George Whitefield

Evangelist for God and Empire

Peter Y. Choi

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781467450126
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Narrates the drama of a famous preacher’s entire career in his historical context

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714–1770) is remembered as a spirited revivalist, a catalyst for the Great Awakening, and a founder of the evangelical movement in America. But Whitefield was also a citizen of the British Empire who used his political savvy and theological creativity to champion the cause of imperial expansion. In this religious biography of “the Grand Itinerant, ” Peter Choi recounts a fascinating human story and, in the process, reexamines the Great Awakening and its relationship to a fast-growing British Empire.

PART 1

Encounters

CHAPTER 1

A British Explorer

George Whitefield came to Georgia as much a British visitor as a Protestant missionary. A complex mix of motivations attended Atlantic crossings in the eighteenth century and Whitefield, who arrived in May 1738, was subject to the same factors as anyone else. The prospect of a fresh beginning, the allure of untold riches, and the conceit of imperial destiny emboldened adventurous spirits to brave the sea voyage. In an era of widespread expansionist ambitions, the young Whitefield harbored more than evangelistic hopes when he traveled to America in 1738. If his childhood in a Gloucester inn—not far from the port city of Bristol—predisposed him to wanderlust, his Oxford education reinforced an Anglo-centric view of the world that stoked ambitions of carrying British Protestant civilization to remote parts of the world. Situating Whitefield’s decision to go to America in the middle of longstanding popular British fascination with the growing edges of empire reveals a key facet of his mission to Georgia. It is therefore important to place the fact of imperial ambitions alongside the Grand Itinerant’s revival aspirations in order to yield new insights into the development of evangelicalism. Indeed at the earliest stages of evangelical Protestantism, a vital connection existed between the cause of empire and religion. By uncovering the ways in which Whitefield appropriated cultural trends like Protestant polemics, commercial trade, maritime mobility, and the celebration of individual liberty, this chapter argues that the religious activism of early evangelicals was indebted to a matrix of British imperial factors.¹

Seen in this light, Whitefield was not only an evangelist of Protestant renewal but also a British explorer in America.² And in a sense this book is a study of the complicated process of forming British national identity in an age of imperial expansion, with a focus on the evangelical Protestant awakenings in North America as one peculiar expression of translating Britishness into a new context. Remembering Whitefield’s British identity and casting his life against the backdrop of a larger process of Anglicization help us to see the religious dimensions of imperial ideology and its corresponding impact on religious renewal. A corollary contention is that seeing Whitefield exclusively, or even primarily, as an evangelical religious leader is not enough. Building on important works that have established the signal importance of Whitefield as a revival figure, this study seeks to bring the religious historiography of Whitefield into conversation with broader themes in British Atlantic history.³

A period of religious pluralization and growing individualism, the first half of the eighteenth century was also a time of imperial state formation and rising nationalism.⁴ It was in such a milieu that Whitefield rallied a sprawling, ambiguously defined empire and spurred the Anglicization of the American colonies by preaching a Protestant message that bore a distinct British stamp.⁵ His contributions to the cause of the British Empire is a dimension of Whitefield’s life and career that historians have overlooked in the rush to explain his revival triumphs. Yet it is difficult to understand the magnitude of that success apart from his contributions to a gathering Britishness—not in lieu of, but in addition to his unmatched gifts in preaching and publicizing. The project of Anglicization and the concomitant call to evangelization were enmeshed in the person and ministry of Whitefield.⁶ In recognition of Whitefield’s cultural significance, one historian called him a “fashionable import.”⁷ He was that and much more. A detailed account will show that he was a calculating exporter of British culture who served as a conduit for dynamic cultural exchange in both directions.

By taking the cultural context of Whitefield’s revival ministry seriously, this chapter sets the stage for understanding his extensive itinerant career as an illustrative study of the mid-eighteenth-century British Empire. With Georgia, the southern frontier of empire, as the focal point, it becomes easier to see how the interests of Protestant revivalism and British imperialism represented two sides of the same ideological coin. More specifically, they were the twin targets of Whitefield’s intensely focused evangelical ambition, such that his efforts to preach for religious revival were at the same time a project of British cultural exportation. The evidence will show that, alongside his role as a revival preacher who traveled the length of the empire for the sake of the gospel, Whitefield also acted as an agent of Britishness.

In order to frame the imperial context for the rest of the book, this chapter focuses on Georgia as (1) the southern frontier of empire and (2) the site of Whitefield’s southern strategy. Because of the seemingly counter-intuitive choice of Georgia as the base for his transatlantic ministry, the chapter opens with a background survey of the thirteenth colony in order to elucidate the significance of its location on the southernmost edge of empire. Delving into the early history of Georgia as the southern frontier of empire will set the stage for Whitefield’s lifelong work in linking the thirteenth colony to its imperial center. For this reason, the chapter follows up the history of Georgia with a biographical sketch of Whitefield that highlights his participation in the Atlantic world stage as a British subject. In particular, we will see how his background primed him for action on the front lines of empire in Georgia. Once we have established his early preference for the American South, we will be in a better position to identify the reciprocal influence of the era’s territorial expansion and religious innovations. A study of the imperial outlines of the revivals illuminates the influence of broader processes in British state formation on the religious life of its subjects.

The chapter concludes with reflections on several theological accents brought into clearer focus by studying Whitefield and Georgia together: his post-Puritan and anti-Catholic orientation as well as his differences with John Wesley, who spent two difficult years in Georgia prior to Whitefield’s arrival. Whitefield’s revivalist emphasis represented a new way of being British and Protestant that broke with past models and differentiated itself from contemporary alternatives. Along the way, we will see how the spread of British colonialism went hand-in-hand with attempts to rearticulate the significance of old religion for a changing world.

The Southern Frontier in Georgia

When rising Protestant evangelical leaders like John and Charles Wesley, and then George Whitefield three years after them, headed to Georgia, they sailed knowingly into the eye of an imperial storm. For these ambitious individuals, it was not so much the frontier wilderness as the front lines of imperial expansion that captured their imagination. Indeed, the colony of Georgia from its earliest years represented a galvanizing cause for British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic. South Carolina needed a buffer from Spanish Florida. Early explorations mistakenly identified silk and wine as lucrative commodities ideally suited to the Georgia climate with ready buyers in London markets. Philanthropists saw a veritable Garden of Eden in the Georgia environment, where the poor could have a new start. And, not least, fifty years after the establishment of the previous colony in Pennsylvania, the British public was itching for another colonial enterprise. In these ways, geo-political tensions, social and economic opportunities, philanthropic aspirations, and imperial expediency converged to offer an enticing opportunity for entrepreneurs of every stripe, including the religious. A survey of early Georgia history therefore sets the stage for explaining Whitefield’s attraction to the colonial South as part of his larger strategy.

The region of America that became the colony of Georgia in 1732 had been through a tumultuous history of imperial claims and native resistance ever since Ponce de Leon’s arrival from Spain in 1513. In the early eighteenth century, tensions mounted with the expansion of British settlements in Carolina and opposing Spanish fortifications in Florida. As a result, multiple skirmishes broke out over what came to be called “the debatable land” in between.⁸ 1715 was a cataclysmic year as South Carolina suffered over two hundred fatalities at the hands of the Yamasee Indians who were leagued with the French and Spanish.⁹ Two years later the Lord Proprietors of South Carolina were more than happy to approve Sir Robert Montgomery’s petition to establish a military colony in the land between South Carolina and Florida. Naming the region “Margravate of Azilia,” Sir Robert sought public support for his work in London by publishing a promotional booklet in 1717 entitled A Discourse Concerning the Design’d Establishment of a New Colony to the South of Carolina, in the Most Delightful Country of the Universe. He followed up that effort with A Description of the Golden Islands, which appeared in 1720.¹⁰ Despite lush descriptions and grandiose intentions, however, he was unable to secure the requisite number of settlers. His grant expired, the southern borders of South Carolina remained exposed, and opportunities for trade and commerce were left untapped. Not to be deterred by the failure of Azilia, Jean Pierre Purry, a Swiss merchant, in 1724 proposed a British settlement in the same region. Financial constraints also doomed Purry’s efforts. In the meantime, due in part to the burden of mounting military defenses in this contested region of the empire, the South Carolina proprietors relinquished their land to the English crown and it became a royal colony in 1729.

Although these various efforts failed to produce their intended outcome, one byproduct of their persistence was the growing awareness among the British public of the pressing need for new settlements in the southern edge of British America. According to one historical account, James Oglethorpe’s 1733 arrival in Georgia “symbolized not only the beginning of a new colony but also the culmination of Carolina expansion ideas during the preceding quarter century.”¹¹ In the mind of the British public, this endeavor by Oglethorpe would have been viewed as only the latest extension of earlier attempts. Thus, more than the extracurricular interest of a few idealistic entrepreneurs, the Georgia project as a whole represented the signal cause of imperial development in the early eighteenth century. If colonies like Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania typified British focus in North America during the seventeenth century, the southern frontier rekindled the thrill of exploration and the promise of colonization in the British expansionist imagination of a new era. The numerous aborted efforts to establish a colony there revealed the difficulties of colonizing America but also the appeal of such an enterprise. The elusiveness of the goal served to reinforce public appetite for a successful venture, laying the groundwork for public opinion to rally around the next protagonist bold enough to undertake the formidable cause.

What followed has not always been clear. The long history of pre-Georgia is complicated by a divergence of historical interpretations and offers an apt reminder of the multiple dimensions of imperial developments. Clarifying the military and philanthropic dimensions of Georgia, and its strategic position for British interests, is important for understanding Whitefield’s early attraction to this region. Yet many historians of Georgia have insisted on a sharp dichotomy between military expansion and philanthropic compassion, leading to falsely monolithic impressions of the thirteenth British American colony. For instance, when Jefferson Randolph Anderson argued that “the chief and controlling object and purpose for the founding of the colony was a military one,” he also dismissed the role of social idealism at work in early Georgia. In his view, James Oglethorpe and the people he recruited knew well that “they were not entering into any unexplored Eden where . . . they might erect a Utopia away from strife and turmoil.”¹² This distinction allowed Anderson to present Georgia as a unique case study, indeed “the only military colony ever sent out from Great Britain.”¹³ In contrast, other historical treatments have tended to accentuate the charitable nature of Georgia’s founding. Ian Steele identified Georgia as a “major transatlantic charity and one that would attract John and Charles Wesley and then, in 1738, George Whitefield.”¹⁴ Such interpretive disagreements continue to obscure the alignment of religious and political factors at play in the early history of Georgia. Allowing for the simultaneity of these factors, on the other hand, we can better understand the ways in which evangelical leaders like the Wesleys and Whitefield engaged their cultural contexts with religious aspirations. Tracing these early developments shows how a distinctly British Protestant version of religious imperialism—at once militant and philanthropic—blurred traditional boundaries in a time of spiritual upheaval and renewal.

In fact, such conflation of religious and imperial aims was so pronounced that one historian spoke of “ecclesiastical imperialism” to describe the spirit of the age.¹⁵ Dr. Thomas Bray, an early supporter of the Georgia project, exemplified this spirit of ecclesiastical imperialism. Bray had long harbored interest in the cause of religion in America as the founder of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). An influential churchman, he had also served as commissary in Maryland where he mediated the authority of the Bishop of London. In 1723 Bray formed a group called the Associates of Bray to leverage his substantial fortune toward ongoing philanthropic work after his death. His interest in prison reform brought him into contact with James Oglethorpe, who, in 1729, after valorous service in the War of Spanish Succession, was serving as chairman of a parliamentary committee inquiring into the state of British gaols. This reform work united Oglethorpe and Bray in common cause that eventually led to substantial funding by the Bray Associates toward the founding of the Georgia colony.

James Oglethorpe was not only the first chairman of the Bray Associates but also a colonel who possessed political acuity alongside philanthropic sensitivity. It was fitting that he would lead a group of twenty-one men to petition King George II for a colony in the contested land between South Carolina and Florid...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Mark A. Noll
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: Encounters
• Part 2: Entanglements
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index