Via Media Podcast, Episode 18
What Can Anglicans Learn from Jonathan Edwards?
Gerald McDermott
August 22, 2019

https://www.beesondivinity.com/the-institute-of-anglican-studies/podcast/2019/what-can-anglicans-learn-from-jonathan-edwards



Announcer:     

The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott.


McDermott:

Before we begin today’s discussion, I want to remind all of our listeners that the Second Annual Anglican Theology Conference is coming in September to Beeson Divinity School here and Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The focus of this year’s conference, and the title of this year’s conference, is The Jewish Roots of Christianity. Diverse scholars from three different countries will present cutting-edge research on questions such as, “Did Jesus start a new religion with Christianity?” “Did Paul follow the Jewish Law?” “How did the Church split from the synagogue?” There will also be a discussion of the largely untold story of Anglicans and modern Israel. And finally, I will suggest in my talk what difference the Jewish roots of Christianity make for Anglicans. The conference is going to be September 24th and 25th. Reserve your spot today so that it doesn’t get taken by someone else by registering at beesondivinity.com/events. Beesondivinity.com/events.


Welcome to the Via Media. This is Gerald McDermott, again, at Beeson Divinity School. This is our second in a two-part series on what Anglicans can learn from Jonathan Edwards, the American theologian from the 18th century – often called “America’s Theologian.” But increasingly recognized as more than just America’s Theologian, in fact perhaps one of the five or six greatest thinkers in the history of Christian thought. And I’ll try to give some reason for why I say that in the next few minutes. 

In our last session we talked about what Anglicans can learn from Edwards about the world religions and in today’s session I want to talk about some other aspects of Edward’s theology that I think can be helpful to Anglicans. But let me step back for just a minute and talk about the significance of Jonathan Edwards for those who aren’t that familiar with him, or may think of him only as a hellfire and damnation preacher. 

Yale University Press just completed the publication of the critical edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards – 73 volumes, 400-800 pages each. The first 26 volumes in hard cover. 

Many are surprised to hear that. They’re also surprised to hear that Edward’s – this American theologian – is becoming more and more popular, especially in the global south. There are Jonathan Edwards centers in Australia, South Africa, Japan, also in Europe in Belgium, and Germany, and Hungary, and the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe and Poland, in South America there’s a center in Brazil. 

So, this begs the question, why is Edwards becoming so popular in the global south and in Europe far away from New England, which he never left in his 56 years of life? 

Well, the first reason is that Edwards is more and more recognized as the premiere theologian in the history of Christian thought of beauty; that is the relationship between God and Beauty. What’s called his theological aesthetics.

About 25 years ago the scholar Patrick Sherry published a book titled “Spirit and Beauty: A History of Theological Aestheticism.” In this book Sherry concluded that there are really only three names when it comes to aesthetics in the history of Christian thought. The three greatest names, that is, are Saint Augustine, Hans Urs von Balthasar the Swiss Catholic theologian of the 20th century, and Jonathan Edwards from the 18th century. Sherry said that of the three the one for whom beauty was most central to his vision of God was Jonathan Edwards. 

Now that’s a major reason, I think, why Edwards has been enjoying a renaissance since 1949 when Perry Miller first published his book just simply titled, “Jonathan Edwards.” It was reviewed in the New York Times. But his stature has been increasing ever since and now it’s moving in terms of influence to the global south. And a principal reason is because beauty is everywhere in the Edwards corpus. 

Now, in the 21st century, we’re finding that of the three trancendentals – truth, goodness, and beauty – that beauty is far more appealing to Millennials and the Z Generation than truth and goodness for various cultural reasons I don’t have time to go into.

Now Anglicans know something about beauty, and we Anglicans have something unique to offer hungry sinners. We can talk about a beautiful God who offers us his beauty in liturgy and sacrament. This is especially attractive, I think, in the 21st century and particularly in 2019 when, sadly, the Roman Catholic Church is struggling because of multiplied lawsuits being levied against it and because of new doctrinal disputes during the papacy of Pope Francis. And millions of evangelicals are looking for something more than big box churches where it’s about a rock star preacher and making Jesus relevant. Where the preacher has to create a show every week and if there’s beauty it’s about the individual preacher rather than a beautiful God, and a beautiful tradition that has come down from the Early Church.

Now, more and more evangelicals are looking elsewhere. They’re looking for the ancient church, or at least the church of the first millennium where it was undivided. When they come to the Book of Common Prayer they see beauty in Anglican liturgy. They see beauty in the sacraments, because the sacraments use the beauty of God’s creation: water, wine, oil, bread, colors from every season, and vestments that point to the historical church rather than simply the sartorial choices of the preacher.

So, Anglicans know that God is beauty. But they’re usually not equipped to explain what that means or why God is beauty, or where God’s beauty is manifested outside of the sacraments, and outside of the liturgy.

Well, Jonathan Edwards can help them answer those questions. And let me propose, too, that there are eight different groups of Christians in the world today where the Church can be seen in four different ways as a polarity in four different ways in the 21st century. In this situation of four polarities Jonathan Edwards is the perfect theological bridge figure. 

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, I want to propose that Edwards is the perfect theological bridge between protestants and Catholics; between East and West; between charismatics and non charismatics, and even between liberals and conservatives. So, let me explain.

Protestants and Catholics – even though Jonathan Edwards said the Roman papacy was one of the twin antichrists, and by the way the other twin he said was Islam, but even though Jonathan Edwards was explicitly very anti Roman much of his theology shows the earmarks of Catholic influence, Catholic theological influence, probably coming from his favorite theologian, Petrus van Mastricht, who was in that area of Holland that was heavily Catholic and who was steeped in Suarez, the Thomist theologian among the Catholic scholastics. 

When you look at Edwards’ theology you see that for Edwards metaphysics was very important. As it was for Augustine and for Anselm and for Thomas Aquinas. That’s a Catholic characteristic, particularly after we’ve seen the 20th century protestant theology following Bart that has largely eschewed metaphysics. Secondly, what you see in Edwards is natural theology. His conviction that all the world is full of types, that is God implanted symbols of his presence and of his redemption. 

That’s a Catholic theme that particularly also in the 20th century when protestants have generally rejected natural theology again, because of the influence of Karl Bart. 

A third earmark of Edwards’ theology that is Catholic is his understanding of salvation. That grace is truly present in the world. That grace truly becomes incarnate in this world. That is indwells saints and the church in an abiding way. It’s not just God’s favor, it’s also the presence of God in the world. 

A fourth characteristic, you could say, of Edwards’ theology that betrays Catholic signs, if not influence, are his understandings of church and sacrament. For example, he viewed the Eucharist as a means of grace. Now, he didn’t call it the Eucharist. He called it the Lord’s Supper in a very reformed way, and he was very, very reformed. But nevertheless in ways that some reformed do not say, he said Eucharist is a means of grace. 

By the way, speaking of the Eucharist he had a robust view of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. So, those are four ways in which Edwards showed Catholic influence. He was also very protestant, of course. Clearly rejected Rome and much that was Roman. Especially Rome’s attribution of primary authority, coming from the magisterium, Roman tradition, rather than scripture itself as Edwards understood it. 

Now, Edwards besides being protestant in calling for the final authority of scripture alone, he also saw grace as always coming from God and never being, say, under human control as he would say some Roman thinkers suggested. He also emphasized that salvation is by grace alone, and we aren’t saved because of any of our human merit or because of our human effort, or even because of our sincerity. No, salvation comes from the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and God applies it to us by his Holy Spirit shearly by his loving mercy, and not because of anything that’s in us. Very protestant.

So, Edwards has appealed both to Protestants and to Catholics for centuries, but particularly recently, and that’s because there are catholic earmarks in his theology and also many, many of course protestant characteristics of his theology. So, he can be a bridge between Catholics and protestants in this day in the global north where opposition to orthodoxy is starting to bring Catholics and protestants together on issues like the sanctity of human life. 

Now we Anglicans talk about Anglicanism as being a Via Media between Roman Catholicism on the one hand and Protestantism on the other. Some Anglicans talk about Anglicanism as being reformed Catholicism, drawing on the best of both worlds – the worship of the Catholic church and preaching tradition of the Protestant churches. So, Edwards can be a bridge figure between protestants and Catholics, I think. 

He’s also a bridge figure between East and West. Now, why do I say “east?” Well, there are a lot of Eastern characteristics in Edwards’ theology. For example, for Eastern Orthodoxy a theologian is not someone who might have gone to seminary or gotten a PhD in theology, but when the East talks about a theologian they mean a person who is rich in the experiential knowledge of God. And Edwards is all about this. In his theology he is always emphasizing the importance of meditation and contemplation. And that this is critical for the theologian. 

Now, another Eastern characteristic of Orthodox theology is participation. Many Edwards scholars have written about this emphasis in Edwards’ thought on participation that we know God not simply by our intellect, but by participating in his being in the inter Trinitarian life. We experience God’s love only be participating in the love that passes between the Father and the Son by the Spirit. We have knowledge of God only by participating in the Son’s knowledge of the Father, according to Edwards. We have happiness in God only by participating in the happiness of the Trinity as the Son rejoices in the Father, and the Father rejoices in the Son, and the joy between them is so real that it’s the third person of the Holy Spirit. This is Edwards’ theology and it has great resonance with Eastern Orthodox theology.

Now anyone who knows the history of East versus West, theologically, knows about the filioque controversy in the Nicene Creed. Edwards came up with his own ... I mean, he was very aware of the controversy and he came up with his own mediation of the controversy. Like the East, he emphasized the ontological priority of the Father. But unlike the West, he didn’t insist only on the double procession of the Spirit from both the Father and the Son, but also taught the single procession of the Spirit from the Father. 

Now, we Anglicans have been influenced by both East and West. A lot of us Anglicans are not aware of that, but influence from the East goes all the way back to Thomas Cranmer. So, here too Jonathan Edwards is a theological resource, a bridge figure for 21st century Christians who want to find a bridge between East and West and overcome some of the divisions in Christ’s Church – particularly theologically. 

Now, a third way in which Edwards can be a perfect bridge figure for 21st century Christianity is that he can mediate between charismatics and non charistmatics. Many of my listeners probably know that Pentecostalism is now becoming recognized as perhaps the fourth greatest branch of Christianity in the world, after Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Pentecostalism numbers at least 600 million people in the world today. Probably a majority in the global south. It certainly is one of the most important phenomena in the world of religion today, not just Christianity – that is, there is no other single religious group that is united theologically that is larger than Pentecostalism, at 600 million people. Of course that includes charismatics. 

Now, it’s interesting when you look back to recent Pentecostal movements, popular charismatic movements like the Toronto Blessing of the mid 1990s when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people by the time it was all over. There were great debates by those who were for it and those who were against it. For and against. And no other author was quoted as much on both sides as Jonathan Edwards. Not surprising, because Edwards is the principle theologian of revival by the Holy Spirit. In the history of the Christian Church no one has written as much serious material defending revival and attacking bad revivals theologically as Jonathan Edwards. 

He wrote several treatises, simply devoted to the subject of revival by the Holy Spirit. And those on the side of the Toronto Blessing back in the ‘90s said that Edwards was on their side because of Edwards’ teaching about the Holy Spirit as the one of the three who innovates and disturbs the status quo. He taught that no one can define from the get-go what the Spirit is going to do. We have to wait and see and test the fruit of the Spirit afterward, after a new movement of what some people claim to be a movement of the Holy Spirit. But those on the other side of revivals and the Toronto Blessing in the ‘90s claimed Edwards for support against Pentecostalism and against the Toronto Blessing. They said look at Edwards who in his revivalist treatises always warned, or sounded a loud note of caution, saying that the fruit of the Spirit are always far more important than the gifts of the Spirit and argued for that biblically. And also they pointed to Edwards’ writings that the unregenerate, those who do not have the indwelling Spirit, can often have the gifts of the Spirit. 

Edwards pointed often, for instance, to King Saul in the Old Testament, who was slain in the Spirit as charismatics would say twice, and thrown on the ground in religious ecstasy and prophesied twice, and yet King Saul was a wicked man. Edwards pointed also to Judas who he said from all we can tell in the Gospels did miracles through the Holy Spirit just as the other eleven did. And yet Jesus himself said that Judas was a wicked man who it would have been better if he’d never have been born. 

So, the unregenerate, those who are not true Christians, can nevertheless have gifts of the Holy Spirit that God uses for his own mysterious and sovereign purposes. So, non Pentecostals, those who are against the Pentecostal and charismatic experience, have pointed to these sorts of passages in Edwards’ writings to support their view. Also when Edwards talked in some of those revival treatises and some of his other treatises focused on eschatology of which he wrote much, when he talked about a bastard religion that Satan sometimes raises up to counterfeit the true faith for the purpose of turning disciples of Jesus, or would-be disciples ... to turn them against true religion. 

Now, Edwards did not affirm, as today’s Pentecostals and charismatics do, the present day exercise of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, he was a cessationist. But one wonders what he would have done if he were living ... what he would have thought if he were living today, because he took an empiricist kind of approach to revivals – that is, as I was saying a few minutes ago – he said we should judge them by their observable fruits rather than by a priori reasoning, determining ahead of time what revivals are going to look like and how they’re going to behave. 

So, it’s possible, I think, that if Edwards had been living in the 21st century and had observed firsthand the growth of Pentecostalism, the impact and the dynamism of 20th century charismatic movements, that he might have found something to affirm in this global movement, as well as certainly finding much to criticize as well.

So, that’s a third way in which Edwards can be a bridge figure for 21st century Christians and also for Anglicans who to some degree are also divided on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but who are recognizing more and more as Anglicanism’s center of gravity is now in the global south rather than in the global north, where Pentecostalism and the charismatic experience have influenced many of our Anglican churches that Edwards might be a resource here for helping them A) to understand Pentecostalism and helping Anglicans also to understand B) how we are to incorporate these works of the Holy Spirit in our Anglican churches. 

Finally, a fourth polarity in Christianity today is between liberals and conservatives. We Anglicans, especially, have seen this of course and we continue to see it in the great divide in the Anglican communion between the Orthodox and the progressives. The same divide that’s going through every other group of Christians on the planet. Including Rome. 

But Edwards here, too, can be a mediating figure; can be a bridge figure between liberals and conservatives. Think of it this way: Jonathan Edwards could be said to be the greatest theologian of Hell in the history of Christian thought. He’s right up there with Saint Augustine. He was a hellfire and damnation preacher, but he was also a lot more than that. Here you’ve got this Christian thinker, this Christian theologian who is known to be a theologian of Hell, who is read at Harvard Divinity School – and loved by many at Harvard Divinity School. 

Like theological liberals who are descended, at least in the last few hundred years, from Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberal theology, who emphasized the role of experience in theology, so too did Edwards talk about the role of experience in theology and to some degree emphasized the role of experience in theology and like Schleiermacher, he used new ways to approach old issues. So, for example, he developed a new kind of metaphysics that talked about the continuous recreation of the world. And he believed that metaphysics is crucial in theology as most theologians have in the history of Christian thought, like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas but which has been lost in the 20th century to Protestants. 

So, Edwards was, you could say, like a liberal in that he always took received doctrines and wanted to approach them in a new way, or re-think them. Yet he also was a conservative. He was a keen defender of biblical authority as I said before. He warned against any departure from the great tradition’s basic reception of what the Bible means. Now he didn’t used the term “great tradition” of course, but he never wanted to waiver from what we would now call the great traditions reception of and understanding of scripture. That’s why Edwards is popular also at The Gospel Coalition. 

So, here’s a thinker who is popular both at Harvard Divinity School and The Gospel Coalition. Go figure. This is a fourth way in which he can be a bridge figure in the 21st century for Christianity, and for Anglicans. 

Now did Edwards know about Anglicans? You bet he did. He wrote about them at some length. He regarded the Church of England generally as sound in its principles, such as justification by faith, but he also knew the Church of England could be corrupted by “easy believe-ism” and moralism. And you could say we have some of that today in the Anglican communion.

Edwards praised the English Awakening in the Church of England, led by John Wesley and George Whitefield, both of whom were Anglican priests. He had Whitefield, an Anglican priest, preach for a whole weekend in North Hampton, his great mega church in Massachusetts, a mega church by 18th century standards. He preached to a thousand souls each Sunday morning. As a result of that weekend in North Hampton, when the Anglican priest George Whitefield was preaching, Jonathan Edwards’ church was transformed forever. And Jonathan Edwards’ preaching was transformed forever after hearing Whitefield preach.

So, in conclusion, folks, in this age where beauty speaks more loudly than truth, or even goodness, we Anglicans who prize beauty should learn from Jonathan Edwards, the principle theologian of beauty in the history of Christian thought. And as Anglicans who say that our way is a Via Media between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, but enjoying the best of both, we can learn from a theologian who showed both Protestant and Catholic proclivities. And when we Anglicans say there’s no efficacy in our sacraments without the Holy Spirit, and there’s no beauty in our liturgy without the Holy Spirit, and when our communion is now centered in the global south, where charismatic movements are so dominant, and quite dominant often in our Anglican churches, we can learn from the theologian who is the greatest theologian of revival by the Holy Spirit; and who wrote what’s been the called the most penetrating work of spiritual discernment in the history of Christian thought – his Religious Affections. 

When Anglicanism is conflicted, at least in the global north, between liberals and conservatives, we can learn, too, from this theologian who has appealed to both. 

For those of you who would like to learn more about Jonathan Edwards and to explore further these themes that I’m discussing today, you might look at the big book that I wrote with Michael McClymond another Jonathan Edwards scholar, titled “The Theology of Jonathan Edwards,” by Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott; published by Oxford University Press in 2012.

Thank you for joining us today at the Via Media.


Announcer:     

You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.