John Boni

Ms. Sterling

EH 225-109

October 2, 2008

The Impact of Preaching on Life

            As the 18^th century dawned upon the settlers in the New World, monumental changes occurred. Through the discovery of physics by Sir Issac Newton, many answers were found as to why things behaved the way they did.  These discoveries not only had an impact on the scientific world but on religion as well. As people before attributed things like gravity to God’s never-ending presence in the world, they began to question their own religion. Many stopped putting all their faith in the Bible and accepted this new idea—physics—of thought. Some even renounced their old Puritan beliefs and adopted a new religion that put science ahead of religion.  These people were later known as Deists, and they believed that God created the universe but was not part of everyday life. This new science and religion, along with political changes such as independence from Great Britain, led to the Enlightenment.

            Meanwhile, a religious revival began to crop up, known as the Great Awakening.  Because of the foreign nature of this new religion, many returned to a type of comfort zone by reviving defunct religions such as Puritanism. One man that was probably the most influential person during that time period was a minister named Jonathan Edwards. Successor to Reverend Solomon Stoddard (one of the most influential ministers of New England), Edwards sought a way to “revive demoralized congregations through the sheer power of preaching” (Lukasik 231).  He felt that people needed to understand God in both the physical sense and the spiritual sense.  The only way to do this was, he believed, was to remind the people of what they had given up when they accepted the newfound religion, along with using frightening images to scare back anyone who was uncertain about their faith. In his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he achieved this. Consequently, the sermon became one of the most influential moments of the Great Awakening.

Edwards’s sermon revolved around Hell. He preached to the congregation that Hell was indeed a real place and that anyone could be mere moments from going there. To prevent from going there, he told the congregation that they needed to accept God back into their lives, follow His ways, and obey His commandments, or else they would end up in Hell for all eternity, being reminded forever of what they did. By using several quotes from Deuteronomy and Isaiah, he drew comparisons between the congregation and the Israelites. He pointed out that “The Israelites were always exposed to sudden and unexpected destruction by their own weight and they were certain to fall!” (Gallagher 205) To him, the congregation was the Israelites, and without the presence of God, they would surely crumble as well.

Contrary to what feels like an angry Edwards preaching to the congregation, he was far from that. “Edwards read his sermon in a level voice with his sermon book in his left hand, and in spite of his calm, ‘there was such a breathing of distress, and weeping’” (Baym 425).  It was as almost as if he was getting down on his knees and pleading for the people to accept God back into their lives. He mentioned that God is known to be vengeful at those who disobey His commandments and that He has more anger at those who do than anyone can ever imagine. He explained to the crowd that there were no second chances on life, and if they did not change the way they lived before they died, it would be too late.

There were several impacts of the sermon. For one, it was such an outstanding sermon that it was eventually published and distributed to the people. Also, Edwards became known as a founder of a special type of idealism called immaterialism, a principle based on metaphysics.  It states that the only thing mattering in life is body and mind and that materialistic objects serve no purpose.

Not all of the impact turned out to be positive, however. While there was much truth in his sermon, most viewed his sermon as a scare tactic and way over the top. As a by-product of this, many fanatics became like Edwards, pleading with everyone to change their ways, accept God back into their lives, and repent. Because of this, many became uninterested in returning to old Puritan beliefs and adopted the new religion of the Enlightenment. Consequently, Edwards was dismissed from his church by a vast majority of the people, never to preach again. In fact, they believed Edwards’s preaching to be so over the top that “they preferred to have no sermons rather than let Edwards preach” (Baym 386).

Perhaps one of the most ironic events of the Great Awakening was Edwards’s death. Approximately seven years after Edwards was dismissed from his church, he received a smallpox vaccination, one that had been around for a relatively short amount of time. Shortly after he received the vaccination, he contracted smallpox and died. The ironic part of it was that he did it “to set an example for his frightened and superstitious students” (Baym 361). He had gotten this new vaccination in the hope of being saved. However, due to the still new field of medical science, he ended up paying the ultimate price: his own life.

Even though his actions later on in life sort of contradicted what he preached, Edwards is still seen as one of the most influential people of the Great Awakening. Without his determination and influence, though, the Great Awakening crumbled as many returned to the new beliefs. With the demise of the Great Awakening, religion no longer existed as a forerunner in life but rather as a secondary object which people enjoyed at will.

Works Cited

 

Baym, Nina, ed. “Jonathan Edwards.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 384-386.

Gallagher, Edward J. “‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’: Some Unfinished Business.” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2, Jun. 2000. 202-221. JSTOR. University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL. 30 Sept. 2008. <http://www.jstor.org.libproxy2.usouthal.edu/stable/366800?&Search=yes&term=god&term=hands&term=sinners&term=
angry&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsinners%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bhands%2Bof%2Ban%2Bangry%2Bgod%26x%
3D0%26y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=597&returnArticleService=showArticle>

Lukasik, Christopher. “Feeling the Force of Certainty: The Divine Science, Newtonianism, and Jonathan Edwards’s ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2, Jun. 2000. 222-245. JSTOR. University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL. 1 Oct. 2008. <http://www.jstor.org.libproxy2.usouthal.edu/stable/366801?&Search=yes&term=god&term=hands&term=sinners&term=angry&list=
hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsinners%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bhands%2Bof%2Ban%2Bangry%2Bgod
%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=2&ttl=597&returnArticleService=showArticle>