Oh Those Sinners. . .They Are Held in the Hand of An Angry God

So, first of all, the piece of literature that this post is based off of it the sermon of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners In The Hand of An Angry God. The sermon was about the fact that Puritans of Edwards' time believed God was always ready to take away an afterlife in Heaven. They believed that at any time you showed a lack in faith or sinned, Heaven would be taken away from you and you would spend your afterlife in Hell. Edwards uses analogies like "God is always pointing a bow and arrow at you heart" and if you were to sin, the arrow would fly and destroy the promise of Heaven.

WHERE DO THEY GET THIS STUFF?!?!

Edwards' intent was most likely to bring a sense of unity to the Puritan community by living very similar, safe lives. If everyone was doing the same thing and following rules out of fear of God, they would be easy to control. Even though they are now in the New World to practice their religion freely and without government involvement, there was still theocracy. This is a separate government, but many decisions and rules are decided in correspondence to the Ten Commandments and other religious beliefs. Edwards was most likely a town leader, just as he was a pastor; he used fear of God to control his town.

Now, first of all, how did he come up with these beliefs? Was it pure imagination or did he get the idea from someone (I'm pretty sure he didn't read it in the Bible)? I guess we'll never know. But, what I know is that it is good to be God-fearing (I'm Catholic, by the way) but not to the point where I need to be scared of every little white lie. Not to the point where I lie awake at night and fear God shooting me with an arrow or drowning me with the rapids he holds back. I also don't believe that God would do such a thing. He may sometimes be an angry God, but a merciful one at that.

This sermon tells us how much the world has changed. We still refer to God in some government cases: oaths, The Pledge of Allegiance, and other things of that nature. But, our decisions aren't always based off of religion anymore and our government certainly doesn't control us through fear of our God. This is mostly because would not be possible. There are so many religious just within the United States and not everyone believes in God. Our society has become a place where our faith is a personal form of government where it is our job to control our actions and morals, not that of a pastor/official.