The Divine Dramatist - George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism

The Divine Dramatist:

George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism

by Harry Stout

Part 1: The Author

Harry S. Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity and Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University, and is also an author. He received his B.A. from Calvin College, M.A. from Kent State University, and Ph.D. from Kent State University. Professor Stout is the author of several books, including The New England Soul, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for history; The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, which received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for biography as well as the Critic's Award for History in 1991; Dictionary of Christianity in America (of which he was co-editor), which received the Book of the Year Award from Christianity Today in 1990; A Religious History of America (coauthor with Nathan Hatch); and Readings in American Religious History (co-edited with Jon Butler). He most recently contributed to and co-edited Religion in the American Civil War and is currently writing a moral history of the American Civil War. He is also co-editing Religion in American Life, a seventeen-volume study of the impact of religion on American history for adolescent readers and public schools (with Jon Butler). He is general editor of both The Works of Jonathan Edwards and the "Religion in America" series for Oxford University Press. He has written articles for the Journal of Social History, Journal of American Studies, Journal of American History, Theological Education, Computers and the Humanities, and Christian Scholar's Review. He is a contributor to the Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching, Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, and the Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West.

Part 2: The Book

The Divine Dramatist:

George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism

by Harry Stout

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (September 1991)

The thesis of this book is that George Whitefield (1714-1770) changed the nature of Christianity by promoting and conducting mass revivals that exploited the weaknesses of institutional Christianity.

The book begins with Whitefield's early years growing up in an inn, which exposed him to many different people, including actors. Later, Whitefield utilized what he learned from the actors and became known for his theatrical sermons. Stout traces Whitefield through some of his difficult days as a student and servitor at Oxford University. As a servitor, Whitefield was in the lowest social class and had to serve more wealthy students. During this time, he converted to Christianity and joined John Wesley's "Holy Club." In 1736, Whitefield graduated and became an ordained deacon in the Church of England.

He first started preaching in London, then went to North America as a missionary. After serving in Georgia, Whitefield returned to London were he was exposed to "field" preaching. In 1739, he became an ordained priest in the Church of England. Stout notes that Whitefield never "rescinded" nor "renounced" his Anglican ordination.

The combination of theatrical oration and open-field preaching proved to be extremely effective for Whitefield. He would go on to conduct field preaching that attracted people by the thousands, and Stout notes that Whitefield preached on more than 18,000 occasions to combined audiences that totaled in the millions. Whitefield was an innovator who used the press to publicize his events and make religion a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace. Stout details Whitefield's sermons to new listeners that focused on the need for regeneration - a new birth - and condemnation of the Church of England (his own denomination).

Whitefield claimed that too many Anglican Church officials were caught up in the "formality" of their office and were perhaps "unconverted." He believed that if a denomination was declining numerically and becoming apathetic toward the Christian faith, then denominational leaders were responsible. Stout writes, "If religious apathy was not the fault of the people, as Whitefield insisted it was not, then it must be laid at the feet of their spiritual leaders. This inverted jeremiad [complaint] had worked well [for Whitefield] in England and the middle colonies, and it worked well in New England."

Stout notes that Whitefield criticized various anti-evangelical church officials, but also the intellectual elite at Harvard College. Whitefield infuriated Harvard instructors by complaining that Puritan classics were being replaced in the college by works by deists.

Whitefield's willingness to criticize high-ranking church officials and academics caused many of them to despise him. Yet, the more he criticized the elite, the more admired he became by the general public. Whitefield was more than popular, however, he was an international celebrity. Stout writes that Whitefield's fame among the general public allowed him to build an international evangelical movement that challenged the establishment from the bottom up. According to Stout, Whitefield was confrontational in his approach to various church leaders: "Confrontation, as Whitefield knew, aroused curiosity, and his own Anglican church was his favorite target. Soon Anglican churchmen throughout the American colonies joined their London brethren in opposing Whitefield. And, as in New England, their opposition simply fueled popular enthusiasm for the young critic who fearlessly denounced clerical 'formality' and Arminian preaching."

Stout points out that many colonists