and debates about identifying real grace, real religion, real marks of the life of God in human individuals. Can the principle Edwards introduces above be applied today? What excellent things are counterfeited in 2007?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Jonathan Edwards: Reformed Herotic
No, not that Jonathan Edwards. He won Olympic medals and stuff, and I'm not sure he's Reformed anyway. So, his blog post would just be Jonathan Edwards: Hero.
Lots of people who study Christian theology love Jonathan Edwards. Lots of Christians hear lots of preachers talking about Edwards as a model preacher, or a model spiritual influence, or whatever.
Yes, I'm writing about this Jonathan Edwards, to which this website is devoted.
Lots of people who study Christian theology love Jonathan Edwards. Lots of Christians hear lots of preachers talking about Edwards as a model preacher, or a model spiritual influence, or whatever.
Here are my questions about all this.
First, can we really take his theological system, or his view of the world, as our own in the 21st century? So far, in light of the reading I've done in the last day or so, my answer would have to be negative, with some qualifications. Edwards, in his philosophy, in his scientific writings, and in his doctrine of creation, is seriously at odds with both modern science and philosophy, and a basic Christian or biblical doctrine of creation. It appears that he was an idealist, and that he believed that God essentially re-created the world all the time in one continuous action of upholding and sustaining the world. Edwards wrote against Newton's mechanical views of the universe, and against deism in general. His idealism, rightly or wrongly, has been compared to the idealism of people like George Berkeley and William Blake. Can it find a place in a credible Christian theology today?
Second, what are the implications of this idealism for Edwards and his understanding of Jesus Christ? Did the humanity of Jesus Christ matter all that much to Edwards? He understood that the incarnation was based on a Spirit Logos model of christology. This will be the theme of a short paper I have to write this semester. John Owen also applied this model of incarnation when he needed it. But, is this a meaningful model of incarnation, or is it just 'the man Jesus was very very full of the Holy Spirit' incarnation? Moreover, if Edwards was such a huge influence in American intellectual development, is his legacy altogether good? Is his legacy responsible for the dualism that affects the evangelical church in the US in so many ways?
Finally, can we separate the theology of Edwards from his spirituality? Edwards is a model for the Christ centred devotional life, and the Spirit filled life of Christian service in preaching and teaching. I think spiritual revival is an important aspect of the Christian life. In fact, to some extent, spiritual revival is the Christian life. Here, I think, Edwards was an important influence for good. But how, then, do his theological quirks matter? Was his style of ministry 'affected' by them? I hope to explore all these things over the next two months.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Mark Noll on Race, Religion and American Politics
Nine or ten years ago I read a book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. At the time I knew next to nothing about American church history, and I’d never heard of Mark Noll. I approached the book as a young Christian keen to learn more about Reformed and evangelical theology. A flatmate had already read it, so I borrowed his copy when he said the book was required reading. At the time my understanding of the Christian faith was beginning to deepen. My experience of Christian churches and organizations was still fairly limited. But I thought I knew enough - I had the basics in place.
Noll’s book was fascinating, interesting. However, I was left wondering about what Noll was really getting at - I thought he was theologically naïve. The history was impressive - but I pretended that my theological view was safely detached from Noll’s critique of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. But I knew that Noll was getting at something, a problem with the movement that brought me to a living faith in Jesus Christ. I was frustrated that The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind told the story without solving any of the theological problems inherent in that story. In some ways, my development as a Christian reader of history and theology has wrestled with Noll’s thesis ever since.
Last night I had the privilege of hearing Noll’s last lecture in a series of three public lectures given at Princeton University. It is safe to say that I no longer doubt Noll’s historical or theological insights. Even if the last lecture relied on other authorities on 20thC American history, Noll’s development of his views on race and religion in American politics deserves to be widely discussed because it has the potential to explain the weaknesses of evangelical Christianity today.
The lecture series developed Noll’s earlier work, found in America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002) and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (2006). (You can read reviews of these works here and here.) Basically, Noll argued that the Civil War solved the problem of religion and slavery. But the problem of religion and race remained. It remained right up to the mid-20th century, and, by implication, to the present day. White American Christianity developed alongside an essentially separate Black Christianity. This black prophetic religion was a significant trigger for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
White Christian ‘elites’ accepted and often promoted civil rights. But there was a consequence to this acceptance of federal promotion of civil rights. Resentment shifted to the expansion of federal government. A coalition between Republican and white evangelical interests grew out of this to form the current conservative power block. Illustrations of this resentment include the growth of creationism - a phenomenon that Noll linked to the investment in public scientific education that was funded by federal government in the late 1950s and 1960s. This federal policy was viewed as an imposition on local Christian values, because public science was inevitably the science of Darwin and evolution, and it was therefore anti-Christian. I was reminded of the scandal of the evangelical mind at this point.
This post is too long already - the lecture series was full of stories that made me cringe. Noll’s comparison of moral religious support for the Civil War, and the moral religious basis of the Civil Rights movement was chilling. Chilling, because in the 1860s white men fought and killed each other in the name of God. In the 1950s and the 1960s, black people fought against injustice and racism using, among other things, public prayer and preaching.
Noll spoke as a white evangelical. He admitted that America was a highly successful country, and a place where millions of people have benefited from values originating in American Protestantism. He ended his talk by positing a ‘Calvinist theological interpretation of a problem caused by “Calvinists”’ But, I will need to get the book before I think about this some more. The lectures will be published by Princeton University Press some time next year.
Noll’s book was fascinating, interesting. However, I was left wondering about what Noll was really getting at - I thought he was theologically naïve. The history was impressive - but I pretended that my theological view was safely detached from Noll’s critique of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. But I knew that Noll was getting at something, a problem with the movement that brought me to a living faith in Jesus Christ. I was frustrated that The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind told the story without solving any of the theological problems inherent in that story. In some ways, my development as a Christian reader of history and theology has wrestled with Noll’s thesis ever since.
Last night I had the privilege of hearing Noll’s last lecture in a series of three public lectures given at Princeton University. It is safe to say that I no longer doubt Noll’s historical or theological insights. Even if the last lecture relied on other authorities on 20thC American history, Noll’s development of his views on race and religion in American politics deserves to be widely discussed because it has the potential to explain the weaknesses of evangelical Christianity today.
The lecture series developed Noll’s earlier work, found in America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002) and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (2006). (You can read reviews of these works here and here.) Basically, Noll argued that the Civil War solved the problem of religion and slavery. But the problem of religion and race remained. It remained right up to the mid-20th century, and, by implication, to the present day. White American Christianity developed alongside an essentially separate Black Christianity. This black prophetic religion was a significant trigger for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
White Christian ‘elites’ accepted and often promoted civil rights. But there was a consequence to this acceptance of federal promotion of civil rights. Resentment shifted to the expansion of federal government. A coalition between Republican and white evangelical interests grew out of this to form the current conservative power block. Illustrations of this resentment include the growth of creationism - a phenomenon that Noll linked to the investment in public scientific education that was funded by federal government in the late 1950s and 1960s. This federal policy was viewed as an imposition on local Christian values, because public science was inevitably the science of Darwin and evolution, and it was therefore anti-Christian. I was reminded of the scandal of the evangelical mind at this point.
This post is too long already - the lecture series was full of stories that made me cringe. Noll’s comparison of moral religious support for the Civil War, and the moral religious basis of the Civil Rights movement was chilling. Chilling, because in the 1860s white men fought and killed each other in the name of God. In the 1950s and the 1960s, black people fought against injustice and racism using, among other things, public prayer and preaching.
Noll spoke as a white evangelical. He admitted that America was a highly successful country, and a place where millions of people have benefited from values originating in American Protestantism. He ended his talk by positing a ‘Calvinist theological interpretation of a problem caused by “Calvinists”’ But, I will need to get the book before I think about this some more. The lectures will be published by Princeton University Press some time next year.
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