The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

The staff of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University will present a week-long summer course examining the life, thought, and legacies of Jonathan Edwards,  one of the great theologians in the Christian tradition and one of the most significant figures in American religious history.

The classroom portion of the course will feature lectures and discussions of common readings. There will be ample time allowed for questions and dialogue. Common readings will include selections from printed collections of Edwards’s writings and secondary sources. Also, the course will be integrated with the use of materials located in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online.

Special features of the course will be a viewing of Edwards’s manuscripts at Yale’s Beinecke Library, and a day-long tour of sites in the Connecticut River Valley relating to Edwards and the Great Awakening. These sites include East Windsor (Edwards’s birthplace) and Enfield, Connecticut (where he preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), and Northampton  and Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the towns where he ministered for most of his career.

Readings
John Smith et al., eds., A Jonathan Edwards Reader
Douglas Sweeney and Allen Guelzo, eds., The New England Theology: From Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park

Participants can also utilize the Jonathan Edwards Center’s free website, edwards.yale.edu.

Schedule

Monday, 9-11:30
The Post-Reformation Era, Puritanism, and the Young Edwards
JE Reader, “Spider Letter,” “Of Being,” “Beauty of the World,” “The Mind,” “Diary,” “Resolutions,” “Apostrophe to Sarah Pierpont”
Online: A Biographical Sketch.

Tuesday, 9-11:30
Edwards the Theologian
JE Reader, “A History of the Work of Redemption,” “Freedom of the Will,” “Original Sin,” “Nature of True Virtue”
Online: Edwards as Theologian.

Wednesday, 9-11:30 a.m
The Great Awakening
JE Reader, “Faithful Narrative,” “Religious Affections,” “Personal Narrative”
Online: JEC Exhibit, “Billy Graham Preaches ‘Sinners."

1:30-3:00 p.m.
Edwards’s Manuscripts at Beinecke Library

Thursday, 9-11:30
Edwards’s American and Global Legacies
Douglas Sweeney and Allen Guelzo, eds., The New England Theology: From Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park (divide readings among class)
Online: Edwards’s Legacies.

Friday, 8-4
A Tour of Edwards and Great Awakening Sites.

For inquiries: please contact edwards@yale.edu

For registration: see Summer Course Information