Jonathan Edwards’ A treatise concerning religious affections (1746)By Steve Perisho, SPU Librarian
Much of the “contemporary Christian music” to which I’ve been exposed is saturated with the language of the affections (even passions) in general and love in particular, indeed so indiscriminately that I am sometimes hard-pressed to say how this supposedly “sacred” music rises above the “profane” love-obsessions of popular culture.
That’s but a single example of how “into” the affections we are today. But should we be? Absolutely, says Edwards, taking boldly what was in his context (also John Wesley’s) a theological risk: “there can be no true religion without them.” Indeed, “I know of no reason why a being-affected-with-a-view-of-God’s-glory should not [for example] cause the body to faint” (hyphens mine).
But isn’t there a danger here? Of course. For “we easily and naturally run from one extreme to the other. A little while ago we [of the eighteenth-century ‘awakenings’] were in the other extreme; there was a prevalent disposition to look upon all high religious affections as eminent exercises of true grace, without much” in the way of rational inquiry or discrimination.
“The right way [then] is not to reject all affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections, approving some and rejecting others: separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the precious and the vile.”
And so this is what Edwards, “America’s greatest theologian,” does: he demotes twelve eighteenth- (and twenty-first-) century criteria of the authenticity of religious experience that are in fact “no certain signs” at all (bodily effects like fainting, just for example), and places before us twelve more that are.
Take a risk yourself. Read a classic. Edwards’ handle on the manifold sense of Scripture was for me a particular delight.
Read more reviews.
Hometown: Kotzebue, Alaska; Hillsboro, Oregon
Expertise:Theology; Philosophy, English, Art, and Music
What do you do as a librarian: Highlights are supporting the advanced research of students (including University Scholars and divinity students) and especially faculty, and discovering first-rate tools for research available free over the web (the Bibliographic Information Database in Patristics and Index Thomisticus, to name but two of my favorites)
Favorite book: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., by Laurence Sterne, and anything (any fiction, that is) by Wendell Berry
Favorite food: Thai
Best part about working at Seattle Pacific: The privilege of serving departments and schools that I happen to believe in, and of whose faculties (and many students) I am very proud.
Favorite part of campus: The birch trees lining the stairs between the Library and the 5th Ave West streetscape
Favorite part of the library: The reference collection I inherited and have also been building in Theology
Hobbies: Reading above all; but also the trombone and backpacking, as time and other priorities permit
Family: wife: Kimberley Huisenga; sons: Christopher (24), Timothy (19), and Dakota (10)
Meet more SPU Librarians.
That’s but a single example of how “into” the affections we are today. But should we be? Absolutely, says Edwards, taking boldly what was in his context (also John Wesley’s) a theological risk: “there can be no true religion without them.” Indeed, “I know of no reason why a being-affected-with-a-view-of-God’s-glory should not [for example] cause the body to faint” (hyphens mine).
But isn’t there a danger here? Of course. For “we easily and naturally run from one extreme to the other. A little while ago we [of the eighteenth-century ‘awakenings’] were in the other extreme; there was a prevalent disposition to look upon all high religious affections as eminent exercises of true grace, without much” in the way of rational inquiry or discrimination.
“The right way [then] is not to reject all affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections, approving some and rejecting others: separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the precious and the vile.”
And so this is what Edwards, “America’s greatest theologian,” does: he demotes twelve eighteenth- (and twenty-first-) century criteria of the authenticity of religious experience that are in fact “no certain signs” at all (bodily effects like fainting, just for example), and places before us twelve more that are.
Take a risk yourself. Read a classic. Edwards’ handle on the manifold sense of Scripture was for me a particular delight.
Read more reviews.
Meet Steve Perisho
Hometown: Kotzebue, Alaska; Hillsboro, OregonExpertise:Theology; Philosophy, English, Art, and Music
What do you do as a librarian: Highlights are supporting the advanced research of students (including University Scholars and divinity students) and especially faculty, and discovering first-rate tools for research available free over the web (the Bibliographic Information Database in Patristics and Index Thomisticus, to name but two of my favorites)
Favorite book: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., by Laurence Sterne, and anything (any fiction, that is) by Wendell Berry
Favorite food: Thai
Best part about working at Seattle Pacific: The privilege of serving departments and schools that I happen to believe in, and of whose faculties (and many students) I am very proud.
Favorite part of campus: The birch trees lining the stairs between the Library and the 5th Ave West streetscape
Favorite part of the library: The reference collection I inherited and have also been building in Theology
Hobbies: Reading above all; but also the trombone and backpacking, as time and other priorities permit
Family: wife: Kimberley Huisenga; sons: Christopher (24), Timothy (19), and Dakota (10)
Meet more SPU Librarians.
