Dave Coles. Jonathan Edwards on Movements. Beyond, 2022.

Dave Coles has written a couple of books that we have reviewed on recent people movements to Christ in non-Western cultures. As with any move of God, there are critics. And as with any move of God, there are those who exploit it in a way that the Lord would probably not approve.

Coles recognizes that there were many critics of the Great Awakening in the 1700s for similar reasons. Jonathan Edwards, of course, was a major theological figure during this time. He wrote several treatises—essays and books—dealing with the same issues. How do we deal with critics who say this movement is not from God? How do we deal with those in the movement who go astray?

I expected a book more like Guy Chevreau’s Catch the Fire. That book showed parallels with the Toronto and Pensacola revivals in North America in the nineties with the experiences of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards during the Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards on Movements is different. It summarizes Edwards’ observations on the various critiques of such movements. While there is an element defending the people movements (often called CPMs, church planting movements), it mostly simply and extensively quotes Edwards and shows how and if they apply to the modern CPMs.

There are numerous takeaways. Perhaps the most obvious Edwards puts simply this way: “What the church has been used to is not a rule by which we are to judge.” (8) He also notes:

…it is not an argument that the work in general is not the work of God any more than it was an argument in Egypt, that there were no ture miracles wrought there, by the hand of God, because Jannes and Jambres wrought false miracles at the same time by the hand of the devil. (14, cf. II Timothy 3:8)

Besides quoting Edwards, there are references and allusions to Scripture from both Edwards, as above, and Coles.

He notes also that “Edwards also cautions (begs!) against questioning the salvation of others who give a credible profession of faith.” Yes, there will be cultural differences and differences in church practice, but we are reminded that “man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).