A Cautionary Tale
Without doubt, one of the most troubling aspects of Whitefield’s legacy was his involvement with slavery—one of the most ubiquitous features of life in the eighteenth century British world. At first, Whitefield was controversial for the way he called out Southern slave owners for their awful treatment of slaves. But it wasn’t too long before Whitefield made the fateful decision to become a slave master himself.
George Whitefield dedicated his life to teaching the Scriptures and calling people to know and love God. This biography explores the life of Whitefield as a prominent figure in the early evangelical revival in an honest, historical, and balanced way.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Whitefield saw slaves as people created in the image of God, and he urged slaves to experience the new birth and spiritual liberation. But in a failure of biblical love and justice, that never translated into Whitefield advocating for their physical emancipation.
When it came to slavery, Whitefield was undoubtedly a product of his own time and place. He was influenced by his context without being inevitably determined by it. His failures—even more visible with the benefit of three centuries’ worth of hindsight—serve as a cautionary tale of the dangers of complicity with our culture’s fallenness. They also force us to ask, Are there planks in our own spiritual eyes that threaten to impair the clarity of our own moral vision?
Ian Maddock is coauthor with Tom Schwanda of Whitefield on the Christian Life: New Birth to Enjoy God.
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