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Great thinkers like Jonathan Edwards can be hard to approach. Many who have read him are convinced that the Northampton divine has much to offer the church today. But he seems to float somewhere above us—severe, austere, out of reach. What a shame! He is surely one whose teachings transcend his own time.

There's no denying that, unlike John Wesley, his colleague in the transatlantic awakening, Edwards can seem distant and forbidding. But some of this is a factor not of who he was, but of the distance between our world and his. We see him through a glass darkly.

In search of the "real Edwards," CH spoke with George Marsden, whose biography, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, is being published in 2003 by Yale University Press. Marsden helped us see beyond our misconceptions to the precious legacy of this imposing man.

Was Edwards a "cold fish"? He refused to do regular pastoral visitation, he seemed more comfortable with his books than his people, and eventually he pushed his ideals on his congregation so hard that they tossed him out.

There is some basis for the stereotype. Edwards was a serious person, particularly serious about matters of salvation. When he wrote letters to his children, almost invariably the first thing he said was, "You are away from home, and it is possible you might die, and we hope that you will care for your eternal soul—that would give us great joy," or words to that effect. There's not a lot of chit-chat about family news.

When his son, Jonathan Edwards Jr., was 10 years old and away on a missionary trip to learn Indian languages, Edwards wrote him a letter. The week before, the elder Edwards had fallen off a horse and been badly injured. But in this letter, he never mentions that to his son. You would think he'd mention it as an example to say, "be careful," or as a good story, but he limits his letter to salvation and serious matters. That is characteristic.

On the other hand, he apparently could relate well to people who were close to him. He had 10 sisters and 11 children, and they all seemed very affectionate toward him. Also, relations of the heart were at the center of Edwards's theology. The heart was more important than the intellect in his personal relationships and his relationship with God. His whole theology was built around the love of God and the ways we should be reflecting that love.

So along with that seriousness, there is a lot of warmth and genuine concern for others. Edwards is thought of as a stern, cold minister, but in fact, he had his entire congregation and the entire town of Northampton completely "under his spell." Though this relationship did eventually go awry, the intensity of the breakup mirrors the intensity of their earlier affections.

Socially, he seems an elitist, someone who might even have been out of step in his own, increasingly egalitarian age.

Think of him as a creature of the world of British hierarchical relationships—think (even though they were later) of the novels of Jane Austen. Whereas today we tend to see structures of patriarchal privilege as demeaning, people of the eighteenth century tended to see social hierarchy and the deference that went with it as good things. These relationships held society together.

There was no question where Edwards stood in that social hierarchy: He played the role of an aristocrat—part of an important family of ministers and magistrates. The most significant of these was his uncle and chief patron, John Stoddard. He ran much of the government of Western Massachusetts and was chief judge and a military leader as well. Edwards was related to a whole network of people like that.

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