george marsden and jonathan edwards and george whitefield and 1738 and august francke and halle and great awakening

For many historians of colonial America George Whitefield is now as much of a symbol as a historical figure. First, let's focus on Whitefiled the historical figure. All who delve into the period know that he, born in 1715, developed a unique style of Anglican ministry in England, preaching to crowds in open-air assemblies and emphasizing the necessity of the "new birth." Late in the 1730s, when stories of the Northampton revival of 1734-35 had been published (London, 1737), and just about the time that John Wesley's heart was "strangely warmed" (1738), Whitefield decided to make three trips to the colonies. The first, in 1738, was to set up an orphanage in Georgia. In doing this he was imitating the actions of the German pietist leader August Francke of the University of Halle, whose orphanages and schools for poor children in Germany sparked revival flames in that land.

Whitefield in History in 1739-40

But it was the second and third visits of Whitefield to the colonies, in 1739 and again in 1740, that became the stuff of legend. First, however, the sober history. Beginning in Philadelphia in 1739, Whitefield held open-air revival meetings in which he would draw crowds of upwards of 8,000 (about 2/3 of the Philadelphia population at the time). Rather than being a person we might think of today as a 'raging fundamentalist,' Whitefiled formed a long and fast friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who seemingly admired not only the big ambitions of the Anglican clergyman but also his stentorian voice. On one occasion while Whitefield was addressing a large crowd in a Philadephia square, Franklin calculated that his voice could have been clearly heard by 20,000 people.

It was during Whitefield's 'third coming,' however, in 1740, that Edwards and he first met and that Whitefield turned his evangelistic charm on Boston and the vicinity. Theatrical in manner, with frequent weeping and rapid raising and lowering of voice, practical in his speech, fully Reformed in his theology (emphasizing the depravity of man and human inability to initiate the process of salvation), Whitefield was a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the faculty of Harvard felt the need to warn people about the emotional nature of his preaching and Whitefield's erroneous emphasis on the new birth. Church historians of colonial America have noted how Whitefield's visits bolstered church attendance and membership.

Whitefield as Symbol

But George Whitefield meant more to Edwards, and to the American nation that was struggling to come to birth, than simply that he was a person who preached the Gospel effectively or set up some orphanages in Georgia. In the words of historian Harry Stout, Whitefield was America's first "star." He certainly would have been on the cover of any 18th century version of People magazine one could imagine. But many religious historians think more was at stake than America's discovering itself star-struck for the first time. By appealing directly to the people to be responsible for their own salvation, by demonstrating a style of ministry that was more itinerant than settled, by holding meetings in the South, the Middle Colonies and New England, by breaking away from the ecclesiastical strictures of his own Church (by preaching in the manner he did), Whitefield seemingly stimulated and incarnated the values of the American Revolution. Power would be in the hands of the people themselves, without the levels of pastoral intermediaries who themselves had bought into the hierarchical structure of English life. The colonies would think of themselves not so much as individual colonies or groups of neighboring colonies but as a people. Even the presence of large crowds (and most think that Whitefield drew the largest crowds--sometimes up to 20,000 people--that had ever assembled on American soil) foreshadowed the growing sense that a America was emerging not simply as a land of small towns but as a people who could think of themselves as a modern nation.

Evaluation and Conclusion

Some of the ways that Marsden and other religious historians of colonial America portray the influence of Whitefield, just described, seem suspect. I think there is a great interest among religious historians to try to create a place at the table, so to speak, for others in the national consciousness than the "Founding Fathers," i.e., the deistically-inclined, practical men of politics and war such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. And, because Americans have been almost since time immemorial a religious people who have been peculiarly interested in the salvation of their souls even if only intermittently consumed with the social demands of the gospel, such an interest and emphasis might be salutary. When historian Bernard Bailyn began about 40 years ago to speak of the "intellectual" origins of the American revolution, he was opening the door to consideration of religious ideas that may have been influential in the "Spirit of '76." But even though Whitefield may have been a man of a more democratic spirit and era, and even though the nature of American religion seemed to be defined in a special way as a result of his visits, I think it is a stretch to talk about significant shaping of revolutionary ideas through awakenings in New England in the 1730s and 1740s. New ideas were certainly in the air, and the religious community breathed the same air as everyone else, but Whitefield probably served to give people more oxygen than to plant new "ideas" in the air supply. That would be done through the secular work of Enlightenment thinkers who probably didn't know many words of English..

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