American History: Influential Ministers – George Whitefield

Introduction 

Last week’s spotlight was on John Wise, an influential minister from the early days of the colonies from whose sermons many of the principles in the Declaration of Independence were borrowed. Next up on our list of influential ministers in America is George Whitefield. Whitfield was one of the most influential speakers in America during his time, and it is estimated that eighty percent of Americans had heard him speak at least once. Many of them heard him preach several times. “Other than royalty,” Christianity Today states, “he was perhaps the only living person whose name would have been recognized by any colonial American” (Issue 38 — George Whitfield: Did You Know?). So who was this man that so many lives were impacted by? 

Who Was George Whitefield?

Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England in 1734. He was an avid lover of theater and spent his boyhood days reading plays insatiably and even skipping school to practice his performances. This early fascination with theater had a great impact on his preaching. As Christianity Today notes, “Later in life, he repudiated the theater, but the methods he imbibed as a young man emerged in his preaching” (George Whitefield — Sensational Evangelist of Britain and America). 

Not a great deal is known about Whitefield’s early years, but we do know that he put himself through college at Pembroke College in Oxford, England by waiting on wealthier students. While there, he became involved in a group known by others as the “methodists” and led by brothers John and Charles Wesley. It was during his time in this group and in college that he came to his own spiritual awakening. For a long while, Whitefield viewed himself as pious and righteous for all he was involved in. But he himself admits that God soon convicted him of his pride, and he spends an entire section of his journals discussing the trials God allowed Satan to put him through in order to bring him to salvation and a full surrender to God. The account he gives of the gradual working in his heart toward that complete surrender and transformation of his soul is quite an interesting one, and it gives great insight into that time of his life as well as how he would become the man he was to become.

After that time of struggle, his health had become poor due to the amount of intense fasting he had done, and he left Oxford to return to Gloucester and family for a time. He continued on in his studies for the ministry despite objections from family members who thought, according to Whitefield’s diary, “to divert me, as they thought, from a too intense application to religion” (Journals 1st Ed, Section III, pg 50). Whitefield persisted in the course he was on, intending to become a missionary to the new Georgia colony. This did not immediately happen, and during the intervening time, he was ordained as an Anglican minister in England.

George Whitefield and the Great Awakening

Whitefield was not the only minister, of course, to be influential in the Great Awakening, but he was perhaps the best known individual during his time. As we mentioned earlier, roughly eighty percent of the American colonists had heard Whitefield at least once before he died. Among those was Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, who would later become one of Whitefield’s close friends. In his autobiography, Franklin recounts the following: “The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how much they admir’d and respected him, notwithstanding his common abuse of them, by assuring them that they were naturally half beasts and half devils. It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seem’d as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro’ the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 148). High prais from a man who also recounts that they had “no religious connection. He us’d, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death.” Despite Franklin’s resistance to more than a general belief in the presence of a far off deity (which was what then was known as deism, though now it might be argued that there is not the difference between atheism and deism that there was during Franklin’s time), he still thought highly of Whitefield.

Whitefield’s effectiveness certainly could not be argued. Many converted because of him. Interestingly enough, Whitefield’s style of preaching rarely involved a plea with hearers to follow one doctrine or another as evidence of conversion. Instead, his focus was less on a pet doctrine and more on a change in the soul of man. Though mentored by the Wesleys, Whitefield’s preaching reveals a distinctly Calvinist note that many of the preachers in America at the time disliked and that did not match with the doctrines held by the Wesley brothers. Speaking of his style of preaching, Jonathan Edwards’s wife said, “He makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers generally do and aims more at affecting the heart. He is a born orator. A prejudiced person, I know, might say that this is all theatrical artifice and display, but not so will anyone think who has seen and known him.”

Criticism

This focus on the heart instead of the doctrines when dealing with the conversion of men gained him intense criticism. In fact, his intent focus on conversion itself was often the subject of outrage by many who believed him too energetic and a sham. Many of his critics were quick to point out with distaste the way that his orations whipped the crowd into a frenzy and resulted in unintelligible wailings, mutterings, and cries. To those who had never seen a dramatic conversion and preferred everything to be quiet and “respectable”, this new form of preaching and the response it garnered was both reprehensible and astonishing.

Churches Refused to Let Whitefield Preach

In fact, many churches refused to allow him to preach for various reasons. In one instance, the New England Weekly Journal from 1739 recounts that “The Rev. Mr. Whitefield arrived at the City of N. York on Wednesday the 14th Inst. A little before Night. The next Morning he waited on the Rev. Mr. Vesey, and desired leave to preach in the English Church, but was refus’d: The Reason assigned for such Refusal was, because Mr. Whitefield had no Licence to Preach in any Parish but that for which he was ordained; and an old Canon was read. To this Mr. Whitefield reply’d, That that Canon was Obsolete, and had not been in Use for above 100 Years, That the whole Body of the Clergy, frequently preach out of the Bounds of their Parishes, without such Licence. 

“These Arguments not prevailing, some application was made to the Rev. Mr. Boel, for the Use of the New Dutch Church, but this also was refus’d. Then Mr. Whitefield had the offer of the Presbyterian Church, but did care at first to accept it, not being willing to give any Offence to his Brethren of the Church of England; but said, He chose rather to go without the Camp, bearing his Reproach, and Preach in the Fields” (A Report on Whitefield in New York: The New England Weekly Journal, 1739). 

They note after that Whitefield was informed that some portions of the colonies did allow the use of meeting halls by various ministers in different denominations, so no offense would be made. He ended up accepting the offer for an evening service and preached in the afternoon in the fields. 

Franklin’s Assessment of Whitefield’s Struggle

Franklin, once again speaking of Whitefield in his autobiography, states that “His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies; unguarded expressions, and even erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching, might have been afterwards explain’d or qualifi’d by supposing others that might have accompani’d them, or they might have been deny’d; but litera scripta monet.c ritics attack’d his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their encrease; so that I am of opinion if he had never written any thing, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still growing even after his death, as there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of excellence as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin).

Conclusion

Franklin’s assertion is likely a fair one, but despite the critics, Whitefield still managed to reach around ten million people in the 18,000 times he spoke or preached. This is hardly a surprise when you consider that he often preached from dawn until dusk and kept moving constantly from place to place. Still, as The Great Awakening Documentary states in their biography of Whitefield, “Whitefield was a man with a remarkable gift and a relentless energy for preaching. Though his zeal in preaching the gospel and converting faith in Christ sometimes led him into divisiveness, yet it also made him the most widely known and widely heard preacher in his day. For many people on both sides of the Atlantic, Whitefield’s sermons both in person and in print were the single shared religious experience that connected them to other people affected by the awakenings. Whitefield, more than any other man, turned a series of awakenings into the Great Awakening” (TheGreatAwakeningDocumentary.com, George Whitefield).

The man was remarkable and did much to establish a spirit of revival and renewed interest in Christianity that became integral to the Founding of America. He reached many men and women with the heart of the Gospel: conversion to a soul-changing belief in Christ.

Among those he affected were John Marrant, who would later become the first black to successfully evangelize Native Americans at the age of fourteen; many of the Founding Fathers, who heard his famous “Father Abraham” sermon and would take his message of unity as a key part of their goal in uniting the colonies into a single nation; and Congregationalist minister Elisha Williams, who would go on to write “The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants” to set out Biblical principles for equality, liberty and property. As historians David and Tim Barton note, “The ideas he preached were influential in shaping thinking leading up to the War for Independence” (The American Story, pg 107).

So we see that Whitefield had a great impact on the American colonies and many of the men who would later influence or lead America’s fight for independence. Without him, it is possible that the war would not have occurred, or, if it had, might not have occurred for the reasons it did or with the incredible results that it had. 

Resources

George Whitefield Biography by Christianity Today

“George Whitefield: Did You Know” by Christianity Today

George Whitefield by The Great Awakening Documentary

The American Story: The Beginnings by David and Tim Barton

Letter Written by George Whitefield on TheGreatAwakeningDocumentary.com

A Report on Whitefield in New York: The New England Weekly Journal, 1739 on TheGreatAwakeningDocumentary.com

Excerpt from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on TheGreatAwakeningDocumentary.com

Journals by George Whitefield (pdf copy)

A Collection of Sermons by Whitefield hosted by ccel.org’s sermon archives for Whitefield