This past weekend a couple of folks called my attention to tweets from Joash Thomas. According to his Twitter bio, he is the National Director of Mobilization & Advocacy for the International Justice Mission (IJM) of Canada. I have great...
Jonathan Edwards
The First Great Awakening and a New England cold spell
Two years before Jonathan Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” he suffered through what historian Philip Jenkins calls a “horrific period of extreme weather and glacial cold.” Here is Jenkins at History News Network: Scholars of...
Marilynne Robinson and the history of American Christianity
Casey Cep of The New Yorker has written the best piece on Marilynne Robinson I have ever read. As some of you know, Robinson has a new book out in her “Gilead” series. It is titled Jack. In these excerpts,...
John Wesley and the Life of the Mind
“I am an evangelical Christian, so it was nice to hear a lecture about evangelicalism that was not related to contemporary politics.” This was our intern Annie Thorn‘s response to Bruce Hindmarsh’s lecture “John Wesley, Early Evangelicalism, and Science.” Hindmarsh,...
The Kingdom of God in American History
Ralph Keen is writing for us this week from the annual meeting of the American Society of Church History in New York City. Keen is Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation Chair of Catholic Studies and Professor of History at the University...
American Slavery and American Freedom at Princeton University
As some of you know, I was at Princeton University last week for the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History summer seminar on colonial America. Each year the teachers take a tour of colonial-era Princeton. One of our stops is the Maclean...
The Author’s Corner with Adriaan Neele
Adriaan Neele is the Director of the Doctoral Program and Professor of Historical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology (Oxford University Press, 2019). JF: What inspired...
Day 3 of the 2018 Princeton Seminar
Day 3 is in the books! (For posts on Day 1 and 2 click here). We covered a lot of content today. I spent the morning lecturing on the seventeenth-century Chesapeake. After lunch, we started on the Puritans and Massachusetts...
The Author’s Corner with Jeffrey McDonald
Jeffrey McDonald is an Affiliate Professor of Church History at Sioux Falls Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism in Modern America (Pickwick Publications, 2017). JF: What led you to write John...
The Jonathan Edwards Center Adds to its Collection
In case you have not heard, Andover Newton Theological School (Newton, Massachusetts) is now affiliated with Yale Divinity School. According to this piece in the New Haven Register, the merger will bring additional Jonathan Edwards material to the the Jonathan Edwards Center...
Princeton Seminar 2017: Day 3
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History “Colonial Era” teachers seminar (aka the “Princeton Seminar“) is rolling along. This morning in the lecture hall we finished our discussion of colonial Virginia. I made the connection between mercantilism and tobacco culture...
Phillis Wheatley: “On Virtue”
Michael Monescalchi is a graduate student in English at Rutgers University. Over at Common-place he reflects on Phillis Wheatley‘s poem “On Virtue” and her engagement with the theology of Jonathan Edwards. Monescalchi writes: “Wheatley’s saying that her soul touched by Virtue can...
Ken Minkema of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale
The Junto is featuring Katy Lasdow‘s interview with Ken Minkema, the heart and soul of The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. Here is a taste: JUNTO: Tell us about the work that you do. How does it relate—or not relate—to the research...
National Endowment for the Humanities Funds the Online Works of Jonathan Edwards
Donald Trump’s current budget proposal will eliminate government funding for the humanities. This means that local communities and American citizens will need to come up with other ways to fund programs like this: The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University...
The Author's Corner with Jonathan Yeager
Jonathan Yeager is UC Foundation Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. This interview is based on his recent book Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016). JF: What led you to write Jonathan...
Jonathan Edwards on the Marks of the Christian Convert
Last week James Dobson claimed that Donald Trump had recently had an evangelical or “born-again” conversion experience.” Since Dobson is a well-known leader within evangelicalism there are many Christians who believe his claim. Others are skeptical. I have no idea if...
Spotted in Oxford: Douglas Sweeney, *Edwards the Exegete*
One of the most popular features of The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog is our Author’s Corner series in which we interview authors of new books. Over the course of the next several days I will be posting pics of...
The Author’s Corner with Douglas Sweeney
Douglas Sweeney is Chair of the Church History & History of Christian Thought Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. This interview is based on his new book, Edwards the Exegete: Biblical Interpretation and Anglo-Protestant Culture on the...
Princeton Seminar: Day One
In the Nassau Presbyterian Church Cemetery Day One of the Gilder-Lehrman Summer Seminar on the “13 Colonies” at Princeton University is in the books. Actually, we began on Sunday night with a great buffet dinner. After the feast we wandered around...
Why Can’t I Teach Courses Like This?
I am very jealous (seriously, I am) of Richard Bailey, Associate Professor of History at Canisius College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Buffalo. As I toil away teaching traditional courses like “Pennsylvania History,” “United States History to 1865,” and...