Book Review

by Brandon James Crawford

Rhys Bezzant, Edwards the Mentor (Oxford University Press, 2019). 216 pp. $74.00 (USD). https://amzn.to/2QNBjIl

Bezzant’s latest book is the product of a years’ long effort to understand Jonathan Edwards’s mentoring ministry and its impact on subsequent history. In the introduction, he sets the stage and defines his terms: “mentoring is intentional ministry of formation, whereby an older mentor invests in the character, competencies, and theological comprehension of a younger mentee…, seeking to empower the one being trained for spiritual development, often with the result of enhancing skills and attitudes for leadership. It most often occurs through face-to-face encounters and is supported through other strategies, like letter writing, discussion of decision-making, and sharing resources” (p.6).

The main body of the work comes in four parts. The first part places Edwards’s mentoring ministry in historical context. Bezzant traces the practice of mentorship through the ancient Roman world as well as through Christ and the apostles, the medieval monastics, the Protestant Reformers, and the Puritans of England and New England. The survey establishes that Edwards’s own mentoring ministry was part of a larger tradition that encompasses both Western civilization and Christian history; yet, it was also contextualized for his own time and place.

The book’s second part surveys Edwards’s mentoring practices. Special attention is given to Joseph Bellamy and the other young men who resided in Edwards’s home. On Bellamy’s experience, Bezzant writes, “Learning in a home, with a family, under the guidance of an experienced and well-regarded leader of the revivals, through expansive reading and reflection, marked Bellamy’s experience in Northampton as essentially integrative and his learning inductive” (p.44). This section notes that Edwards’s mentoring ministry took place in the context of genuine friendship, with its mutual accountability and sharing of ideas; and in the context of conversation, with “trusted self-disclosure” and honest verbal exchanges (p.60). It was further enhanced by the sending and receiving of letters “meant to foster emotional intimacy” (p.72) and through Edwards’s clear leadership agenda, often expressed in venues like ordination services.

The third part develops the theological framework which would have shaped Edwards’s mentoring agenda. Bezzant discusses Edwards’s understanding of human beings as creatures in the imago Dei and therefore capable of intimacy with God and others. He discusses Christ as the ultimate exemplar. He dwells on Edwards’s eschatological focus and in his belief that special friendships will persist in heaven. In short, Bezzant demonstrates that the goal of Edwards’s mentorship was not just to impart instruction, but to cultivate a certain kind of spirituality in his mentees focused particularly on developing their affective piety.

The fourth and final part of the book considers Edwards’s legacy. Bezzant states that Edwards’s legacy was “not necessarily doctrinally homogenous but certainly denominationally settled, evangelistically effective, and socially engaged” (p.117). It includes the New Divinity, which persisted for several generations and set the theological agenda in New England for many decades. It includes Andover Theological Seminary, the first graduate school of theology. It even includes the abolitionist and modern missionary movements.

Bezzant also includes a brief coda at the end of the work which is devoted to theological retrieval. In an age often marked by impersonal encounters, pragmatic ministry, and quick fixes, “It is time to be jolted into remembering how to offer personalized soul care, to walk with others in their shoes, and to create an ecclesiastical ecosystem that sustains spiritual life rather than endangers it, where distinct spheres of work, family, and leisure find their mutually rewarding home,” he says (p.135). And in a time when the modern educational establishment is focused on “efficiencies and outcomes,” Edwards reminds us that “pursuing wisdom requires a slow, expensive, and complex pedagogical arrangement. Education must not just provide the tools, but as masters take on apprentices, education must show how and when those tools are best used” (p.136). Furthermore, “Flourishing through face-to-face discipleship is a supremely Christian aspiration,” Bezzant says, “worthy of imitation, even now” (p.136).

Bezzant’s latest book is a genuinely original contribution to Edwards scholarship, and a work of pastoral wisdom as well. Pastors, professors, and other ministry leaders would do well to read this book carefully and learn from its insights. Young men and women would also do well to read it and then search for a person willing to provide them with the kind of mentorship commended in this book—the kind that has historically been a part of Western civilization and Christian tradition, and which was embodied in Jonathan Edwards.