In the first chapter of his 2017 book, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Church leader Brian Zahnd writes:
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It’s a Puritan classic. An American greatest hit. A revered revivalist text. I had my own handmade copy. I assembled photocopies of this 250-year-old sermon into a homemade booklet. This was back when cutting and pasting were done with scissors and glue. I carefully collated and stapled the twenty pages. My favourite passages were highlighted in bright pink. I provided it with a blue card-stock cover. The title was handwritten with a heavy black marker: “Sinners in the Hands of an ANGRY GOD.” Yes, I wrote ANGRY GOD in all caps. Thirty years later I still have this artefact from my angry-God days. It serves as a reference point to give perspective on my long spiritual journey away from an angry, violent, retributive God toward the God who is revealed by Jesus as our loving Father.
I fashioned my handmade copy of Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon because I was fascinated by it.
