Grand Rapids, MI— Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary (“PRTS”) today announced the establishment of a Jonathan Edwards Center, affiliated with the Jonathan Edwards Centre at Yale University. This strategic partnership exemplifies the vision of the Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary to be biblical, experiential, and practical.

The Jonathan Edwards Center at PRTS will serve as a research, education, and publications hub for the study of Edwards and early Reformed theology, exegesis, and practice.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), pastor, revivalist, Christian philosopher, missionary, and president of Princeton University, is widely regarded as North America’s greatest theologian. He is the subject of intense scholarly interest because of his significance as a historical figure and the profound legacy he left on America’s religious, political, and intellectual landscapes.

“Our plans are to pay sustained critical attention to Edwards’s and early Reformed thought,” said Edwards scholar Dr. Adriaan Neele. “Jonathan Edwards was an important American theologian and, more specifically, a great contributor to biblical exegesis, and preaching attested by his 1,200 extant sermons, and other works.”

Dr. Kenneth Minkema, executive director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, observed, “The establishment of the Jonathan Edwards Center at PRTS is a significant expansion of Edwards and scholarship on early Reformed biblical exegesis and homiletics and will serve widely both academia and the church.”

Edwards’s writings are being consulted at a burgeoning rate by religious leaders, pastors, and churches worldwide because of the fervency of Edwards’s message and the acumen with which he appraised religious experience. This global interest in Edwards has been spurred in part by the work of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, whose mission is to support inquiry into the life, writings, and legacy of Edwards by providing resources that encourage critical appraisal of the historical importance and contemporary relevance of America’s premier theologian.

The primary means to achieve this is with the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, a digital learning environment for research, education and publication, that presents all of Edwards’s writings, along with helpful edited materials that allow the reader to examine Edwards’s thought in useful ways. The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, as well as the Jonathan Edwards Studies journal online and the Global Accelerated Sermon Editing project, are accessible through the Center’s web site at: http://edwards.yale.edu.