I'm currently enjoyng George Marsden's wonderful biography on Jonathan Edwards. Chapter 20 includes a snapshot of parenting in the Edwards home. We can learn much from the following excerpts, not least the final one which underscores just how thankful we men should be for our godly wives:The first impression a visitor would have upon arriving at the Edwards home was that there were a lot of children. The second impression would be that they were very well disciplined. Jonathan aided Sarah in disciplining the children from an early age. 'When they first discovered any considerable degree of will and stubbornness,' wrote biographer Samuel Hopkins, 'he would attend to them till he had thoroughly subdued them and brought them to submit with the greatest calmness, and commonly without striking a blow, effectively establishing his parental authority and producing a cheerful obedience ever after.
Care for his children's souls was his preeminent concern. In morning devotions he quizzed them on Scripture with questions appropriate to their ages. On Saturday evenings, the beginning of the Sabbath, he taught them the Westminster Shorter Catechism, making sure they understood as well as memorized the answers.
Edwards also believed in not holding back the terrors of hell from his children. 'As innocent as children seem to us,' he wrote, 'if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are young vipers....' At the judgment day unregenerate children would hardly thank their parents for sentimental tenderness that protected them from knowing the true dangers of their estate. Always looking for opportunities to awaken the young to their condition, he had taken the children to view the remains of the Lyman house fire that claimed two girls' lives.
By far the greater burden of childrearing fell to Sarah....On one occasion, when she was out of town in 1748, Jonathan was soon near his wits' end. Children of almost every age needed to be cared for. 'We have been without you,' Jonathan lamented in a letter, 'almost as long as we know how to be!'
- Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden, pp. 321-323
Monday, August 03, 2009
Jonathan Edwards' Parenting Style
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3 comments:
Z,
I'm trying really hard to find the hard-core part of Edwards parenting style. Sounds like great parenting to me (one of the main goals of my parenting is to establish "cheerful obedience"). I know you admitted that "perhaps, the problem is with me", but I would be interested in knowing what part you found to be hard-core. (I didn't even see the word "rod" or "thrashing" in the description :)) I'm just wondering if I'm missing something.
thx!
Jeff,
I think I probably should reword that... I think it just exposes my cultural shaping that this would seem to be too hard-core. I don't think it is. Just exposes my heart I think.
z
I love this quote of Edwards's, not for the terrible reality that he describes, but for the sheer Biblical *fearlessness* with which he speaks of that reality: "As innocent as children seem to us, if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are young vipers...."
Oh, that more pastors today would have the bold fearlessness to speak such truths to their congegrations! Think of the false childhood "conversions" that might be prevented (not to say that all seeming childhood conversions are false)! Why do we so often agree to such truths as Edwards writes here, when we read them in books, but then find ourselves reluctant to boldly speak those truths to others?
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