head on over to the blog for the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University where you might see a familiar name. as the title of this post suggests, it’s a grand honor to have been given the privilege of being able to contribute to that blog, and i greatly look forward to working with the folks over there.

so after reading the book i naturally looked around for some commentary, and i was particularly interested in what religious commentators had to say. i found an article in a prominent publication that i believe is wildly off the mark.

the article comes from Christianity Today and is entitled “What Would Jonathan Edwards Say About Harry Potter?” (thus mixing two of my prime interests!). in this article the author, Josh Moody, begins by stating:

So there we have it. The most engrossing imaginative world created at the start of the 21st century is essentially pagan.

that is the thesis of his article, and i do not think he could be more wrong. i would argue that it is not essentially pagan, but is essentially, i stress the word essentially, Christian. do i think the Harry Potter story is a Christian allegory? no, i don’t. do i think the Harry Potter story deals with many issues pertaining to religion including death, love, the natural state of man, and redemption? you betcha.

Moody goes on in his article to show how Jonathan Edwards interacted with popular (and by that i mean main stream, pop-culture type things) trends of the day, most notably the rise of Enlightenment thinking. he states, and i agree, that Edwards would not have ignored the Harry Potter phenomenon, but would have searched its pages for insight in to why these books affect people the way they do and what that says about the contemporary cultural climate.

Moody then goes on, however, to misrepresent what he sees as the central theme of the series. he says:

The latest and last of Rowling’s Potter series…is all about death. In case the title didn’t make that clear (”the Deathly Hallows”), the frontispiece has two quotations referring to death. There is a sense in which the whole seven-volume series has been about death.

Even Dumbledore (beware: spoiler) seems to have tinkered with the less-than-salutary sides of this fascination. Also, there’s Voldemort, with his evil determination to avoid death at the cost of others’ lives, and Harry, dear Harry, who with his purity and bravery manages to cheat death again and again, even finding himself at one point in a sort of cosmic waiting room with the dead Dumbledore.

now on one level i suppose you could say that the overall story is about death. but i think that would be selling it short. i think it would be much more accurate to say that the overall story is about how to deal with something that we will all one day face, and that, of course, is death. we will all one day die. we will all lose friends and family to that last enemy. the question is more about our response to when that happens and our taking it upon ourselves now to learn how to deal with death for the times when we are staring death straight in the face. i think that’s part of the brilliance of the story. what J.K. Rowling has managed to do is to show children an honorable way, in the characters of Harry and those around him, of dealing with death. too many children’s tales fail to deal seriously and honestly with the subject, too many parents believe it to be too weighty of a subject, and so our children grow up not knowing how to cope when someone is lost. that is a great tragedy.

but Moody’s misreading goes deeper than that. he describes Harry, pure and brave (Harry is certainly the latter, but i would not argue that he is the former), as having managed “to cheat death again and again.” now, that may be true on some level and in some instances, but it makes me wonder if he truly read the entire series as he has claimed to have done. more often than not Harry’s “cheating” of death is due to the brave and gallant friends that he has surrounded himself with, or it is due to the effects of the profound sacrifice of love that his mother made for him when he was an infant.

but though he may have “cheated” death in the first six books, by the end of the seventh Harry was mature enough and brave enough to look death in the face and say, “O Death, where is thy sting?” now i said in my previous post that i didn’t think the scene in which Harry sacrificed himself was that powerful, and i still don’t on a surface reading level, but the more i’ve thought about it the more i’ve discovered the true profundity and beauty of the imagery that Rowling packed in. but more on that in a second.

Moody goes on to say:

What does this tell us, Edwards would have wondered. He would have discovered that we live in an age that is fascinated by the transcendent—and the paranormal—but that, while intrigued, is totally confused about that realm.

Edwards would have seen that the essential question of spirituality—What happens when I die?—is a great vacuum that culture is looking to fill. The series also tells us—and this no less important—that if Rowling’s world is expertly reflecting the light our world can shed on these matters, true understanding is at a pretty low level.

part of the beauty of books is that different readers can get different ideas out of reading the same words. however, i’m not sure where Moody gets that the underlying question of the series is “what happens when i die,” especially when that question is based around the “cosmic waiting room” scene that Moody referenced.

Harry, in a sense, knew what was going to happen when he died. he was going to be able to join those he had lost, those who had sacrificed themselves, by and large, to save and protect him. and he was ok with that. if there was one thing that Harry had finally understood it was that there are far worse things and far worse fates than death.

the “essential question of spirituality” that i believe Rowling addressed in the series is “what is the greatest virtue that exists in the world?” and, as we are continually reminded throughout the seven volumes, that virtue is love. it is shown in the sacrifice Harry’s mother made to protect him. it is shown through the many relationships, flawed as they are, that Harry clung to as he grew up and began to understand love. it is shown through the great sense of guilt and remorse that Dumbledore had in the loss of his sister. it is shown through the incredible lengths that Snape would go to out of love for the girl he never won.

above all that, however, it is shown in Harry, at the height of the ultimate battle between good and evil, accepting his fate, taking that fate head on, and walking to his death under the belief that his sacrifice would save many. deeper than that, however, Harry contained a piece of his enemy within him. thus it was not really Harry who died at the end of the Avada Kedavra curse, but evil. to make it abundantly clear, you could say that Harry carried the ultimate expression of sin and death with him to his death, and he then rose again to fight and win the final victory.

i believe that is what Edwards would have seen. and i believe that he would be satisfied that no more compelling of a story is needed in order to shed “true gospel light on the transcendent.”

so every month christianaudio.com has a special where they offer an audiobook for free. this month they are offering The Best of Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons, read by David Cochran Heath. this audiobook contains three of Edwards’ classic sermons, including “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” and the farewell sermon he preached to his Northampton congregation in 1750.

to get the free download (the normal price is $14.98), click the link above and add the item to your cart. in the checkout process there will be a place to add a coupon code, and after entering JUN2007 this audiobook will be yours to download for free. enjoy!

(HT: Justin Taylor)

How unsuitable it is for us, who live only by kindness, to be unkind!

have you ever had a moment when you’ve been reading when you’re so struck by a sentence or paragraph that you just can’t read anymore and feel driven to put your book down and meditate on that sentence or paragraph? that happened to me tonight as i read these words from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Much in Deeds of Charity.”

this sentence struck me because it’s so true. how ridiculous it is for us who live only by the sheer kindness of our Creator, who sustains us day after day, to be unkind or uncharitable to those who are just as much the image of God, and just as much sustained by Him, as we are. i think this sentence struck me so much because of the time of year it is. at a time when we should all be the most joyful, preparing to celebrate the birth of our Savior and the great hope that came into the world because of that birth, there’s probably no other time of year in which people are more unkind, more uncharitable, more everything bad. just watching the news or going to any kind of store is enough to support the claim. people fighting over parking spots, people being incredibly impatient with understaffed retail stores, people being beaten up or even killed over a popular toy — it’s madness.

so perhaps there is no better time of year to pay attention to these words of Edwards’, and no better time of year to put a little more effort in to loving our neighbors as ourselves.

two big pieces of news today from the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. first, if you’ve seen the September cover of Christianity Today magazine, you may have chuckled (as i did) at the t-shirt displayed. well the fine folks at the JEC have made the possibility of owning such a shirt a reality. they are now available for $17.00 a piece and all proceeds go towards supporting the work of the JEC.

so what is this work that the JEC does? well i’m glad you asked. the second piece of exciting news from them is that access to the online archive project that they have been developing is now available for a free trial. included in this archive is about 25,000 transcribed pages of Edwards’ writings, a good many of which have been previously unpublished and therefore will give us a fuller understanding of Edwards’ mind. so go check it out while you can! at some point, access to the Edwards archive will be by subscription only.

so recently i had a pretty groundbreaking life experience. i’ll start with the background.

starting at the end of last year (2005), i was accepted as an alpha tester of the new Jonathan Edwards Online Archive, put together by the Jonathan Edwards Center (JEC) at the Yale Divinity School. if you scroll down a little bit, you will see a post that announces my winning the alpha phase contest that they put on. because of my participation with the archive, i have had the great pleasure of getting to know the assistant director of the JEC over email. this summer my wife and i were going to be in Philadelphia for a week to attend a conference put on by the ministry that i hope to work with after i graduate seminary. since we were going to be up north, and so close (relatively) to New Haven, we decided to make the short trip up to there to check out the center and to visit the beautiful campus of Yale.

we arrived in New Haven the evening of thursday, august 10 and checked into our hotel that we were staying in for free thanks to airline miles (score!). we did a little strolling around the area, ate at an excellent local hotspot, The Educated Burgher (clever, those Yale folks), and then turned in, not knowing what lay ahead the next day.

friday morning we got up and got ready, and then headed off to find the Yale Divinity School and the JEC. we got there around 10:45, parked, got our visitor’s pass, and were politely told that we had til 1:04 to move our car. sarah and i were both pretty amused, and slightly confused, at that. but i guess the Yale folk like to be precise! we then found our way to the JEC and met my friend there. he showed us the ins and outs of the offices and what they do and are doing, which was really great. it was a lot simpler than i thought it would be, yet more thorough than i had expected as well. after this, he asked us what i wanted to do. which, admittedly, i took the wrong way, so i proceeded to tell him, broadly, my career plans. i was quickly (and very graciously) made aware of my gaffe, and that he had meant what did we want to do with our time at Yale. slightly embarassed, i replied something to the effect of “we’d love to do whatever we can and see whatever we can see!”

so then he said, “ok, how bout you walk around for a bit, then come back, we can go to lunch, i’ll show you around Yale for a bit, and then you can go to the Beinecke and see some manuscripts.”

to which the voice in my head replied, “whoa…WHOA…WHAT?!?!” i definitely did not expect that last bit. outwardly, though, the response was more like, “[stutter]…[stutter]…ok!”

so we walked around a little bit, had lunch on the JEC (score again!) at another wonderful local place, and my friend gave us the low-down on the process of seeing manuscripts at the Beinecke, which was very involved. after lunch, we dropped our friends back off at the JEC and then headed, very nervously, to the Beinecke. the library was a very impressive, modern-looking building, which seemed kind of out of place in the midst of the surrounding old, stone buildings of Yale. we entered the library, and met a very nice security guard who also took the time to explain the process to us since we told him it was our first time there. we then headed down to the basement where the rare books and manuscripts department was. then the process began. first, all bags had to be checked. we were told that we could take nothing but a laptop into the viewing room. we were then instructed to hand over two forms of identification, and fill out several forms that requested all kinds of personal information. it was quite a tedious ordeal, but then i realized that if i even had one of the things in my house that i was about to see, i would probably require the same kind of process for anyone entering said house. so it’s a good thing i don’t have anything like that in my house because i would have no friends. or at least no visitors.

after having the whole process explained to us a third time, i was very ready to just see some stinkin’ manuscripts! making our way over to the computers, my mind was racing to think of what i wanted to see. seriously, i could have spent the rest of the day, or the rest of the weekend, in that library. but my wife might have left me there with no way to get home if i had done that. after browsing what is available to be viewed, i decided on three pieces. first, the obvious choice, the sermon manuscript for “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” second, the sermon manuscript for “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” my favorite sermon of Edwards’. last, and most exciting, the Blank Bible. after alerting the clerk of our selections, we were then led into a glass room where there were many notifications that, once in the room, we would be watched carefully by video and audio surveillance.

first brought out to us was the Blank Bible (i won’t take the time and space to give the history of the Blank Bible, but if you are interested, then definitely click the link above and watch the YouTube video on the work. it’s well worth it!). it was brought out on two foam wedges that we were to fashion together as a stand for the book, so that we didn’t break the binding. we were also given a sock-enclosed chain which we were to use to keep the pages from blowing about, instead of using our oily fingers. the whole thing was very surreal. the book was everything i had hoped it would be and truly is one of the most unique things i have ever seen in my life, both in its composition and its content. well…what we could read of it anyways! i have always read how difficult Edwards’ hand is to read, and i don’t think it can really be understood until it is right in front of you. i’m very thankful for the Works of Jonathan Edwards project at the JEC and Yale that’s doing all the hard transcribing work so that future Edwards’ scholars will not have to put a lot of time at just translating such a difficult hand, leaving more time to focus on scholarship.

after spending about half an hour (so sad that it was so short!) with the Blank Bible, we were brought the next piece, Edwards’ “A Divine and Supernatural Light.” at this time we were also informed that “Sinners” was currently in use by someone else and that we would not be able to see it. bummer. while it wasn’t quite as fascinating as the Blank Bible (not much COULD be as fascinating as that book), seeing this particular sermon manuscript was particularly special for me. the manuscript was actually a small book of about 15 4″x4″ pieces of paper that were sewn together with simple string. the hand, again, is quite difficult to read and there are many strike-throughs, but the bulk of the sermon is pretty easily discerned, especially if the reader has some familiarity with the content. personally, this sermon was pretty much the piece that made me “fall in love,” so to speak, with Edwards. the language is so beautiful and vibrant, and the sermon is so far from the stereotype that Edwards has been given by American high school teachers and college professors. before reading this sermon for the first time, all i knew of Edwards was “Sinners” and what my teachers had told me, that he was nothing but a “hell, fire, and brimstone” teacher that knew nothing of grace. nothing could be farther than the truth, and “A Divine and Supernatural Light” is but a small testament to that, as so much of Edwards’ corpus speaks of the beauty, loveliness, sweetness, excellency, grace, etc. of the Triune God and the Christian religion.

although extremely short, our time at the Beinecke, for me anyways, was the highlight of the trip. on the drive up to New Haven i had jokingly mentioned to sarah that i hoped we would get to see some manuscripts, but i never would have thought that that would have turned into a reality. and i want to publicly thank everyone at the JEC again for their warmth and encouragement, and especially all the hard work they’re doing to enhance and encourage the advancement of Edwards’ studies. i can’t wait to go back and visit!

(and see more manuscripts!)

if you make your way over to the blog of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, be sure to pay attention to the entry aptly titled “Competition Results.” i had the wonderful opportunity of participating in the alpha phase of testing the new Jonathan Edwards Archive that will be fully launched later this year. the folks at the JEC in New Haven have been tirelessly working to digitially publish over 60,000 pages of Edwards’ writing, seeking to become the place for Edwards’ scholars to do research.

so i’d like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to help them out with the testing of their new site and especially for sending me prizes!

continuing this string of Jonathan Edwards related posts, i came across this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which involves Jonathan Edwards’ sixth-great-granddaughter who is a pastor in the PCUSA.

apparently she believes that she is following her forefather’s example in performing same-sex marriage ceremonies. in the article, she is described as “liken[ing] performing the ceremony to her famously orthodox ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, preaching to the Mohicans in the 18th century, when racism made Native Americans the object of scorn and fear.”

so if i understand this correctly, preaching to the Mohicans is the same as, or in the same line as, marrying same-sex couples. carrying out the Great Commission is the same as enabling and condoning sin and sinful lifestyles. brilliant.

an Edwards scholar, Amy Plantiga Pauw, is also quoted in the article as affirming Janet Edwards’ correlation in saying, “There is a kind of parallel — Jonathan Edwards was not afraid to challenge so-called respectable Christians of his time.”

but again, Edwards never went so far as to promote sinful lifestyles or to encourage sin. there is an ocean’s depth of difference between preaching to an unreached group of people and enabling people to further engage in the sin that they are in. of course we are all sinful creatures and we all have pet sins. but for clergy to be aiding in and encouraging that sin that is strictly forbidden by the Bible is inexcusable. even worse is when this is done by saying that some historical figure (who has long passed and is unable to answer such lewd allegations) would have done the same thing, which could not be farther from the truth.

Jonathan Edwards was known as a staunch defender of the Bible. if he would not tolerate the teenagers of Northampton ogling and passing around a guide to midwifery (Puritan porn!), it is ridiculous to even imply that he would champion the agendas such as this one if he were around today. contrary to what these folks might thing, Edwards was hardly an “activist.” at least in the modern sense of that word. Edwards was a student of the Bible. he spent 13 hours a day in his study reading, writing, and meditating on the Scriptures (as well as meeting with congregants and others). his passion for the Bible and the doctrines contained therein are what he is remembered and cherished for, and to consider him an ally in any arena that is not geared towards a promotion of the Scriptures and the Gospel of Christ, especially in arenas that are fundamentally opposed to such biblical promotion, is to do great disservice to his name, his life’s work, and the God whom he served and now resides with in glory.

Janet Edwards says, “I do not feel I have done anything wrong. On the contrary, I felt I was holding up the vows of my ordination.” this may very well be the case (i don’t know what the PCUSA requires in the form of ordination vows), but she should realize that she is under a higher authority than her ordination vows. perhaps a warning from the man in whose footsteps she is claiming to follow is appropriate here:

There is a time coming when ministers of the Gospel must return to Him that sent them to give Him an account of their ministry. As they have been sent forth from Him so they must return again to Him. As they have their commission and instructions from Him so they must render an account to Him (Hebrews 13: 17). They that Christ appoints as stewards in His house must give an account of their stewardship. They must give an account to their great Master how they have done the work that He has appointed, what pains they have taken, what diligence they have used, the manner they have handled the word of God, what care they have taken of the souls of those that are of the flock that He has ever given them the charge of. And those that have been faithful and successful when they have finished their embassy will return to their Lord to give an account of what success they have had, as the servants that recieved the 5 talents and the 2 talents declare to their Lord how much they had gained - as in the 25th chapter of Matthew.

[...]

How dreadful will our case be when we when we come to give an account to our Lord if we have been unfaithful…when we shall see those precious souls that were committed to our care lost through our neglect and standing at the left hand of the Judge in horrid amazement. And they shall rise up in judgment against us and shall declare how we neglected their souls…Instead of meeting our Lord with joy, with what dreadful horrours shall we behold His Son in which be no token of rejoicing at the relations we have to give Him, but tokens of wrath and fearful indignation ready to frown us into distinguished torment and misery…As faithful ministers shall be distinguished in Glory so perhaps none will be so distinguished in misery as unfaithful ministers.

(this quote was taken from an unpublished, unedited sermon manuscript which is why the language seems choppy; i cleaned it up as much as i could while still retaining the original words and meaning)

Dr. John H. Gerstner (1914-1996) was one of the most renowned Jonathan Edwards scholars. i have had the immense privelege of taking a course on the theology of Edwards, which Dr. Gerstner thankfully completed before he died. the course has been a tremendous blessing for me, especially given that i have a personal goal to complete doctoral work in Edwards studies at some point in my life. apart from this legacy, the good doctor was also renowned for giving a set of the two volume Banner of Truth edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards to anyone who made a vow under God to complete the reading of both volumes within a year of receiving them. to my great amazement and joy, this is apparently still being carried on even though he has long since gone to be with the Lord. i received my set on thursday, and thus bind myself to the vow.

Resolved, having received the gift from the late Dr. Gerstner and thereby making a vow under God accordingly, to finish the reading of both volumes within the time period of a year, thus being February 24, 2007.

may God grant me patience and endurance in completing this task.