FromSinners at the Hands

of an Angry GodJonathan Edwards

Instructions• Pre reading Activities. -- View this PowerPoint –

the section offering Historical context and The Great Awakening.

• Take Cornell style notes on these and …• Read Page 100 “Meet Jonathon Edwards” and

“The Time and Place”• Individually or as group read the Text. Starting on

page 101 – Take notes, read carefully this can be challenging material. Reread.

Historical ContextSinner’s at the Hands of an

Angry God is a Sermon written and delivered to his congregation in Enfield Massachusetts in July 1741 by Calvinist minister Jonathon Edwards.

Historical ContextAs was customary in 18th-

century New England, the sermon was printed and copies were distributed to a wide audience. It has proven to be an enduring expression of the revivalist Calvinist theology and preaching that was espoused by many prominent figures in The Great Awakening.

The Great AwakeningWhat historians call "the

Great Awakening" can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730’s and the 1770’s.

The Great AwakeningThat revival was part of a

much broader evangelical movement taking place simultaneously in Europe, most notably in England, Scotland, and Germany. A new Age of Faith rose to counter the currents of The Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

The Great AwakeningThe intellectual movement of

which advocated reason and science as the primary basis of authority. This revolution of knowledge was inspired by the likes of Galileo and Newton, in a climate of increasing disaffection with repressive rule.

The Great AwakeningIn colonial America, the

frontier in spread out into the wilderness, making both communication and church discipline difficult. Because people often lived great distances from a parish church, membership and participation suffered.

The Great AwakeningOn the frontier concern for

theological issues faded before the concern for survival and wrestling a living from a hard and difficult land.

The Great AwakeningBecause the individual was largely

on his own, and depended on himself for survival, authoritarian structures of any sort met with great resistance. As a result, by the second and third generations, the vast majority of the population was outside the member-ship of the church.

The Great AwakeningWith the publication of Isaac Newton's

Principia Mathematica in the 17th century, traditional Christianity was challenged. Implicit in the work of Newton and others was the assumption that human beings had the ability to discover the secrets of the universe and could thereby exert some control over their own destiny.

The Great AwakeningIf men could discover and

read the blueprints whereby God had made and ordered the world-- (creation). What would be the result?

The Great AwakeningThe consequence was a lessening of the

gulf between God and man. This tended to undercut traditional Calvinism which held that the gap between the Deity and his creatures was quite large. This affirmation of human ability and reason had an extremely corrosive effect on the reigning orthodoxy which held that one's destiny was solely in God's hands.

The Great AwakeningWith a growing emphasis on man

and his morality, religion becoming more rational and less emotional. The Great Awakening was a church driven backlash, and a drive to regain God through the church. One of the leaders of this movement was Jonathon Edwards.

The Great AwakeningEdwards sermon Sinners in the

Hands of an Angry God used the image of a spider dangling by a web over a hot fire to describe the human predicament. His point was that at any moment, our hold on life could break and we'd be plunged into fires of eternal damnation.

T a s k s a n d A c t i v i t i e s Instructions:

1. You may work with one other student. (2. Use a full sheet of paper. Properly title the

paper. Neatly print each students name who is to earn credit for the assignment. Indicate the period and date.

3. Work must legible and written in black or blue ink.

4. Write the complete question or task statement. Then answer fully, with complete sentences and proper grammar and punctuation.

5. Vocabulary will be tested individually6. This assignment is due at the end of the period.

Stay on take and get the work done.

Figurative Language•Symbol: Allusion:

• Edwards warns his congregation, “Let everyone fly out of Sodom!”

• What is Sodom? Explain the allusion.• How is Edwards using the term Sodom

symbolically?•

Definitions for Symbol and Allusion may be found in the text starting on page R1.

Persuasion• Specifically, what does Edwards want people hearing or reading these words to think?•How does he want them to behave?

Persuasion• This sermon was considered quite

persuasive, (even today it is considered persuasive).• What arguments are used in the

sermon to convince people what they should do and think and behave? Give specific examples.

Repetition•Edwards repeats the word “you” several times. What effect does this have on the reader, listener?

Repetition•Edwards repeats the word “nothing” several times. What effect does this have on the reader, listener?

Visualize• Picture the congregation in Enfield

Massachusetts that hot July day of 1741 listening to Edwards on the pulpit.

• How might those people have reacted?

• What might their outward behavior tell how they are reacting inwardly?

• How did they respond to the call for repentance?

VOCABULARY1. Take note of the vocabulary words

(Copy them).2. Look up the vocabulary words

definitions in a dictionary. Some have meanings of which you are probably unaware.

VOCABULARYFainMediatorWrathAppeaseAbateIncensedPrudenceAbhor

AbominableBrimstoneCongregationContrivanceVenomousSingeInduceLamentable

HeretoforeSalvationFlockingPiningVexationSodomHaste

The End