The evangelical popular press to this day prints hagiographical biographies of Whitefield along with selections from his published writings for devotional use.[1] These biographies present Whitefield as an evangelical icon, a hero of the faith, someone to be emulated and admired. The Whitefield portrayed in such filiopietistic literature is a saintly figure, a model of evangelical zeal and devotion. Whitefield is presented through rose-coloured spectacles while the authentic, deeply flawed, human being is hidden from view. Such biographers nostalgically romanticise the eighteenth-century revivals and idealise the leaders of the Methodist revival as heroes of the faith – a methodology reflective of Thomas Carlyle’s maxim that the ‘history of the world is but the biography of great men’.[2] This is especially true of the semi-popular biographies of Whitefield published during the nineteenth century which ‘feed the late Victorian appetite for larger than life historical heroes’.[3] Though Whitefield has been the victim of hagiography, there have been more scholarly and critical biographies in recent years – especially those of the American Academy.[4] This literature aims to capture the authentic Whitefield through a careful and critical analysis of the source material on George Whitefield. The following discussion aims to navigate the literature on Whitefield from the earliest filiopietistic literature published following the evangelist’s death to contemporary scholarly critiques of his life and ministry.[5]
The historiography of George Whitefield begins with John Gillies. Gilles magnum opus was his Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel (1754). This account attempted to chart the success of the Gospel from the closing of the Book of Acts in the New Testament down to the contemporary revivals which Gilles himself had experienced first-hand. In addition to this compendium, Gilles published the first account of Whitefield’s life and ministry, Memoirs of the Revered George Whitefield M.A. (1772), and also edited his published writings – sermons, tracts, and letters – in a six-volume edition of his collected works. According to David Ceri Jones, ‘Gilles biography furnished the evangelical reading public with a detailed picture of the quintessential evangelical’.[6] George Whitefield was presented as a role model for devout evangelicals to emulate and admire. Gillies sources were mostly all from Whitefield’s pen – some 1500 letters, published sermons, and most of his shorter published pieces. The result is a decisively pro-Whitefield biography designed to answer the objections of critics in the late eighteenth century. Not surprisingly, Gilles biography laid the foundation stone for subsequent generations of hagiographers.
Robert Phillip was inspired to write a new life of Whitefield – updating Gilles account – by the congregational philanthropist Thomas Wilson, a member of Whitefield’s Tabernacle and a founding member of both the Religious Tract Society and the London Missionary Society. In his preface to The Life and Times of George Whitefield MA (1837), Phillip writes, ‘This work is chiefly from Whitefield’s own pen. So far as it is mine, it is in his own spirit’. Despite claims to capture the authentic Whitefield, the result is a filiopietistic biography designed to promote evangelical religion. The real Whitefield is hidden behind hagiography. Phillip depends heavily upon George Whitefield’s Journals and the account of his life by John Gilles – quoting extensively from both.
The name of Luke Tyerman dominates the scene of nineteenth century historiography. His Life of John Wesley runs to some 1,857 pages. It provides a wealth of material on the evangelical revivals of the eighteenth century, particularly as they concern life and ministry of John Wesley. Tyerman’s interest in Wesley emerged from his personal commitment to Wesleyan Methodism as both a minister and historian of early Methodism. Martin Wellings suggests that ‘the Methodism in which Tyerman was raised often displayed an uncritical and uninformed adulation of its founder’.[7] Though Tyerman’s approach to the history of Methodism was rigorous, making a careful and studious use of sources, he nonetheless held Wesley in high esteem and eclipsed to some extent the role of Whitefield in the evangelical revivals. Even so, Tyerman’s two volume biography The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield B.A. of Pembroke College, Oxford, 2 vols (1876–7) was ‘the most ambitious to that point … [it] was a testimony to his rigorous approach and contained much that had evaded Gilles’ grasp’.[8] Tyerman’s personal commitment to Wesleyanism leads him to a personal distaste for Whitefield’s Calvinism – a fact leading Jones and Hammond to suggest that Tyerman’s ‘real hero’ was John Wesley.[9] As Wellings observes, ‘Tyerman’s Wesleyanism also placed him firmly on the Arminian side in the debates which fractured the evangelical movement in the eighteenth century’.[10]
In the early twentieth century Albert D. Belden’s biography George Whitefield–The Awakener: A Modern Study of the Evangelical Revival (1930) offered a uniquely social perspective on Whitefield’s life and ministry. His biography opens with a forward by J. Ramsay Macdonald, Britain’s first Labour prime minister, a passionate advocate of Christian socialism. Macdonald is not an altogether unusual advocate for Whitefield, especially as one considers Whitefield’s philanthropy and care of the Georgia orphan house. Belden approaches Whitefield’s biography and influence both from the perspective of evangelicalism and Christian socialism. He therefore gives special consideration to Whitefield’s evangelism, philanthropy, and concern for the education of children and future evangelical minsters. Belden goes so far as to describe Whitefield as ‘the pioneer of modern philanthropy’ who made ‘continuous association of the Gospel with practical charity’.[11] Belden sees the early Methodist societies as anticipating the social organisation of trade unionism. For Belden, the collective organisation of Methodist societies brings with it a sense of spiritual life and wellbeing: ‘By Methodism a newly-oppressed, bewildered, and miserable proletariat … received a new infusion of Life from spiritual sources’.[12] The concluding chapters explore Whitefield’s social impact and consider the evangelical revival in the light of today from theological, psychological, and sociological perspectives – adopting a theologically and socially liberal approach. According to Belden, a revival for the modern world will inevitably be political: ‘Politics will therefore become … for the socially minded the medium of such an active collectivist ethic, the expression of a religion that sees a passionately social God as the centre of a divinely-human kingdom, as the Father of a divinely human family’.[13] For Belden, the new evangelical revival will espouse not only the new birth, but a social Gospel – one that actively transforms society for the betterment of humankind.
By far the most comprehensive study during the twentieth century was written by Arnold Dallimore, a Canadian Baptist pastor. Dallimore approaches Whitefield’s life and ministry from the sympathetic perspective of Reformed evangelicalism.[14] The result is a comprehensive but filiopietistic biography – more akin to a hagiography than an honest life of Whitefield. Though Dallimore suggests he makes known Whitefield’s faults, he nonetheless confesses that he can hardly find anything to criticise about him:
I have endeavoured to give my portrait of Whitefield both reality and depth. I make known not only his accomplishments and abilities, but also his foibles and mistakes. I must confess, however, that I had almost wished his faults had been more pronounced, lest by reason of their fewness and feebleness, I should be charged with favouritism.[15]
He inevitably smooths over some of the rough patches in his life and career – not least his appalling treatment of women. However, Dallimore does sharply criticise Whitefield for his advocacy and personal ownership of slaves, though he commends him for treating his slaves well and instructing them in the Gospel.
Written to counter the dominance of the Wesleyan perspective in Methodist studies, Daillimore’s account is careful to present Whitefield in the light of his moderate Calvinism, attempting to present eighteenth-century Methodism as originally Calvinistic in theology as opposed to Wesleyan. Ian Hugh Clary suggests that ‘His didactic method aimed to stir up evangelical readers to deeper devotion and more zealous mission, and to warn them against false notions concerning conversion, revival, and charismatic gifts’.[16] The narrative is shaped by his commitment to Reformed soteriology and is very much the work of an evangelical pastor concerned to present Whitefield as a spiritual role model for contemporary evangelicals. The design of Daillimore’s biography is to explain the evangelical awakening as a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit – a work of divine providence: ‘Whitefield’s life teaches us that Revival is a sovereign work of God, a supernatural work, a mighty out-pouring of the Holy Spirit’.[17] Though commendable for drawing attention to Whitefield’s evangelical Calvinism, this study nonetheless is part of an attempt by Reformed evangelicals during the twentieth century to claim early evangelicalism as originally Calvinistic rather than Wesleyan or Arminian.
From Dallimore onwards, the literature on George Whitefield takes a more scholarly and critical turn. This critical approach begins with Harry S. Stout’s biography: The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (1991). Stout presents Whitefield as ‘Anglo-America’s first modern celebrity’, a larger than life figure whose early acting experiences paved the way for his dramatic presence in the pulpit.[18] According to Stout, Whitefield synthesised evangelical religion with the language and techniques of the stage – he became an ‘actor-preacher rather than a scholar-preacher’.[19] These techniques allowed Whitefield to popularise evangelical religion on both sides of the Atlantic, attracting thousands to hear his sermons. Though commendable for drawing attention to Whitefield’s dramatic style and oratory, Stout’s biography neglects the substance behind his preaching – particularly his evangelical Calvinism. It is debatable whether Whitefield’s childhood experiences in acting can be properly extended to cover his entire preaching career. Perhaps Whitefield’s listeners were as much captivated by the content of his sermons as the eloquence of his preaching.
Frank Lambert’s work builds on the critical perspective of Stout, particularly by considering Whitefield’s innovations. [20] Lambert approaches Whitefield from the perspective of the marketplace and commerce during the eighteenth century. Whitefield is described as a trend-setter who drew upon the techniques of commerce to sell his brand of evangelical Calvinism in marketplace of ideas. Lambert draws attention to Whitefield’s aggressive use of print media to publicise his awakenings on both sides of the Atlantic – selling his divinity in newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. The epilogue concludes by comparing Whitefield to Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, and Billy Graham, his innovative counterparts in revivalism. Though not sharing the same theological perspective as Charles Finney, Whitefield’s use of print media to advertise his revivals anticipates the pioneering techniques of subsequent revivalism. The parallel with Finney is somewhat undermined by Whitefield’s commitment to the doctrine of predestination – theologically speaking, they are diametrical opposites. Nonetheless, Whitefield use of the press did unite evangelicals throughout the colonies, arguably paving the way for the collective consciousness of the Revolution.
Taking up the political theme of collective consciousness, Jerome Dean Mahaffey explores Whitefield’s influence in forming a cohesive American identity through a ‘rhetoric of community’.[21] This study pays particular attention to the language of Whitefield’s sermons, especially the rhetoric of the new birth and its influence in forming a community of like-minded evangelicals throughout the American colonies. By carefully analysing the rhetoric of George Whitefield’s sermons, Mahaffey shows his influence in the emergence of a collective and distinctively American religious identity. A religious rhetoric that would eventually be transformed into the political rhetoric of the American Revolution. Whitefield, for Mahaffey, should be seen as an American patriot and as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the nation itself.[22]
Thomas S. Kidd approaches Whitefield both as a sympathetic evangelical and an as academic historian.[23] The result is a carefully balanced biography locating Whitefield within his evangelical context while also drawing attention to his failings such as his ‘appalling behaviour in relationships with women … his advocacy of slavery and his personal ownership of slaves’.[24] Kidd attempts to show how Whitefield helped to establish an interdenominational religious movement, theologically committed to ‘the gospel of conversion, the new birth, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of revival across Europe and America’.[25] George Whitefield emerges from this study not only as an evangelical leader, but as America’s spiritual founding father. The study highlights the charismatic nature of Whitefield’s life and ministry. Whitefield emerges almost as a prototype of the modern Pentecostal.
Broadening the approach slightly, Jessica Parr considers Whitefield as a ‘religious icon of the British Atlantic world’, while also considering his ‘understudied influence on evangelical beliefs about slavery, race, and religion’.[26] As a religious icon, Whitefield was a symbol in the post-Reformation struggle for religious tolerance. With respect to slavery, Whitefield inspired abolitionists with his early antislavery sentiments and his preaching of equality before the eyes of God. He also, somewhat paradoxically, was a ‘model of proslavery’ as his personal ownership of slaves suggests. He apparently saw ‘no contradiction between slave owning and his faith’.[27] According to Parr, Whitefield emerges as a crucial figure in the debate over religious culture and liberty in early modern Atlantic world. The final chapter considers Whitefield posthumous role as a transnational icon – highlighting the morbid fascination of evangelicals with the bones and skull of Whitefield in the Newburyport crypt. It was after all the tomb of an American icon.
The most important critical study of twenty-first century is the collaborative volume edited by Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones: George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (2016). This study brings together a team of professional historians working at universities across the globe to present new and creative research regarding the life, ministry, and impact of George Whitefield. The editors open with a consideration of Whitefield’s biographers – giving particular attention to Gilles, Tyerman, Dallimore, Stout, Lambert, and Mahaffey. For Hammond and Jones, there is a general transition in the historiography on Whitefield from hagiography to scholarly criticism.
Boyd Stanley Schlenther opens with a consideration of Whitefield’s personal life and character.[28] He narrates aspects of Whitefield’s biography – his involvement in the Holy Club at Oxford, his difficulties in forming personal relationships, his appalling treatment of women (particularly his own wife), as well as his tendency towards boastfulness, judgementalism, and pride. Schlenther also considers the financial clouds that haunted his life and ministry, particularly with respect to his oversight of the Bethesda Orphanage. Schlenther closes with an account of Whitefield’s physical decline and final years – noting his corpulent appearance and his irascibility in the final years.
Mark K. Olson explores Whitefield’s conversion and early theological formation – considering his progression from Oxford Methodism, to evangelical Methodism, and eventually Calvinistic Methodism. Whitefield’s early association with High Church sacramentalism and holy living theology was gradually replaced with evangelical convictions regarding justification by faith and the new birth. Eventually developing into a moderate Calvinism emphasising the electing love of God and the final perseverance of the saints.[29] In chapter three, William Gibson considers Whitefield’s difficult relationship to the Church of England – examining the attitudes of the clergy and Anglican bishops towards Whitefield and their specific concerns regarding ecclesiastical authority, popery, Jacobitism, and antinomianism.[30]
Frank Lambert explores Whitefield’s complex interaction with the Enlightenment.[31] Lambert assumes there were ‘many competing Enlightenments’ throughout the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century and that Whitefield spiritual enlightenment may be considered a part of them.[32] Whitefield formulated his own distinctively religious response to the Enlightenment in which human reason must first be ‘illuminated by God’s grace’.[33] Whitefield’s opposition to John Tillotson’s theology is explored in considerable depth as well as his more promising relationship to Benjamin Franklin. ‘For Whitefield, there could be no true enlightenment without the transforming grace of God that wrought a new nature in the minds, hearts, and wills of men and women’.[34] In chapter five, Carla Gardina Pestana explores Whitefield’s engagement in the culture of empire – noting how he travelled extensively through the British empire and represented it to his readers in his published journals and letters.[35] He also ‘embraced its characteristic institutions of religious diversity and slavery’, and was instrumental in reshaping its religious culture.[36]
Geordan Hammond focuses on the early relationship between Whitefield and John Wesley.[37] He gives particular consideration to the tensions that characterised the ‘chaotic beginnings’ of the revival and Wesley’s use of the lot in making decisions.[38] Hammond explores the fascinating correspondence between Wesley and Whitefield from their early friendship and deferential relationship to the emerging Calvinist-Arminian conflicts between them. In chapter seven, Kenneth P. Minkema explores the relationship between Whitefield and the philosopher-theologian Jonathan Edwards.[39] He focuses on their interactions in 1740 and the ‘virtually ignored visit’ of 1745, noting especially the frictions between them as well as their shared interests in revival and religious experience. Minkema particularly considers Edwards’ criticisms of impulses, impressions and dreams, of which Whitefield had made much in the early editions of his published journals.
Keith Edward Beebe and David Ceri Jones (co-authors) consider Whitefield’s engagement with the revivals in the ‘Celtic’ nations of the British Isles – Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.[40] Beebe and Jones explore Whitefield’s involvement in creating a British-wide evangelical Calvinist network. The chapter does much to address Whitefield’s role as a ‘unifier of evangelicals in each of the four constituent nations of the British Isles’.[41] In chapter nine, Brett C. McInelly explores the criticism and controversy surrounding Whitefield’s life and ministry.[42] McInelly argues that Whitefield’s ‘public clashes’ reveal much about his ‘character and conviction’, while his apologetic for the evangelical awakening became part of the ‘media machine by which … [he] advanced the Methodist cause’.[43] Whitefield revelled in criticism – taking persecution as a mark of assurance for his ministry and labours, recognising that even ‘bad publicity is good publicity’.[44]
Braxton Boren explores whether it would have been physically possible for Whitefield to preach to the vast crowds supposedly attending his public sermons.[45] The chapter draws upon Benjamin Franklin’s account of Whitefield’s incredible voice and the estimated crowd that could have reasonably heard him – amounting to some 30,000 listeners – similar to the vast crowds that would gather before army generals in ancient history. Using modern simulation techniques and Franklin’s data, as well as the largest crowd estimates for Whitefield’s preaching services, Boren suggests that Whitefield ‘could perhaps have been heard intelligibly by a crowd of 50,000 people’ under ideal acoustic conditions’.[46] In chapter eleven, Emma Salgard Cunha offers a close reading of Whitefield’s sermon ‘Abraham’s Offering up his Son Isaac’, highlighting the similarities between the use of affective language in contemporary poetry and the affective rhetoric of George Whitefield’s preaching.[47] Cunha compares the British dramatist and critic John Dennis (1658–1734) to Whitefield, highlighting the poetics of eighteenth-century evangelicalism with its peculiar concentration on heart religion and the religious affections.
Stephen R. Berry considers the time Whitefield spent on the Atlantic and how he occupied himself on board ship.[48] Remarkably, Whitefield spent approximately three years of his life on the water. In Berry’s words, ‘The Atlantic Ocean defined Whitefield’s identity’.[49] Berry distinguishes four aspects to Whitefield’s life aboard – ‘the ship as parish, the ship as wilderness, the ship as cloister, and the ship as haven’.[50] These headings capture Whitefield’s relationship to the ocean and the way he utilized the journey for spiritual ends. Peter Choi’s chapter considers Whitefield’s relationship to the colony of Georgia, particularly his quest to establish a college on the site of the Bethesda orphanage.[51] According to Choi, Whitefield’s ‘concerns [for Bethesda] developed beyond religious interests to include cultural and imperial aspirations … the Bethesda project was one attempt by Whitefield to sketch his vision of an ascendant Protestant empire on the fluid canvas of colonial life’.[52]
Mark A. Noll considers the importance of A Collection of Hymns for Social Worship published by Whitefield in 1753.[53] The collection was published to coincide with the opening of the Tabernacle in London and represented a pivotal time in Whitefield career. Noll assesses the sensibility and the theology of Whitefield’s Collection ‘which appeared at a transitional moment in the early history of modern evangelical Christianity’.[54] Noll considers the medium in which the hymns were written, the central message of the hymns (namely, the saving work of Christ), and the spirituality they convey. In chapter fifteen, Isabel Rivers’ assesses the various responses to Whitefield’s life and ministry from his death in 1770 to the centenary celebrations in 1839.[55] Whitefield’s irenic interdenominationalism earned both supporters and opponents within Dissent and the Established Church. Many of Whitefield’s supporters were dissenters who struggled with Whitefield’s evangelical catholicism; while many of his opponents were Anglican evangelicals who ‘regarded his influence as extremely damaging to the Church’.[56]
Andrew Atherstone closes the volume with a chapter on the commemoration of Whitefield in popular culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[57] Whitefield was remembered with ‘memorial sermons, monuments, statues, churches, colleges, institutes, re-enactments, and evangelistic campaigns’.[58] Atherstone zooms in on four locations – Newburyport, Victorian England, Savannah and Philadelphia, and post-1950s England – to consider the ways in which Whitefield was understood by successive generations.
Taking a decisively political perspective, Peter Y. Choi’s George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (2018) gives particular attention to the later part of Whitefield’s career – asking the question: ‘What happened after the revival?’[59] Choi portrays Whitefield as an ‘agent of British culture who used his political savvy and theological creativity to champion the cause of imperial expansion’.[60] The study explores the way in which the Great Awakening became increasingly entwined with the expansion of the British empire and culture throughout the Atlantic world. Whitefield with his itinerating on both sides of the Atlantic – crossing the ocean no less than seven times – was a key figure in this development. The study follows the gradual accommodation of the evangelical awakening to the culture of empire.
This survey of the historiography on George Whitefield has shown that much of literature is largely biographical in nature, with the tendency being to focus on his life and ministry. Recent scholarly literature tends to be decisively American in its focus and often political orientated, either focusing on Whitefield’s role as a forgotten ‘founding father’ or his influence in bringing the culture of empire to the American colonies. Much of the scholarly literature has virtually ignored Whitefield’s theological development, giving little or no attention to his published sermons – a key source for exploring Whitefield’s theology. While political and social studies have their place in the study of Whitefield’s life and career, a good case can be made for exploring the theological themes that animated his preaching. No doubt many were attracted to Whitefield by the eloquence of his preaching and his dramatic presence in the pulpit, but perhaps what gripped them most was the life changing doctrines he expounded – particularly the new birth and justification by faith. If they came for the eloquence, they stayed for the doctrine. A scholarly and critical approach to Whitefield’s theology – drawing upon the best theological literature – is therefore needed.
Bibliography
Belden, Albert D., George Whitefield – the Awakener: A Modern Study of the Evangelical Revival (London, 1930).
Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-worship, & the Heroic in History (London, 1840).
Choi, Peter Y., George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (Grand Rapids, MI, 2018).
Clary, Ian Hugh, ‘Arnold Dallimore: Whitefield’s Champion’, in Andrew Atherstone & David Ceri Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History: Faith, Scholarship and the Evangelical Past (Oxford, 2019), pp. 170–93.
Dallimore, Arnold A., George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival, 2 vols (London and Edinburgh, 1980).
Gilles, John, Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend George Whitefield M.A. (London, 1772).
Gledstone, James Paterson, The Life and Travels of George Whitefield (London, 1871).
Hammond, Geordan & David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016).
Haykin, Michael, Bitesize Biographies: George Whitefield (2015).
Jones, David Ceri, ‘“So Much Idolised by Some, and Railed at by Others”: Towards Understanding George Whitefield’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 5 (2013), 3–29.
Jones, David Ceri, ‘John Gilles and the Evangelical Revivals’, in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History: Faith, Scholarship and the Evangelical Past (Oxford, 2019), pp. 22–41.
Kidd, Thomas S., George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (New Haven, 2014).
Lambert, Frank, “Pedlar in Divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994).
Lawson, Stephen J., The Evangelistic Zeal of George Whitefield (2014).
Macaulay, James, Whitefield Anecdotes: Illustrating the Life, Character, and Work of the Great Evangelist (London, 1886).
Maddock, Ian J. (ed.), Wesley and Whitefield? Wesley versus Whitefield (Eugene, OR, 2019).
Maddock, Ian J., Men of One Book: A Comparison of Two Methodist Preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield (Eugene, OR, 2011).
Mahaffey, Jerome Dean, Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation (Waco, TX, 2007).
Mansfield, Stephen, Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield (Nashville, 2001).
Parr, Jessica m., Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon (Jackson, MS, 2015).
Pederson, Randal J., George Whitefield: Daily Readings (2010).
Phillip, Robert, The Life and Times of George Whitefield MA (London, 1837).
Pollock, John, George Whitefield: The Evangelist (Fearn, 1973).
Scotland, Nigel, George Whitefield: The First Transatlantic Revivalist (Oxford, 2019).
Stout, Harry S., The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991).
Tyerman, Luke, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield B.A. of Pembroke college, Oxford, 2 vols (London, 1876–7).
Wakeley, j. b., Anecdotes of the Rev. George Whitefield, with a Biographical Sketch (London, 1900).
Wellings, Martin, ‘Luke Tyerman and the History of Early Methodism’, in Andrew Atherstone & David Ceri Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History: Faith, Scholarship and the Evangelical Past (Oxford, 2019), pp. 102–20.
[1] See, for example, John Pollock, George Whitefield: The Evangelist (Fearn, 1973); Stephen J. Lawson, The Evangelistic Zeal of George Whitefield (2014); Michael Haykin, George Whitefield (2015); Randal J. Pederson, George Whitefield: Daily Readings (2010). For an example of popular biography that avoids hagiography see Nigel Scotland, George Whitefield: The First Transatlantic Revivalist (Oxford, 2019).
[2] Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-worship, & The Heroic in History (London, 1840), p. 21.
[3] Geordan Hammond & David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016), p. 7. Examples of such biographies include James Paterson Gledstone, The Life and Travels of George Whitefield (London, 1871); James Macaulay, Whitefield Anecdotes: Illustrating the Life, Character, and Work of the Great Evangelist (London, 1886); J. B. Wakeley, Anecdotes of the Rev. George Whitefield, with a Biographical Sketch (London, 1900).
[4] See, for example, Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991). Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994). Jerome Dean Mahaffey, Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation (Waco, TX, 2007).
[5] For an analysis of Whitefield’s biographers see David Ceri Jones, ‘“So Much Idolised by Some, and Railed at by Others”: Towards Understanding George Whitefield’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 5 (2013), 3–29.
[6] David Ceri Jones, ‘John Gilles and the evangelical revivals’, in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History: Faith, Scholarship and the Evangelical Past (Oxford, 2019), p. 25.
[7] Martin Wellings, ‘Luke Tyerman and the History of Early Methodism’, in Atherstone & Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History, p. 107.
[8] Jones & Hammond (eds), George Whitefield, p. 6.
[9] Jones & Hammond (eds), George Whitefield, p. 6.
[10] Wellings, ‘Luke Tyerman and the History of Early Methodism’, p. 119.
[11] Albert D. Belden, George Whitefield–The Awakener: A Modern Study of the Evangelical Revival (London, 1930), p. 235.
[12] Belden, George Whitefield–The Awakener, p. 248.
[13] Belden, George Whitefield–The Awakener, p. 288.
[14] Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1970, 1980).
[15] Dallimore, George Whitefield, 1:15.
[16] Ian Hugh Clary, ‘Arnold Dallimore: Whitefield’s Champion’, Atherstone & Jones (eds), Making Evangelical History, p. 170.
[17] Dallimore, George Whitefield, 2:537.
[18] Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991), xiii.
[19] Stout, The Divine Dramatist, xix.
[20] Frank Lambert,“Pedlar in Divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994)
[21] Jerome Dean Mahaffey, Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation (Waco, TX, 2007).
[22] For a similar perspective see Stephen Mansfield, Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield (Nashville, 2001).
[23] Thomas S. Kidd, George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (New Haven, 2014).
[24] Kidd, George Whitefield, p. 4.
[25] Kidd, George Whitefield, p. 3.
[26] Jessica M. Parr, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon (Jackson, MS, 2015), p. 5.
[27] Parr, Inventing George Whitefield, p. 8.
[28] Boyd Stanley Schlenther, ‘Whitefield’s Personal Life and Character’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 12–28.
[29] Mark K. Olson, ‘Whitefield’s Conversion and Early Theological Formation’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 29–45.
[30] William Gibson, ‘Whitefield and the Church of England’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 46–63.
[31] Frank Lambert, ‘Whitefield and the Enlightenment’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 64–81.
[32] Lambert, ‘Whitefield and the Enlightenment’, p. 66.
[33] Lambert, ‘Whitefield and the Enlightenment’, p. 71.
[34] Lambert, ‘Whitefield and the Enlightenment’, p.70.
[35] Carla Gardina Pestana, ‘Whitefield and Empire’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 82–97.
[36] Pestana, ‘Whitefield and Empire’, p. 82.
[37] Geordan Hammond, ‘Whitefield, John Wesley, and Revival Leadership’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 98–114.
[38] Hammond, ‘Whitefield, John Wesley, and Revival Leadership’, p. 98.
[39] Kenneth P. Minkema, ‘Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and Revival’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 115–31.
[40] Keith Edward Beebe and David Ceri Jones, ‘Whitefield and the ‘Celtic’ Revivals’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 132–49.
[41] Beebe & Jones, ‘Whitefield and the ‘Celtic’ Revivals’, p. 132
[42] Brett C. McInelly, ‘Whitefield and His Critics’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 150–66.
[43] McInelly, ‘Whitefield and His Critics’, p. 150.
[44] McInelly, ‘Whitefield and His Critics’, p. 151.
[45] Braxton Boren, ‘Whitefield’s Voice’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 167–89.
[46] Boren, ‘Whitefield’s Voice’, p. 187.
[47] Emma Salgard Cunha, ‘Whitefield and Literary Affect’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 190–206.
[48] Stephen R. Berry, ‘Whitefield and the Atlantic’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 207–23.
[49] Berry, ‘Whitefield and the Atlantic’, p. 207.
[50] Berry, ‘Whitefield and the Atlantic’, p. 208.
[51] Peter Choi, ‘Whitefield, Georgia, and the Quest for Bethesda College’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 224–40.
[52] Choi, ‘Whitefield, Georgia, and the Quest for Bethesda College’, p. 225.
[53] Mark A. Noll, ‘Whitefield, Hymnody, and Evangelical Spirituality’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 241–60.
[54] Noll, ‘Whitefield, Hymnody, and Evangelical Spirituality’, p. 241.
[55] Isabel Rivers, ‘Whitefield’s Reception in England 1770–1839’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 261–77.
[56] Rivers, ‘Whitefield’s Reception in England 1770–1839’, p. 261.
[57] Andrew Atherstone, ‘Commemorating Whitefield in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, in Jones & Hammond, George Whitefield, pp. 278–299.
[58] Atherstone, ‘Commemorating Whitefield in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, p. 278.
[59] Peter Y. Choi, George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (Grand Rapids, MI, 2018), p. 2.
[60] Choi, George Whitefield, p. 3.
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