Global theologian for twenty-first-century Christianity

Throughout their varied chapters, and especially in the conclusion, they present Edwards as a major “global theologian for twenty-first-century Christianity” (pp. 725-28), much more useful than the more frequently studied Karl Barth as a resource for contemporary theology. Edwards bridges East and West, they argue, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and even Roman Catholicism, conservatism and liberalism, charismatic and non-charismatic Christian churches. Indeed, “[h]is thought,” they suggest, “may have more linkages and more points of reference to various constituencies within world Christianity than any other modern Christian theologian” (p. 727). So if our authors “had to choose one modern thinker—and only one—to function as a point of reference for theological interchange and dialogue” today, they would clearly choose Edwards, a catholic evangelical Calvinist who is read and used by tens of thousands all around the world (p. 728).

http://jecteds.org/blog/2011/12/22/sweeneys-booknotes-the-theology-of-jonathan-edwards/