Intro to Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards was the most famous person to ever preach to the Stockbridge Mohicans, in fact, he was so influential in early American history that I had to read one of his sermons in a literature class in the public high school I attended. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was the name of the sermon.

Edwards made more than just a cameo appearance in Algonkian church history: After John Sergeant died, Edwards was chosen as the next missionary at Stockbridge [MA], serving there from 1751 to 1757. Despite the "fire and brimstone" stereotype we have of Rev. Edwards, a few historians are now recognizing that he did some really positive things for his Indian charges. In fact, the sermons about sin that caused such great anxiety in white churchgoers weren't the same sermons that he preached to the Stockbridge Mohicans. I promise more about Edwards in later posts.