Jonathan Edwards, in the popular imagination, is synonymous with the hellfire preaching of the puritans, hardly distinguishable from his most famous (or infamous) sermon, Sinners in the hands of an angry God. This one sermon, however, is not representative of his homiletics as a whole. In this lecture, Oliver Crisp will present a fuller portrait of Edwards the homiletician, articulating Edwards' understanding of the nature and task of preaching. While dissimilarities between Edwards' social context and our own makes any univocal appropriation impossible, Crisp argues that Edwards' understanding of preaching as an exercise in rhetorical power, whereby words are believed to change hearers (heart and mind) via the attending work of the Holy Spirit, remains commendable.

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