Monday, August 04, 2008

Dueling John Edwardses

Andy Naselli at Between Two Worlds calls attention to the Oxford American Dictionary's entry on 18th century American Theologian Jonathan Edwards, America's greatest Christian theologian, which is, let us say, anemic. It is particularly ironic that Jonathan Edwards' entry is shorter than John Edwards, the senator from North Carolina.

Is John Edwards really more significant in the total scheme of things that Jonathan? But I guess if you think about it there's one thing John Edwards has done that Jonathan never did: the latter never appeared in the National Enquirer.

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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:05 AM

    MC: But I guess if you think about it there's one thing John Edwards has done that Jonathan never did: the latter never appeared in the National Enquirer.


    But I guess if you think about it there's one thing Jonathan Edwards has done that John never did: the latter never wrote a rousing defense of slavery.




    http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/mhr/4/minkema.html

    jah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Martin Cothran2:53 AM

    Jah,

    I see your point. Let's just go ahead and reduce the length of every entry in the OAD for anyone who supported slavery (which, incidentally is most people before the 19th century).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:55 AM

    Sorry, I wasn't clear.

    My point is:

    If there really is an absolute, time- and culture-independent morality (or just morality, according to the way some employ the term here),

    if slavery is morally wrong,

    and if the greatest theologian in American can't tell the difference between right and wrong,

    what hope have we lesser mortals?



    jah

    ReplyDelete
  4. Martin Cothran12:08 PM

    Jah,

    I'm fine with that. I'm sure he knows better now.

    ReplyDelete

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