Jonathan and Janet

Having just taught a church history class on Jonathan Edwards, one of America's greatest intellects (and preacher during the Great Awakening), I took special interest in this news item:

Via Christianity Today:

• Presbyterian Church (USA) minister Janet Edwards says her performing the marriage of a lesbian couple is an example of walking in the footsteps of her famous sixth-great grandfather, Jonathan Edwards. After all, she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he ministered to Native Americans, calling them virtuous when they were considered by the culture to be savages. ""I would say his acceptance of the Mohicans of the time is similar to my inclusion of gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered people now," she said.

Hmm.

Actually, Edwards taught quite frequently and vehemently that no one is virtuous on their own, whether Mohican, American, or Martian. It's not without reason that his most famous sermon is entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But whether Jonathan Edwards would single out the GLBT crowd more than others, I leave to others to decide.

Here is one of Edwards' earliest journal entries:

"Holiness is a most beautiful and lovely thing. We drink in strange notions of holiness from our childhood, as if it were a melancholy, morose, sour, and unpleasant thing; but there is nothing in it but what is sweet and ravishingly lovely."

So true. 298 years after Edwards' death, we are still trying to find something in religion to excite us, to move us ... other than holiness. We are still finding causes to celebrate, or to fight for, other than holiness.