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Edwards practiced what he preached. Throughout a seven-year stint on the Massachusetts frontier, for example, the New England theologian fought for the rights of the Native Americans who came to his mission church. He argued that Indian girls should be able to go to school, wrote repeated letters to the Massachusetts Assembly urging the colony to honor its treaty obligations to the Housatonnuks, and spent hours patiently listening to the broken English and sign language of Indian children so he could report accurately to mission officials in Boston and London. He told the officials that his Indian friends did not have enough blankets and food; that some boys had no breeches, and many wore ragged clothes to meetings; and that all the boys were forced to work six days per week. In sermons, he berated New England for having "debauched [the Indians] with strong drink instead of seeking their spiritual welfare."

2. Christians should not hesitate to join forces with non-Christians in the public square to work toward common moral goals. Edwards had no trouble supporting the Massachusetts colony's prosecution of war against the French, because the latter threatened religious and political liberties common to Christians and non-Christians alike. Besides, Edwards argued, Christians have much in common with non-Christians: the same basic sense of good and evil, since God has engraved his moral law on every human conscience; similar appreciation of beauty, both material and moral; the same fundamental religious knowledge (that there is a God, and that he is good); and basic human feelings (pity for the unfortunate and love for family).

Using Edwards's principles, an evangelical could work together with a Muslim to fight pornography in their community. Both see pornography as a moral wrong, threatening the integrity of marriage and family.

An Edwardsian public theology, therefore, must reject the approach of those who, like the historic Anabaptists, choose not to join with those outside the church as equal partners in common work for the community but remain separate from the rest of society in an alternative community intended to stand only as a distant witness to the rest of the culture.

An Edwardsian approach, in contrast, seeks to transform culture from within. Edwards maintained that individual conversion does not produce new human faculties but a new principle by which the old faculties operate. Similarly, his public theology does not call for Christians to create new, separate political communities or shun communities outside the church. Rather, it encourages Christians to work together with like-minded citizens, Christian or not, to transform existing communities according to the God-given principles of conscience.

3. Christians should support their governments but be ready to criticize them publicly when the occasion demands. Edwards believed that government is "a great and important business" that, among other things, prevents "citizens from tearing one another apart." He preached that a Christian should be "greatly concerned for the good of the public community to which he belongs" and willing to "lay out himself . …for the good of his country." Edwards did his part when the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent two expeditions off to war in 1745 and 1755. Like a military chaplain, he preached sermons that inspired citizens to fight for God and country. During peacetime, he offered his time and resources to help police the frontier against occasional attacks.

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July (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45