Essay on “Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God” delivered by Jonathan Edwards.

Western

The main goal of this assignment is to observe the most famous sermon “Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God” delivered by Jonathan Edwards. And we are going to demonstrate one of the ways how the sermon fit into classic Calvinist ideas and impacted on people’s consciousness.

To begin, we need to state that Jonathan Edwards was a very famous person in Christian circles of his times. He was a Congregationalist preacher during the time of the “Great Awakening” (the period when people realized their deeds and decided to change something in their lives), and his sermon “Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God” made a big contribution to the movement of the Great Awakening.

Edwards’ sermon seemed dark and frightening for the most its listeners, but the preacher’s aim was to demonstrate the ways how people are connected to God, and how almighty God can punish sinners for their sinful thoughts and acts. Imagining Edwards’ voice during delivering the sermon, we can suppose that it was rather scaring because Edwards strongly believed in his words and tried to force people to think about their lives in other more constructive perspective. Moreover, Edwards, being a true exponent of practical Calvinism, used vivid images popular in Calvinist theology for the purpose to be more convincing in his descriptions of God’s will, and he also modernized Calvinist ideas and departed somewhat from the Calvinist idea of strict holy predestination. According to the Calvinist theology, predestination is God’s will and it depends only on God, while Edwards stated in his sermon that people have a chance to change something in their life, to open their hearts to sinless life, and to awake from their dark past where they were guided by sinful thoughts.

To sum up, we have observed the most famous sermon “Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God” delivered by Jonathan Edwards, demonstrated one of the ways how this sermon fit into classic Calvinist ideas, and proved that the sermon greatly impacted on people’s minds.



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