Jonathan Edwards’ Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards is one of a handful of dynamic preachers and evangelists who can be credited as catalysts for what is now called a historic Great Awakening in American Christianity. The emotional delivery of Edwards’ sermons cut to the quick and resulted in serious conviction and immediate decision on the part of his listeners. Edwards was an ultra-conservative theologian, a staunch Calvinist (his followers refer to themselves as “New Light Calvinist”), and a devotee of Puritanism. Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” delivered in Enfield, CT in 1741, is not only a celebrated homiletic masterpiece, but also a treasure of American Literature. It also marks the beginning of New England’s Great Awakening. The sermon is a good example of what in later American Christianity became known as “fire and brimstone” preaching. This sort of preaching became very common in large zones of Evangelicalism and has had a profound influence upon American religion as a result.