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Whether or not the President's comments will make it easier for Christians to express religious convictions in the public square, some Christians have been bravely doing just that for some time. But when they try to reflect on this experience and construct a "public theology" (that is, a systematic understanding of how to relate faith to public issues), they run into a problem. The history of American evangelicalism is littered with many theories of private morality but very few plans for public action explicitly and systematically grounded in Christian principles.

As historian Mark Noll has pointed out, American evangelicals have tended to act first and think later. It is no wonder that most of those doing public theology are outside evangelical circles. Yet one forebear of the evangelical tradition thought long and hard about the world outside the church, and his thinking on this subject is a rich resource for those trying to relate their faith to today's public issues.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is widely recognized as the greatest theologian this continent has ever produced. As a key figure in the religious life of colonial America, Edwards was a multifaceted thinker whose total catalog of ideas is still being discovered.

Many evangelicals think of Edwards as a stern Puritan preacher of fire and brimstone who portrayed humanity as dangling precariously by a spider's thread over the flames of hell. And while scholars have long recognized that Edwards possessed one of the most creative and powerful intellects on American soil, most have thought he was happy to let the world go to hell—in both senses of that phrase.

But recent research indicates that Jonathan Edwards carefully observed the social and political currents swirling about him and developed an elaborate theory of what it means to be a Christian citizen in civil community.

Of course, we cannot assume Edwards's ideas can be adopted without significant adaptation. After all, Edwards was in favor of supporting churches by taxation. And he was writing and preaching in a society where, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, "Christianity reigns without obstacles, by universal consent." But while Edwards cannot give us a political program for the nineties, his reflections can provide a set of theological perspectives that may help evangelicals relate their faith to today's public arena. The following is a six-point summary of Edwards's public theology.

1. Christians have a responsibility to society beyond the walls of the church. The election of a president who openly supports social policies repugnant to most evangelicals has prompted some Christians to suggest that the church abandon efforts to change society. "Preach the old-fashioned gospel," they cry, "and pray for revival. The church has no business doing anything else."

As a key figure in America's first Great Awakening, Edwards is well known for his leadership of spiritual revivals. But he also insisted that Christians should care about the material and social well-being of those outside the church. God has made us dependent on our non-Christian neighbors for help, he taught; to fail to acknowledge our interdependence "is more suitable for wolves and other beasts of prey, than for human beings." Edwards's convictions on this point stemmed from his belief that we are made in the image of God, who is always reaching out in relationship to others and cares for their bodies as well as their souls. Christians should do the same.

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July (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45