A Brief Biography of George Whitefield
General Information:
Born on December 16th, 1714 (youngest of seven children) and died on September 30, 1770. His father was a wine merchant and owned the Bell Inn. His father died when George was two years old. As a child, George was described as full of mischief and pranks with bad habits in profanity and drunkenness and stealing money from his mother.
George wanted to be an actor and some of his early exposure to Christianity was imitating ministers who read prayers. He worked his way through college (Pembroke College, Oxford 1732) and there started reading the writings of the Puritans. These writings had a deep influence on George. Later George became trained in Calvinistic thought and joined a small 15 member group called the “Holy Club of Methodicals “ a group that later used the nickname “Methodist.” The emphasis was to carry religion to the masses.
George was ill his entire life. He often longed for death. He consistently had an illness which manifested itself in extreme fatigue, chills, fever and profuse sweating.
The Itinerant Preacher in the Great Awakening
George Whitefield was considered to be the finest preacher of the period. His skills in oratory were far beyond those preachers contemporary with his time.
He made seven trips to America. Between England and America he preached an estimated 18,000 sermons during the period of 1736-1770. Normally he preached two sermons per day or about 530 sermons in a year.
In modern terms, Whitefield invented 'commercial evangelism.' He prepared pamphlets to be passed out and advertised in the newspaper of his forthcoming revivals. He made a great deal of money for his close friend Benjamin Franklin, and his publishing business (1739-41), pub. 110 titles). John and Charles Wesley, contemporaries and best friends, rejected advertising. They viewed it as tasteless 'sounding of a trumpet” [Lambert]. Whitefield was an
entrepreneur. He once purchased a 500 acre plantation to supplement an orphanage he started in Georgia (used slave labor, by the way). He did a commercial business in trade and sold thousands of volumes of his sermons. He had no problems with the commercialization of religion.
Cragg describes Whitefield's preaching as Calvinistic Methodism. But at this time, Whitefield himself was a Anglican priest who preached pietism and proclaimed the necessity of a new birth.
It is said that the normal audience for Whitefield could consist upwards of 25,000, even to 50,000 in the open air. Whitefield voids accounts of 40-50,000, stating that thousands left because they could not hear. Ben Franklin gives an account of proving Whitefield's speaking ability. Even though Whitefield and Franklin differed theologically, (Ben Franklin was a Deist) nevertheless he helped him build a 7000 s.f. building to give Whitefield a place to preach in Philadelphia.
Suffering from asthma, Whitefield died in his sleep after preaching what was to be his final sermon in Newbury Mass.