A thorough assessment of the legacy of "America's theologian"
In this major contribution to the study of one of America's best-known and most-imposing religious figures, fifteen scholars offer a sustained analysis of Jonathan Edwards's historical legacy throughout the world. The first collection of essays to focus primarily on Edwards's lasting influence, Jonathan Edwards at Home and Abroad is also the only volume to date to focus on the enduring effects of his writings worldwide. This collection moves the discussion beyond the borders of the United States and considers Edwards's impact on the larger world.
Although Edwards's corpus and personality have received considerable scholarly attention in the United States, the contributors recognize that attention to the continuing significance of his life and ministry in this country and elsewhere lags behind. These scholars examine the reach of Edwards's writings, his roles as a clerical and intellectual exemplar, his influence outside the world of religion, and the appropriation and reappropriation of his remarkably resilient cultural authority. They trace the convergence of these developments into discernible intellectual and ecclesiastical movements.
In surveying Edwards's domestic influence, the contributors illustrate how his life and American legacy continue to generate innovative scholarship that has moved beyond intellectual history. They bring into clear view Edwards's influence on discussions of sex, property rights, the salvation of children, and the status of African Americans in nineteenth-century America.
In taking the measure of Edwards's global impact, the contributors open new territory in Edwards studies and map a direction for further inquiry. They look into Edwards's influence on theological developments in England and Scotland, on the burgeoning missionary movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and on people throughout the world who have encountered his writings, now translated into German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Welsh, Gaelic, Arabic, Choctaw, Chinese, and Korean. Their conclusion is that Edwards's legacy is momentous, abroad as well as at home.
David W. Kling holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. An associate professor of religious studies at the University of Miami in Florida, he is the author of A Field of Divine Wonders: The New Divinity and Village Revivals in Northwestern Connecticut, 1792–1822 and The Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times. Kling lives in Miami.
Douglas A. Sweeney holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Church History and the History of Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Sweeney is the author of Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards. He is also the editor of The "Miscellanies" 1153–1360, volume 23 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, and an editor of The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader. Sweeney lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois.
"This volume represents something of a culmination of work on Jonathan Edwards's remarkable influence. Its far-ranging essays finally put to rest the notion that Edwards was a brilliant but tragic figure who squandered his considerable genius defending an outmoded Calvinism and thereby left no enduring religious legacy. The contributors significantly enlarge our understanding of Edwards's thought. They also examine his major impact on nineteenth-century Protestantism and, above, document his global influence. Edwards emerges not only as America's greatest religious thinker but perhaps as its most influential one as well."—Joseph A. Conforti, American and New England Studies, University of Southern Maine
"This is the first volume to document in detail Jonathan Edwards's surprising influence outside colonial America. It also contains important new interpretations of 'America's theologian' by a bevy of notable scholars."—Gerald R. McDermott, author of Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods and One Holy and Happy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards
"An illuminating and well-documented contribution to understanding the thought of Jonathan Edwards. This book is invaluable; it has no equal in its extensive record of Edwards's influence throughout the world."—John E. Smith, general editor emeritus, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Yale University