WEEK 3:

Eighteenth-Century Awakenings, Great Ones and Revolutionary Ones

For Monday, 15 September

  • Read Mather, from The Wonders of the Invisible World (A, 338-342);
  • Read Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (A, 354-363)
  • Record two entries in your common place book

Monday, 15 September

Today we move into the 18th Century. With three or four generations of settled life in New England and British imperial success appearing to be secured, the colonies went through something of an adolescent period. Distanced from the insecurity of first settlements, colonists developed new interests that brought new challenges to church authority. In our two readings for today, we see different responses from two of the greatest thinkers/writers of this historical moment: Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. With Mather, we encounter an excerpt from his seven-book history of New England, the Magnalia Christiana America (1702), in which the author attempted to establish English precedence in the new world and write its official history. We then look closely at the text to investigate his retrospective account of Winthrop and the ways he conducted his business. We then turn to Edwards sermon, “A Divine and Supernatural Light” to address a theology that accounts for the Enlightenment theories, particularly as they pertain to authority and rationality.

     For Wednesday (9.17):

  • Read Washington, “Letter to Hebrew Congregation” (pdf)
  • Read Jefferson, “Letter to the Danbury Baptists” (pdf)
  • Record two entries in your common-place book

 

Wednesday, 17 September

We spend this session continuing on with late-eighteenth-century developments by turning to Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists and his Note concerning religion in the state of Virginia, and excerpts from Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason.

      For Friday (9.19):

  • Read Paine, from The Age of Reason (pdf on Canvas)
  • Record two entries in your common-place book

 

Friday, 19 September

We’ll consider questions of authority sketched out in Jefferson’s and Washington’s letters and Paine’s post-Revolutionary polemic, and then consider the extent of the presumed transition from religious to secularized state.

      For Monday (9.22):

  • Read Walker, from David Walker’s Appeal (B, 443-455)
  • Record two entries in your common-place book