Jonathan Edwards' legacy
The legacy of Jonathan Edwards, one of America's most influential theologians, will be honored during a week of festivities at Yale marking the 300th anniversary of his birth.
The celebration during the week of Oct. 5 will include a reading, lectures, an exhibition and a Yale Press book party.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), who earned his M.A. from Yale in 1723, is known for his literary and impassioned sermons, particularly "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." An archive of his original manuscripts of those sermons is housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and one of Yale's undergraduate residential colleges is named for him. The Works of Jonathan Edwards project at the Yale Divinity School is devoted to publishing all of Edwards works and has issued 22 volumes since the project began in 1953.
In describing Edwards' influence on American thought, the project editors write: "As Edwards has been studied over the generations, he has come to emerge as a quintessential 'representative man,' not in the usual sense but because in some profound sense, he marked the culmination of one era and prefigured a subsequent one.
"While other colonial figures exerted comparable influence on their own age, none, with the possible exception of William Penn and Benjamin Franklin, so completely anticipated the subsequent shape of the American culture, at once material and spiritual, piously secular and pragmatically sacred, as did Edwards. It is due to the intersection of Edwards' colonial times with an ever-changing American 'present' that he enjoys a uniquely representative status in American thought and letters."
The list of events celebrating Edwards' tercentennial follows. All are free and open to the public.
Sunday, Oct. 5, 2 p.m. -- Reading of "The Flaming Spider: Jonathan Edwards at Northampton" by author Austin Flint at Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and College streets.
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 4 p.m. -- A master's tea marking the opening of the exhibition "Jonathan Edwards at Yale," at Jonathan Edwards College (JE), 70 High St. A story about this exhibition, which will continue through Oct. 31, will appear in the next issue of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar.
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 5 p.m. -- A book party featuring George Marsden, author of "Jonathan Edwards: A Life," and editors of the recent volumes of The Works of Jonathan Edwards at the Yale University Press, 302 Temple St.
Thursday, Oct. 9, 4 p.m. -- A lecture on "Jonathan Edwards in the 21st Century" by George Marsden of the University of Notre Dame, author of a biography
of the theologian (see above), at the Beinecke Library, 121 Wall St.
Friday, Oct. 10, 4 p.m. -- A lecture titled "Jonathan Edwards: Theologian of Divine Immanence" by Amy Plantinga Pauw of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the Divinity School's Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St. The lecture will be followed at 5 p.m. by a wine-tasting at JE featuring wine from the Jonathan Edwards Vineyard in North Stonington, Connecticut.
The Edwards tercentennial celebration is sponsored by JE, the Beinecke Library, Yale Press, the Divinity School and The Works of Jonathan Edwards.
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