After Jonathan Edwards

The Courses of the New England Theology

In recent years there has been a flowering of interest in the work of Jonathan Edwards. In the last decade this has been encouraged by the publication of many previously unavailable manuscripts, in the Yale edition of Edwards' works. In the same period there has been some interest in the New England theology inspired by Edwards' work, which dominated much of American theology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, the interest in New England Theology has been much less pronounced than that expressed in the work of Edwards. This is strange given the influence of New England Theology and the ways in which the theologians of this movement developed and expressed broadly Edwardsian themes. After Jonathan Edwards offers a reassessment of the New England Theology in light of the work of Jonathan Edwards. Scholars who have made important contributions to our understanding of Edwards are brought together with scholars of New England theology and early American history to produce a groundbreaking examination of the ways in which New England Theology flourished, how themes in Edwards' thought were taken up and changed by representatives of the school, and its lasting influence on the shape of American Christianity.