AFTER JONATHAN EDWARDS: The Courses of the New England Theology

AFTER JONATHAN EDWARDS: The Courses of the New England Theology

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is widely regarded as one of the major thinkers in the Christian tradition and an important and influential figure in American theology. After Jonathan Edwards is a collection of specially commissioned essays that track his intellectual legacies from the work of his immediate disciples that formed the New Divinity movement in colonial New England, to his impact upon European traditions and modern Asia. It is a unique interdisciplinary contribution to the reception of Edwardsian ideas, with scholars of Edwards being brought together with scholars of New England theology and early American history to produce a groundbreaking examination of the ways in which New England Theology flourished, how themes in Edwards's thought were taken up and changed by representatives of the school, and its lasting influence on the shape of American Christianity. "This is a rich volume... Edwards remains a creative conversation partner for present day evangelicals and others." -- David Ceri Jones, Journal for the History of Modern Theology 2017 Volume 24 Issue 2. "A rich historical and theological analysis of Edwards s thought...The essays are of a high quality and valuable for the historical insights which they provide into a man whose writings continue to have a profound influence on the study of theology and contemporary ministry."-- The Banner of Truth "Crisp and Sweeney have gathered a constellation of essays that guarantees renewed attention to Edwards's legacy. Here we find revaluation and renovation of his immediate disciples, Bellamy and Hopkins, long criticized for turning Edwards's poetry into mere prose yet proving instead the malleability and resilience of his ideas. We move as well through nineteenth-century theologians like Taylor and Park whose own creative renovation of Edwards's ideas speak to their contemporaries' unique moral concerns before and after the Civil War. A late grouping of essays addresses Edwards's continuing appeal to a variety of denominations in the twentieth century as well as to contemporary worldwide evangelism. Never was it more true that Edwards, like Abel, 'though dead, yet speaketh.'"--Philip F. Gura, author of Jonathan Edwards: America's Evangelical "This is an excellent collection of essays on the emergence of a theological tradition, the diversity found within it, and its continuing vitality. It enriches our understanding of the complexity of this developing tradition in its transmission and reception, its informal networks and institutionalization. The editors, in concluding, advance a bold agenda for further research on the long reach of Jonathan Edwards." -- Ecclesiology Oliver D. Crisp is Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Douglas A. Sweeney is Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought and Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.