Jonathan Edwards and the Church

My colleague Rhys Bezzant has a great book on Jonathan Edwards and the Church (New York: OUP, 2013), which should be necessary reading for anyone interested in American church history, doctrine of the church, or part of the YRR crowd.

Interest in the life and writings of Jonathan Edwards has never been higher. Academics, pastors, and a broad lay readership all find resources for discipleship and ministry by studying the texts of this great leader and teacher. It is remarkable then that though Edwards spent most of his life working in local churches, and saw himself primarily as a pastor, his own views on the theology of the church have never been explored in depth.

This book presents Edwards’s views on ecclesiology by tracking the development of his convictions during the course of his tumultuous career. Drawing on Reformation foundations and the Puritan background of his ministry, Edwards refreshes our understanding of the church by connecting it to a nuanced interpretation of revival, allowing for a dynamic view of the place of church in history, and for new thinking about its institutional structure. Indeed the church in Edwards’s writing has an exalted status as the bride of Christ, joined to him forever. Building on the recent completion by Yale University Press of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, and material now published online, this book, the first ever written on Edwards’s ecclesiology, demonstrates his commitment to corporate Christian experience shaped by theological convictions, and his aspirations towards the visibility and unity of the Christian church. In a final section are presented topics relating to ecclesiology (hymnody, discipline, polity), which occupied Edwards throughout his ministry career. Edwards preached a Gospel concerned with God’s purposes for the world, so it is the growth of the church, not merely the conversion of individuals, which is the necessary fruit of his preaching.

This book provides fruitful resources for dealing with contemporary questions regarding the church, for example its relation to the community, the place of gifts, the nature of leadership and structure, the importance of sacraments, the relationship between the ordained and the non-ordained, the contribution of itinerants, the place of prayer, the hope of renewal, or the centrality of preaching. The church in the West is rediscovering the significance of ecclesiology as it emerges from its Christendom constraints. Edwards’s own struggle to understand the church and its place within God’s cosmic design is an early case study helping us to appreciate the church in the modern world.