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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2010 at 12:11pm

So cool!

My father's ABD in American religious history, with that dissertation supposed to be about American Puritans; I could tell you hundreds of stories about my childhood and thinking and talking about Edwards. Some favorites:

I used to read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God when I was feeling down. It was a total pick-me-up. All that fire and brimstone, literally, of course, but then, there's the end. All you need to do is have Faith, and God will embrace you in His love. And I'd pause and consider how I still had Faith in Jesus Christ, and I'd feel much better.

I read about the first 100 pages of Marsden's biography of Edwards several months ago (borrowed Dad's copy, of course). It was interesting to review the theological debates that consumed my interest in childhood, but that I'd forgotten about as my theological education broadened. But more interesting was what Marsden writes about bundling and marriage and birth records of early 18th Century Massachusetts. Lots of people think we're in some sort of crisis, still reeling from the 1960s. Nah. Human nature, and the fallen nature of even church-going believers, hasn't changed.