New book: The other Jonathan Edwards

Most Americans think of Edwards as that dour preacher who was obsessed with God’s anger.

Did you know he was really obsessed with God’s beauty?  Some of you already know that.

But many of you don’t know that he also wrote voluminously about (human) love, society, and justice.

And that his writings on these subjects are particularly timely today when we worry (rightly so) about the future of our nation.

Ron Story and I have just published  a little reader on this subject.

Do you need to get a gift for a serious Christian friend?  Here is the perfect gift.

Take a look at the Table of Contents:

Maps and illustrations

Significant dates in Edwards’s life

Introduction

Reading selections

1. Sermon: “Living Peaceably One with Another” (1723)

Edwards’s youthful strain of communitarian idealism

2. Miscellanies Notebook: “The Millennium”     (1723, 1726)

Early social and political commentary

3. Images and Shadows of Divine Things (1738)

Gravity as a type of love

4. Sermon: “Sin and Wickedness Bring Calamity and Misery” (1729)

The national covenant

5. Sermon: “Envious Men” (1730)

On status-seeking and its social implications

6. Sermon: “The State of Public Affairs” (1731-32)

God deals not only with individuals but also with whole societies

7. Sermon: “The Duty of Charity to the Poor”   (1733)

On the duty of Christians and the state to assist the underprivileged

8. Sermon: “The Excellency of Christ” (1736)

Christ’s humility and love

9. Sermon: “Charity Contrary to a Selfish Spirit” (1738)

The beauty of love in community

1. Sermon: “Long-Suffering and Kindness” (1738)

Dealing with injuries from others

1. Sermon: “Heaven Is a World of Love” (1738)

The society of heaven is everything our society ought to be

2.  History of the Work of Redemption: The Millennium (1739); Miscellanies Notebooks: The Millennium (1740)

“Times of great peace and love”

3. Sermon: “Mercy and Not Sacrifice” (1740)

Moral duties an essential part of religion

4.  “The Church Covenant” (1742)

“Strict regard to rules of honesty, justice, and uprightness”

5. Sermon: “The Duties of Christians in a Time of War” (1745)

The possibility and conditions of just war

6. Religious Affections

On Christian character

7. Sermon: “A Strong Rod Broken and Withered” (1748)

The qualities of a good political leader

8. Sermon: “Farewell Sermon” (1750)

“Someday we shall all meet again”

9. Letter to Speaker Thomas Hubbard (1751)

Caring for Indians

1.  Moral philosophy: The Nature of True Virtue (1756-7)

What is true virtue?

For further reading