As I continue to come across Edwards’ writings — his Faithful Narrative is part of the reader for American Heritage at Hillsdale College — I continue to be amazed at the Northampton pastor’s broad appeal, even down to the “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” T-shirts. Granted, Edwards has much to admire. The thought of a pastor on the frontier of the British colonies, cut off from books and libraries, living with the constant threat of Native American attacks, writing philosophical works that continue to attract regular and academic readers is indeed remarkable. But has the warm glow surrounding Edwards obscured other aspects that his admirers and expert interpreters have neglected? One topic that has recently generated a little attention is Edwards and slavery. Since he owned slaves, and since slaveholders are only a few steps up the chain of wickedness from child molesters for modern Americans, I can’t help but wonder why more of the evangelical fans of Edwards have not had a reaction to him similar to their regard for nineteenth-century southern Protestants.
Another oddity about the Edwards phenomenon is the way that few of his admirers seem to comment on his descriptions of converts in A Faithful Narrative. Not only do these accounts raise questions about the propriety of revealing the identities of specific church members — think confidentiality. But they also raise doubts about Edwards’ capacity to acknowledge the excess to which his own brand of revivalism ran. I am thinking in particular of the case of the four-year old convert, Phebe Bartlet. Why would anyone put any stock in the spiritual labyrinth of a child’s soul? More important, why would any pastor or mother let a child go through what Edwards describes:
She was born in March, in the year 1731. About the latter end of April, or the beginning of May 1735 she was greatly affected by the talk of her brother, who had been hopefully converted a little before, at about eleven years of age, and then seriously talked to her about the great things of religion. Her parents did not know of it at the that time, and were not wont, in the counsels they gave to their children, particularly to direct themselves to her, by reason of her being so young, and as they supposed, not capable of understanding: but after her brother had talked to her, they observed her very earnestly to listen to the advice they gave to the other children; and she was observed very constantly to retire, several times in a day, as was concluded, for secret prayer, and grew more and more engaged in religion, and was more frequent in her closet, till at last she was wont to visit it five or six times in a day; and was so engaged in it , that nothing would at any time divert her from her stated closet exercises. . . .
She once of her own accord spoke of her unsuccessfulness, in that she could not find God, or to that purpose. But on Thursday, the last day of July, about the middle of the day, the child being in the closet, where it used to retire, its mother heard it speaking aloud, which was unusual, and never had been observed before: and her voice seemed to be as of one exceedingly importunate and engaged; but her mother could distinctly hear only these words . . . “Pray, blessed Lord, give me salvation! I pray, beg, pardon, all my sins!” When the child had done prayer, she came out of the closet, and sat down by her mother, and cried out aloud. Her mother very earnestly asked her several times, what the matter was, before she could make any answer; but she continued crying exceedingly, and writhing her body to and fro, like one in anguish of spirit. Her mother then asked her, whether she was afraid that God could not give her salvation. She answered, “Yes, I am afraid I shall go to hell!” Her mother then endeavored to quiet her; and told her she would not have her cry; she must be a good girl, and prayer every day, and she hoped God would give her salvation. But this did not quiet her at all; but she continued thus earnestly crying, and taking on for some time, till at length she suddenly ceased crying, and began to smile, and presently said with a smiling countenance, “Mother, the kingdom of heaven is come to me!” Her mother was surprised at the sudden alteration, and at the speech; and knew not what to make of it, but at first said nothing to her. The child presently spoke again, and said, “There is another come to me, and there is another, there is three;” and being asked what she meant, she answered, “One is, Thy will be done, and there is another Enjoy him forever;” by which it seems, that when the child said, “there is three comes to me,” she meant three passages of her Catechism that came to her mind.
Huh (on SO MANY!!! levels)!?!
Mind you, the problem is not simply for the evangelical advocates of Edwards. The scholarly community does not appear to be troubled by these truly bizarre reports. I will be more than happy to be corrected either by the fans or scholars of Edwards.
But in the meantime, I couldn’t resist seeing what the leading guru on rearing children among conservative Presbyterians, Paul Tripp, considers the age appropriate level of moral awareness and spiritual discernment. Here’s one example:
Our children were too young to grasp the abstract, strategic, and often theological purposes underlying my instruction. Even if I explained everything in as age-appropriate a way as I could, they would still have no actual understanding. They just didn’t yet have the categories or the capacity to grasp the parental logic behind the plan or command.
So I did the same thing again and again. I would kneel down in front of them at eye level and say, “Please look at Daddy’s face. Do you know how much I love you? Do you know that your Daddy isn’t a mean, bad man? Do you know that I would never ask you to do anything that would hurt you or make you sick? I’m sorry that you can’t understand why Daddy is asking you to do this. I wish I could explain it to you, but you are too young to understand. So I’m going to ask you to do something—trust Daddy. When you walk down the hallway to do what Daddy has asked you to do, say to yourself, ‘My Daddy loves me. My Daddy would never ask me to do something bad. I’m going to trust my Daddy and stop trying to be the Daddy of my Daddy.’”
I know, I know. Eighteenth-century expectations for children were different from ours. Even so, to consider Edwards’ willingness to see little Phebe go through this spiritual anguish, along with his use of Phebe’s example to promote revivals, is hard to square with the pastor-theologian’s alleged brilliance and spiritual insight.
Old Life 