Episode 96 - Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, first preached his sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1741.  This was the catalyst for the first Great Awakening, that time in American history when hordes of individuals flocked back to the faith, sobered up by what lawless living might lead to – in a word, damnation.  Before this sermon, the faithful were anything but.  Wilderness living, which is to say, doing what one can to hack it out in the forest, raise a family, and survive, had caused many to compromise their principles.  One could afford to live by the Christian code in the comfort of a city – observe the sabbath, tithe regularly, be a brother’s keeper – but on the frontier – and that was most of America – one had a different set of values.  The testing in the wilderness made America what it is – rugged and raw – but, according to Jonathan Edwards, at least, the experience also turned America away from what it was: a city upon a hill, a beacon of hope, an exceptional place, indeed.  The Great Awakening, then, was a massive altar call but one that did not mince words.  Edwards writes, for example, that “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”  A person cannot save him or herself, in other words.  A person’s life is that precarious.  On a whim and without notice, the Creator of the entire universe can send a wicked person to the eternal fire, and nothing can be done about it.  No plea.  No appeal.  Edwards continues, “Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness.”  An individual, to put it another way, cannot have it both ways.  That person cannot deify or make into an idol some hobby or pastime or earthly success and expect to be granted entry into God’s Holy kingdom.  There is but one way: Christ.  Not many paths to one destination.  This is flawed thinking, flawed living.  And Edwards holds no punches about what the consequences will be.  The Great Awakening as you, dear listeners, might have already gathered was a movement that galvanized America to the extent that it was prepared to fight for its independence.  1741, in other words, was needed for 1776 to take place.  The march toward freedom began as a religious revival. I am prompted to consider the current age when the tyranny is not some monarch across the pond but a series of ideologies that seem to champion falsehood and celebrate the perverse.  These ideologies are pervasive.  We hear them in our music and see them on the TV.  They are taught in schools and shouted from podiums.  To think critically and honestly about them is heresy; to merely raise an eyebrow is to invite ridicule. I will not articulate them here, dear listeners.  Go no further than a mandatory HR training to see what I am talking about.  I simply wonder if history is about to repeat itself.  Interest in religion is ticking back up.  More and more young people are coming back to church and even embracing orthodoxy.  Some even call it a revival.  It is an exciting time.  Is this the event we need to be able to throw off the shackles of a narrative that insists that we do not believe our own ears, not trust our own eyes?  Perhaps.  But the revival will have to have teeth on it.  Hell remains real, after all, and to avoid it, we must call a lie a lie, recognizing delusions for what they are: dangerous fantasies that make the slopes more slippery than they already are.