Religious Affections (2) - Couverture rigide

Edwards, Jonathan

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0300009666 ISBN 13 : 9780300009668

Editeur : Yale University Press, 1959

Synopsis

This volume contains Edwards’ most mature and persistent attempt to judge the validity of the religious development in eighteenth-century America known as the Great Awakening. In developing criteria for such judgment he attacked at the same time one of the fundamental questions facing all religion: how to distinguish genuine from spurious piety? The Awakening created much bitter controversy; on the one side stood the emotionalists and enthusiasts, and on the other the rationalists, for whom religion was essentially a matter of morality or good conduct and the acceptance of properly formulated doctrine. Edwards, with great analytical skill and enormous biblical learning, showed that both sides were in the wrong. He attacked both a “lifeless morality” as too pale as to be the essence of religion, and he rejected the excesses of a purely emotional religion more concerned for sensational effects than for the inner transformation of the self, which was, for him, the center of genuine Christianity.

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, to Timothy Edwards, pastor of East Windsor, and Esther Edwards. The only son in a family of eleven children, he entered Yale in September, 1716 when he was not yet thirteen and graduated four years later (1720) as valedictorian. He received his Masters three years later. In 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his maternal grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He was a student minister, not a visiting pastor, his rule being thirteen hours of study a day. In the same year, he married Sarah Pierpont, then age seventeen, daughter of James Pierpont (1659–1714), a founder of Yale, originally called the Collegiate School. In total, Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children. Solomon Stoddard died on February 11th, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony. Throughout his time in Northampton his preaching brought remarkable religious revivals. Jonathan Edwards was a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. Yet, tensions flamed as Edwards would not continue his grandfather's practice of open communion. Stoddard, his grandfather, believed that communion was a "converting ordinance." Surrounding congregations had been convinced of this, and as Edwards became more convinced that this was harmful, his public disagreement with the idea caused his dismissal in 1750. Edwards then moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, then a frontier settlement, where he ministered to a small congregation and served as missionary to the Housatonic Indians. There, having more time for study and writing, he completed his celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will (1754). Edwards was elected president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in early 1758. He was a popular choice, for he had been a friend of the College since its inception and was the most eminent American philosopher-theologian of his time. On March 22, 1758, he died of fever at the age of fifty-four following experimental inoculation for smallpox and was buried in the President's Lot in the Princeton cemetery beside his son-in-law, Aaron Burr.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Written in 1746 during the First Great Awakening, Religious Affections remains an important and challenging Christian treatise. Concerned that many people do not display true "religious affections," Jonathan Edwards attempts to "discern...wherein true religion does consist." Balancing between extreme "intellectualism" and extreme "emotionalism," Edwards argues that emotions are an important part of true religion, but that one must distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate emotions. He provides both "negative" or unreliable signs of true religious emotions, and "positive" or reliable signs of true religious emotions. Religious Affections is thus profitable for study even today, and many contemporary theologians and pastors have found Edward's work insightful and significant. For its historical importance and its continuing insights, Religious Affections is highly recommended.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Yale University Press
• Date d'édition: 1959
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0300009666
• ISBN 13: 9780300009668
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 534
• Éditeur: Smith John E.
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible