Jonathan Edwards: His Life, Times and Legacy

CH 752

The Atlantic Monthly recently listed Jonathan Edwards as one of the hundred most influential people in American history. He is without doubt one of the greatest minds to shape Christian thought and experience since the Reformation. Providing theological leadership during the Great Awakening in the early part of the 18th century, he witnessed thousands of conversions, churches revived, theology contested, a Revolution seeded, and the modern missions movement born. We need to learn from his insights today.

In this unit, you will explore the experiences which formed Jonathan Edwards for the work of ministry, for example his family, conversion, and education. The world of Puritan New England is an essential backdrop to Edwards’ understanding of grace and revival.

Learning from Edwards’ leadership during the Great Awakening, we can discover ways in which parachurch ministries can work with local congregations, the value of prayer alongside Gospel strategies, and the importance of both the sacraments and evangelism in God’s purposes for the world. His dismissal from the church in Northampton which he had served for 23 years provides its own warnings about the dangers and challenges of pastoral ministry.

Edwards served as a missionary to the Indians in the last few years of his life. We will engage with his understanding of race, culture and communication, and investigate his legacy of revivalism up to our own day.

 

LECTURER

The unit is to be taught by Ken P. Minkema, B.A. (Calvin College), M.A. (Bowling Green State University), Ph.D. (The University of Connecticut). Professor Minkema is Executive Editor of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center and Online Archive, and assistant adjunct professor of American religious history at Yale Divinity School. He is commonly regarded as the preeminent Edwards scholar of this generation. It is a great privilege to host him at Ridley Melbourne, through our collaborative relationship with the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.

Besides publishing numerous articles on Jonathan Edwards and topics in early American religious history, he has edited volume 14 in the Yale letterpress edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, and co-edited A Jonathan Edwards Reader, The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader, and Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentennial of His Birth.

 

WORKLOAD AND ASSESSMENTS

This unit consists of 25 hours of class time and will be taught as an intensive, comprising both lecture and seminar formats over five days. Students will be asked to provide summaries of chapters from the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards for the seminar discussions.

George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life will serve as pre-reading for the unit.

Assignments consist of a reading review of 3,000 words,  and an essay of 5,000 word.

The Leon Morris Library at Ridley has become a specialist provider within Australia of books and journal articles on Edwards.

 

DATES AND TIMES

The unit will begin on Monday 20 September, 2010, at 9:30am, and conclude on Friday 24 September at 4pm.