Jonathan Edwards Goes to Hell (House): Fear Appeals in American Evangelism

Abstract

This article traces the argumentum ad baculum, or appeal to fear, from Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century to the contemporary fundamentalist Christian practice of staging morality plays, often called Hell House. In his scare-for-salvation sermons, Edwards used descriptions of the reality of hell to invoke psychosomatic reactions of terror in his audience, and we see similar rhetorical tactics at work in evangelical hell houses. In a post-9/11 world where leaders, governments, and media can exert considerable power over individuals by frightening them into impulsive behavior, and considering the New Testament's message of love, this strategy seems questionable.

Notes

¹I thank Roxanne Mountford and Gregory S. Jackson, whose course in American Religious Vernacular served as an incubator for the argument of this article; and I wish to acknowledge the helpful and encouraging feedback of RR reviewers David Timmerman and Joshua Gunn, the latter of whom suggested the title.

²Though there are different names and types of these haunted houses like “Judgment House” or “Scaremare,” I am following the practice of Ethan Blue in lumping them together under one name- Hell House-for convenience.

³I know this term, psycho-aesthetic, is unsatisfactory, but I know of no other way to invoke the concept of how audiences react psychologically and physically-in other words, psychosomati- cally-to a discourse or image that uses sublime or aesthetic strategies to garner such reactions. The concept of psycho-aesthetic is in the tradition of Edmund Burke's writing on the sublime.

⁴In this article I hope I make clear that I am not criticizing the belief in hell, nor am I denying that such a place exists. My focus is on the strategies, which are optional products of belief.

⁵In my own search, I couldn't find a single article treating the subject in an academic journal, though Elizabeth Nixon, a graduate student in anthropology at Ohio State University, is apparently writing her dissertation on the subject (see Seipp).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian Jackson

Brian Jackson is a PhD Candidate in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at The University of Arizona. His primary interests are the teaching of rhetoric for civic engagement and American religious rhetoric.