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Would Jonathan Edwards Work Today?

Yale theology professors, Kenneth P. Minkema and Harry S. Stout, provide their impressions of how Edward's famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" would work in today's church environment. Pay special attention to Minkema's virtual ridicule of hell, judgment, and God's wrath, and Stout's view that should "hell" be preached today it should not be as a real place, for such would only trivialize the idea. Rather, hell ought to preached in an existentialist fashion: as alienation from our "ground of being."

These two professors only further confirm my long-held view that my old Alma Mater is getting more and more away from Christ and his gospel.

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  1. Jay RogersAugust 19, 2010 at 7:39 PM

    Well, the irony is that "Sinner's in The Hands of An Angry God" was NOT the sermon title. It was called "Their Foot Shall Slide in Due Time," and it was a sermon from Deuteronomy on the doctrine of reprobation. Edwards was teaching that there is a reprobate element in ANY church and that those who are in sin ought to awake from their slumber -- if they are able by the love, mercy and grace of God ALONE. The three metaphors in the sermon speak of God's wrath being stayed against sin by His love, mercy and grace. It's not a scare tactic to get people to repent. It's not an "altar call" sermon. In fact, it's impossible to rightly understand the sermon without knowing assuming that Edwards believed in election and reprobation.

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  2. John BarberAugust 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM

    Yes, indeed. And their foot shall most certainly slide in due time.

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