Edwards and the Edwardseans
Edwards and the Edwardseans

Author: David W. Kling

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2024-09-24

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13:

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Edwards and the Edwardseans gathers into a single volume eight of the author’s previously published articles and chapters. Suitable as either a basic or supplementary text for interested lay people and graduate students, this book serves as an introduction to the central spiritual and theological interests of Jonathan Edwards and to the long shadow those interests cast on his eponymous followers. The first four chapters (Part One) focus on Jonathan Edwards—his formative role in the Great Awakening, his biblical understanding of conversion, his perspective on petitionary prayer, and his influence on missionary endeavors. The following four chapters (Part Two) trace a well-defined theological movement from Edwards to his second- and especially third-generation followers. The impact of this movement resulted in the creation of a distinct theological culture that, over two generations, was institutionalized in informal seminaries or “schools of the prophets” in colleges attended by New Divinity students and staffed by New Divinity presidents and in missionary outreach both at home and abroad. Taken together, these chapters introduce theological subjects that mattered most to Edwards and his disciples: spiritual revival, conversion, the Bible, prayer, and extending the kingdom of God.

Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave
Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave

Author: Hank Trent

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0807151033

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The American Anti-Slavery Society originally published Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave in 1838 to much fanfare, describing it as a rare slave autobiography. Soon thereafter, however, southerners challenged the authenticity of the work and the society retracted it. Abolitionists at the time were unable to defend the book; and, until now, historians could not verify Williams's identity or find the Alabama slave owners he named in the book. As a result, most scholars characterized the author as a fraud, perhaps never even a slave, or at least not under the circumstances described in the book. In this annotated edition of Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave, Hank Trent provides newly discovered biographical information about the true author of the book -- an African American man enslaved in Alabama and Virginia. Trent identifies Williams's owners in those states as well as in Maryland and Louisiana. He explains how Williams escaped from slavery and then altered his life story to throw investigators off his track. Through meticulous and extensive research, Trent also reveals unknown details of James Williams's real life, drawing upon runaway ads, court cases, census records, and estate inventories never before linked to him or to the narrative. In the end, Trent proves that the author of the book was truly an enslaved man, albeit one who wrote a romanticized, fictionalized story based on his real life, which proved even more complex and remarkable than the story he told.