Jonathan Edwards’s Apologetic for the Great Awakening
Jonathan Edwards’s Apologetic for the Great Awakening

Author: Robert Davis Smart

Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books

Published: 2011-06-06

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 1601785828

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In the 1740s Jonathan Edwards emerged as the New Light proponent of the claim that the Great Awakening was, in the main, a true work of the Spirit of God. Conversely, Charles Chauncy led the Old Lights in opposition by offering criticisms of the Awakening. In this book, Robert Davis Smart examines Edwards’s defense of the revival with particular attention to Chauncy’s criticisms, which have often been acknowledged but not previously subjected to thorough analysis. He sets forth historical and contextual factors that shaped Edwards and his generation, shows how Edwards emerged as a leader of the revival from its early days, and offers an updated survey of the modern attempts to interpret the Awakening theologically, sociologically, and historically. Here is a detailed treatment of the contrasting perspectives of Edwards and Chauncy, an extensive analysis of their major works regarding the revival, an able assessment of the essential issues raised by the debate, and an evaluation of the significant contributions of these men. Table of Contents: Introduction to Edwards’s Historical Context Chapter One: Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening Chapter Two: Interpretations of the Awakening Chapter Three: The Distinguishing Marks and Some Thoughts Chapter Four: Chauncy’s Seasonable Thoughts Chapter Five: Edwards’s Final Response to Chauncy Conclusion: The Debate and Its Legacy

Conservative Revolutionaries
Conservative Revolutionaries

Author: John S. Oakes

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2016-10-19

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1625648545

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Boston Congregationalist ministers Charles Chauncy (1705-87) and Jonathan Mayhew (1720-66) were significant political as well as religious leaders in colonial and revolutionary New England. Scholars have often stressed their influence on major shifts in New England theology, from traditional Calvinism to Arminianism and, ultimately, to universalism and Unitarianism. They have also portrayed Mayhew as an influential preacher, whose works helped shape American revolutionary ideology, and Chauncy as an active leader of the patriot cause. Through a deeply contextualized re-examination of the two ministers as "men of their times," John S. Oakes offers a fresh, comparative interpretation of how their religious and political views changed and interacted over decades. The result is a thoroughly revised reading of Chauncy's and Mayhew's most innovative ideas. Conservative Revolutionaries also unearths strongly traditionalist elements in their belief systems, centering on their shared commitment to a dissenting worldview based on the ideals of their Protestant New England and British heritage. Oakes concludes with a provocative exploration of how the shifting theological and political positions of these two "conservative revolutionaries" may have helped redefine prevailing notions of human identity, capability, and destiny.

Old Brick
Old Brick

Author: Edward M. Griffin

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 1980-06-02

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0816657777

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Old Brick was first published in 1980. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Charles Chauncy was a powerful and influential figure in his own time, but in historical accounts he has always been overshadowed by his contemporaries Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards. When he is remembered today, it is usually as Edwards's chief antagonist during the Great Awakening of the 1740s. Yet Chauncy's fellow New Englanders knew that there was more to the man than that. In the course of his 60-year tenure as a pastor of Boston's First Church (the "Old Brick"), Chauncy involved himself in most of the important intellectual, religious, and political issues of the century. Not only did he aggressively oppose the emotional revivalism of the Great Awakening, but he was also a bold pamphleteer and preacher in support of the American Revolution. In theology Chauncy became, as an old man, the leading advocate probably having scandalized his own forebears, but he insisted that he was true to his Protestant tradition and never abandoned his reliance on Scripture and Puritan discipline in favor of rationalist secularism. Old Brick,the first full-scale biography of Charles Chauncy, attempts to recover not only Chauncy the spokesman for the ideas of a great many colonial Americans, but also the complex man who struggled with himself and with the events of his time to arrive at those positions. The portrait of Chauncy that emerges is fuller, more comprehensive, and more balanced than the stereotypes and partial portraits that have thus far represented him in history. This biography now makes it possible to consider Chauncy a figure worthy of study in his own right and to take a fresh look at eighteenth-century New England in light of the tradition Chauncy represents.