The following is an excerpt from a book I’m currently working on called The 13th Prime, which may or may not ever be finished since I haven’t decided if I want to keep it yet or not. 

“My point is that everyone misrepresents what the Puritans are. They portray them as a bunch of holier-than-thou self-righteous bigots who went around preaching hell, fire, and damnation. But all they really did was seek to live their lives according to the beliefs they held. They believed that God wanted them to be good people, and they acted accordingly.”

“But you brought up Jonathan Edwards,” Rick said suddenly. “He wrote that sermon. What was it? Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. An ‘angry’ God, Killen.”

“Yes, but have you ever read that sermon?”

Rick nodded. “I read it in an English class once. I honestly don’t remember much of it other than the metaphor of God holding sinners over the pit of hell much like you would hold a spider over a fire pit.”

“Yes. And for the time, that imagery was needed. But re-read the sermon, Rick. If you do, you’ll find that the focus isn’t on the angry God at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let me show you.” Killen got up and searched the shelves until he found a copy of the sermon in a list of American Essays. “Here’s what I mean,” he said. He read from the text: “‘Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.’”

“I don’t get your point,” Rick said.

“Let me finish. Here: ‘That the reason why they are not fallen already, and do not fall now, is only that God’s appointed time is not come…. The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this–“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”’”

Rick tried to wrap his head around that. “What do you mean?”

“I mean only this. Today, we treat Edwards as if he taught that God maliciously held sinners out over the pit of hell. But that is not what Edwards said in his sermon. God’s hand was not putting people into danger; God’s hand was keeping people from falling into the pit of hell because if God did not stop them, they would fall in of their own weight!”

Rick felt his mouth go dry. “But…but what about the angry God portion?”

“Yes,” Killen said, “God is angry when there is sin. He hates sin. And yet even while He is angered, He still acts mercifully and that is the point of Edwards’ sermon. God could have let all men fall into the pit of hell, which is exactly where we all want to go anyway; but instead of doing that, He holds us. He suspends us over the pit and gives us time.”

“Time for what?”

“Maybe to have a change of heart?” Killen suggested.

“But what about those who don’t want to change their hearts?” Rick meant it as a sneer, but Killen smiled.

“Those who don’t want to change their hearts are those who want to fall into the pit,” he said. “Don’t you think they’d be rather upset that God was keeping them from their destination? Who do you think they’d be mad at?”