Jonathan Edwards only lived to be 54 years old. At the age of 42 I began reading George Marsden’s masterful biography of Edwards, Jonathan Edwards: A Life. At the rate I’m going I’ll be 54 before I finish this hefty volume.
It’s not that the book isn’t “good” or interesting. It is in fact a wonderfully engaging telling of Edwards’ life and the era in which he lived. But it’s not a book that can be read quickly. What’s more, Marsden is excruciatingly thorough. There’s so much in every chapter to take in and sort through and keep up with. Arnold B. Cheyney, in his little book Writing: A Way to Pray, recalls his surprise as a student when one of his professors encouraged students to feel free to “check out” in the middle of a lecture. The professor wanted his students to have the liberty to actually stop and think about something they had just heard.[1]
Marsden’s biography requires that kind of reading. It invites reflection – even requires it. I can’t truthfully say that my slow progress through the 505 pages of text can be attributed to my deep thinking about what I’m reading. Frankly, I’m easily distracted. I don’t do a good job of reading through one book before starting another one. Edwards keeps losing out to other things. But that’s what makes the biography interesting. I’ll read something from a contemporary author, and then discover that the spiritually engaging questions of today are nothing new. What captures us now captured a New England pastor in the 1740s. Some of the ways I’m seeing this in the life of Jonathan Edwards would include:
Upheaval and change in the culture: There’s no shortage of material being published today about doing church in the “postmodern” age. Old assumptions no longer hold. Established practices no longer work. Of particular interest today is a shift in the locus of authority. Authority no longer resides in the sacred text or the ordained pastor. While post-moderns may retain respect and regarded for the Bible and the pastor, something more is required. Truth is authenticated by the community, or in some cases by the experience of the individual. While the particulars are different, Edwards lived through similar upheaval. Edwards was an aristocrat and his worldview assumed a hierarchical structure to “the way things are.” This applied to pastoral ministry and the authority of the pastor in the church and community (which by the way were barely distinguishable). Edwards lived at a time when “grassroots” movements were gaining strength. The familiar hierarchies were being challenged. To some degree this factored into his eventual dismissal from his pastorate in Northampton. The world was changing, then and now.
Order and ardor (enthusiasm) in worship: what constitutes the right worship of God? In recent years the term “worship wars” has been coined and no small amount of carnage has resulted as congregations slug it out over what is and isn’t “fitting” for worship. These days music and musical styles seem to be at the center of the turmoil, but just beneath the surface are questions about what worshipers are expressing and how they are expressing it. At a superficial level, the issue is about emotion or emotionalism in worship. Some want worship that is “free” and “heart felt.” Others want worship grounded in the Church’s long established liturgies and thus well ordered. Again, there’s nothing new here. During the awakenings and revivals that were spreading throughout New England in the 1740s there were various expressions associated with the work of the Holy Spirit. A work of God in worship might lead to shouting or fainting or crying.
This kind of thing was known as “enthusiasm” in the 18th century and not all clergy welcomed such manifestations of the Spirit. Edwards’ chief nemesis in these debates was a Boston pastor, Charles Chauncy. Chauncy believed in seeking the Spirit’s outpouring on the church, but he also felt that much of what was being seen in the awakening was a “dishonour to God.”[2] Two camps emerged: the “Old lights” and the “New lights.” The old lights valued intellect. The new lights – Edwards among them – wanted both intellect and passion, what Edwards called the “religious affections.” Edwards and Chauncy traded carefully crafted blows in print and from their pulpits – and it seems that the issue has never gone away.
My slow trudge through Marsden’s biography of Edwards has been humbling, and not simply because of the daunting challenge it presents to my capacity for reading and comprehension. It’s humbling because it puts my era and my ministry in perspective. Where I walk now, others have already walked. The survival of the church really doesn’t depend on me getting it right on post-modernity or the emergent church. Reading about a pastor from almost 300 years ago reminds me that Jesus is the foundation of the church. From age to age, century to century, Christ builds the church just as he promised he would.
Making my way through the 505 pages on Edwards' life is like watching God’s deliberate and faithful work in history. And then I ponder that fact that the God who worked then is working even now. Suddenly, I don’t feel so pressed to finish the book just to say “I read it.” Edwards’ life was short. Marden’s Life is long – and so is the Kingdom. I’ll take my time.
Now for page 320.
________________
[1] Arnold B. Cheyney, Writing: A Way to Pray (Loyola University Press, 1995), 1-2.
[2] Marsden, 271.
No comments:
Post a Comment