Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (scared Straight)

Amanda Steinhauer

Instructor: Ruggiero

English 3/ Block 5

25 September 2014

What? Are you scared?

        Imagine yourself as a child.  Did you have nightmares running through your head?  Of course you did.  Whether they be clowns, spiders, snakes, or even the mail man, all children (and in reality, adults too) have fears.  So let’s say that your young-self encountered one of those fears.  Picture it.  You would most definitely cower in fear and never go near it again.  This concept shows us that fear has the power to motivate people in certain situations, however with this concept a question appears: Is fear the most effective motivator?  Well, Jonathan Edwards would sure say so.  Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, a fear-laced sermon, was used as an attempt to convince early American colonists to convert to Puritanism in the 1740s.  I, however, believe that using fear as a motivator can be effective in some situations, but is more effective when appeals to other emotions, such as vanity and hope, are added.  

        “Thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it…” (Edwards, 22).  Wow, talk about strong vocabulary.  If I had been someone unconverted to Puritanism in 1741, I would definitely consider converting after hearing this powerful speech.  Edwards’ sermon really takes advantage of using fear as a motivator, and I feel that he uses it effectively.  With that in consideration, there was another reason why “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” affected me so.  Not only did he appeal to fear, he also appealed to vanity.  Edwards manipulated fear in such a way that it made me feel (as I believe it would for any reader) bad about myself.  Even though I am not part of the target audience for Edwards’ sermon, I felt like I was doing something wrong.  He created a craving within myself to find out how to feel good again, which, consequently, would be converting to Puritanism had I lived in his time.  As I previously mentioned, fear was used effectively in a motivational sense, but adding the appeal to vanity really enhanced it.

        Now, do you feel like someone has the power to scare you straight?  A documentary made in the 1970s (just a small jump into the future) was created to prove that it is indeed possible to scare people straight.  The documentary, entitled “Scared Straight”, followed 17 teenage delinquent boys during their insight of daily prison life.  The goal was to create enough fear within them to have them rewrite their ways as delinquents and not continue their shenanigans into adulthood.  It turns out that, as discussed in Kathy Feinstein’s article “Can Kids Be Scared Straight?” the experience not only failed to lessen the rate of juvenile delinquency, but in fact increased it.  Feinstein notes that some of the juveniles actually took the experience as a dare of sorts to commit more crimes (29).  In this case scenario, fear was used as a motivator, but the results took on the opposite effect of what was desired.  For this reason, fear is not always the most appropriate form of motivation.