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29 Federal Street | Newburyport, MA 01950 | 978-465-9666
29 Federal Street | Newburyport, MA 01950 | 978-465-9666
George Whitefield
George Whitefield was a Church of England minister, revivalist, and leader of Calvinistic Methodism. His preaching on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean centered on the necessity of the new birth in Jesus Christ and transformed religious life. He established new practices for mass evangelism that later inspired the revival ministries of Charles Finney (1792–1875), Billy Sunday (1862–1935), and Billy Graham (1918–2018).
Whitefield, the youngest of seven children, was born in Gloucester, England. His father died when he was two years old. This placed the responsibility of operating the family-owned Bell Inn solely upon his mother, whose remarriage eight years later soon ended in divorce. When he was fifteen, Whitefield left school to help his mother manage the daily operations of the inn. Despite performing menial chores and wrestling with childhood sins, including stealing money from his mother, he dreamed of becoming a minister. Whitefield was also fascinated with the theater and discovered his talent for acting. His reading of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and several strong spiritual experiences clashed with his overwhelming sense of sin.
The generosity of a family friend enabled Whitefield to attend Pembroke College, Oxford as a servitor, a designation that indicated his families’ meager finances. He met Charles and John Wesley and other students who became known as the Oxford Methodists. Together they engaged in rigorous spiritual disciplines including reading Scripture, prayer, fasting, self– examination, visiting prisoners and the poor, celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and discussing classics of Christian spirituality.
Whitefield’s intense spiritual practices drove him to despair and almost to death. He returned home to recuperate for nine months. Amid his struggles to experience God, Charles Wesley gave him the Puritan classic Henry Scougal The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1677), which taught that true religion was more than merely engaging in external practices and that a person be joined with Christ to create the proper foundation for the Christian life. This eventually led to Whitefield’s dramatic conversion and recognition of the essential nature of grace and that justification, being made right with God, must precede sanctification, or the spiritual maturity in Christ, that he falsely sought through his own strenuous efforts.
Whitefield was ordained in 1736 as a deacon in the Church of England and as a priest in 1739. He preached his first sermon, “The Nature and Necessity of Society in General, and of Religious Societies in Particular,” the following Sunday. In it he encouraged believers to develop a deeper faith and engage in Christian mission. His first published message, The Nature and Necessity of Our New Birth in Christ Jesus (1737), however, became his signature sermon and the primary focus of his thirty–three-year ministry. Some scholars estimate that Whitefield preached 18,000 sermons and instructed people in less formal settings another 30,000 to 40,000 times during his lifetime. His engaging preaching wove biblical images with the imaginative retelling of Scripture to challenge his listeners to respond to Jesus Christ through conversion or recommitment of their faith.
John Wesley, who had traveled to Georgia in 1735, urgently requested Whitefield to join him there in this new ministry. While this was Wesley’s sole voyage to America, it was the first of seven journeys for Whitefield who wanted to establish an orphanage in Georgia. For the rest of his career, he actively engaged in fund raising to accomplish this objective. Whitefield sought every opportunity to proclaim the gospel and believed that his parish had no geographical or ecclesiastical boundaries. The time he spent crossing the Atlantic Ocean thirteen times totaled about three years. During these voyages he read prayers publicly, preached, ministered to the sick, and performed marriages. This retirement from his regular frenetic pace created extended periods for praying, studying Scripture, revising his sermons and journals for publication, and corresponding with the many individuals who wrote him. These voyages to America, and his fourteen trips to Scotland, three to Ireland, and his extensive travels throughout England and Wales earned him the name “The Grand Itinerant.”
Whitefield’s preaching and writing not only brought him celebrity status but also produced increased opposition. Initially, he was highly critical of ministers who denied the necessity of the new birth. He later apologized and sought to reconcile with those he had offended, especially the faculties of Harvard and Yale. His sharpest attacks were on Anglican clergy who experienced the greatest effect of his disruptive ministry and became his most vehement critics. Whitefield never left the Anglican Church but instead sought to revive it from within. Many bishops and fellow ministers accused him of violating his ordination vows by preaching in parishes to which he was not invited. He was also censured for promoting enthusiasm—which was understood as claiming direct revelations from the Holy Spirit, engaging in unrestrained behavior, and exhibiting fanaticism. Whitefield denied being an enthusiast but claimed that the new birth brought great joy and new life through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
As Whitefield continued to proclaim the message of the rebirth in Christ, more Anglican pulpits were closed to him, motivating him to follow the previously established Welsh practice of open–field preaching. While originally restrictive, it helped expand his ability to speak to large crowds that some estimated as large as 30,000 or more people. This new freedom contributed to the emerging practice of extemporaneous preaching which enabled him to speak directly to the growing crowds he attracted.
Whitefield’s four-month-old son, John died in 1744, thus denying Whitefield’s prophecy that John would become a great preacher. This forced Whitefield to reevaluate his theology of the Holy Spirit and made him more sensitive about spiritual discernment. It also motivated him to delete or revise sections of his journals that suggested a hastiness or lack of good judgment in speaking and acting. Twice he preached in Jonathan Edwards’s pulpit in Northampton, Massachusetts. During his initial visit in 1740, Edwards thought that Whitefield placed too much emphasis on stirring up people’s emotions, but by his second visit in 1745, Whitefield had abandoned much of his earlier excesses, prompting Edwards to defend him against his critics.
Whitefield, however, thrived on opposition and recognized it attracted many listeners. He became a master of using newspapers to create an advance expectation for his preaching tours. He did this to increase people’s anticipation and report the results of his revivals to enhance his popularity.
Whitefield not only struggled with opponents on the issue of spiritual rebirth, but he also faced sharp criticism from, his friend John Wesley whom he had earlier called his spiritual father. Their disagreement centered around the nature of grace and the human will and finally culminated in 1741. Once again, Whitefield’s theological convictions were shaped by his reading of Puritan authors. Wesley never understood Whitefield’s moderate Calvinism that found no inconsistency in affirming divine election while freely preaching the gospel to all. Whitefield, on the other hand, never clearly grasped Wesley’s teaching on Christian perfection. Over time their relationship was restored sufficiently that Wesley agreed to preach Whitefield’s funeral sermon at a service held in London. This theological controversy created two separate streams—the Calvinistic Methodism of Whitefield and Wesleyan Methodism of Wesley. The Countess of Huntingdon, one of Whitefield’s benefactors, played a significant role in the support of Calvinistic Methodism. Her appointment of Whitefield as her personal chaplain in 1748 enabled him to preach the message of regeneration to the upper class. Whitefield was as comfortable preaching to the wealthy as to the common uneducated laborers.
Despite his earlier criticism of unregenerate ministers, Whitefield became known for his catholic spirit. While continuing to be a Church of England minister, he developed cordial relationships with Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers. He willingly crossed traditional theological lines to advance the cause of Jesus Christ and his church. Unlike John Wesley, who strove to persuade his followers to join religious societies that became the Methodist Church, Whitefield consistently instructed his listeners that after they had experienced the new birth, they could worship in any Christian denomination. Nevertheless, Whitefield played a significant role in the formation of the Calvinistic Methodist Church which today is the Presbyterian Church of Wales.
Whitefield’s impact upon America exceeded the boundaries of his revivalist preaching. He met Benjamin Franklin in 1739, and they became lifelong friends despite Whitefield’s continual challenge of Franklin’s deist faith and efforts to convert him to Christ. Franklin became wealthy through the publication of Whitefield’s sermons and journals, while Whitefield gained an important ally through Franklin’s continual support. They helped establish the University of Pennsylvania, where a statute commemorates Whitefield’s contribution. Whitefield also financially supported what would become Princeton University, raised money to restore Harvard’s library after it was destroyed by fire, and backed the formation of Dartmouth College. These and other actions significantly reduced the opposition of American clergy to his ministry, while he experienced continual conflict in England. Those who contend that he had no interest in administration ignore his life–long effort to develop the Bethesda orphanage in Georgia and his ambitious goal of creating a college in the South, to train students for ministry to match Harvard and Yale in the North. His refusal to base the curriculum on guidelines established by the Church of England denied him the necessary funding to found this college. However, to this day the Bethesda Academy in Georgia is a partial fulfillment of Whitefield’s dream and exists on the site where he established his orphanage in 1740. It is the first institution established for the care of children in America.
No consensus existed in the eighteenth century on either side of the Atlantic Ocean that slavery was evil. Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Davies (1723–1761), and other respected Christian leaders owned slaves. Whitefield believed that slaves needed to hear the gospel as much as free individuals and learn how to read and write; he always provided for their welfare. But he reversed his opposition to slavery when he coerced the Georgian legislature to legalize slavery in 1750 to ensure the economic survival of his orphanage. Despite this mixed record, historian Harry Stout contends that on Whitefield’s death “the greatest mourning was expressed among the slave community” (Stout 1991, 284). Whitefield’s humane treatment and willingness to always allow slaves to attend his sermons won their deep affection. Nonetheless, Whitefield’s inconsistency regarding slavery has proven to be a poor example for many evangelicals since his death.
During his final years, Whitefield preached less frequently due to his accumulated physical exhaustion caused by his long-standing relentless desire to preach and advance the cause of the gospel. As tensions increased between England and the American colonies, Whitefield often supported the colonies over his own native land. He sided with his American friends in their successful efforts to repeal the Stamp Act of 1765 that Parliament had enacted to reduce the massive debt of the French and Indian War (1756–1763). The Church of England’s refusal to support his plans for Bethesda College certainly did not endear him to the British crown. In America, before his death in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1770, Whitefield had become the most respected person in the colonies both as a spiritual father and a unifying political hero.
Tom Schwanda is associate professor of Christian formation and ministry at Wheaton College. This excerpt is taken from a biography on George Whitefield that he is writing for Crossway’s Theologians on the Christian Life series.
