George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire Paints a Realistic Portrait

I recently was given a copy of George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, written by Peter Y. Choi.  Like a lot of people who know a lot about the history of the American colonies or of religious history, I knew who George Whitefield (pronounce WIT-field) was.  Whitefield is often portrayed as a preacher who played a huge part in the Great Awakening.  He’s often painted as a saint.  This book seems to paint a more balanced portrait of the preacher.

George Whitefield:  Evangelist for God and Empire tells of the life of Whitefield, not just as a preacher, but as someone who also was a flawed individual, like all of us.  Yes, he preached to the masses during the Great Awakening, but he also owned slaves, had questionable practices with regards to his orphanage, tried to found a college, and involved himself in politics during the War of 1812.

Even though I knew some things about Whitefield before reading this book, there was a lot more to this book that I didn’t know.  Although a lot of things in this book (looking from a 21st century perspective) were not good, like pushing for slavery in Georgia, it was good to learn about these other aspects of his life as well.

The book was a fairly scholarly book, so it wasn’t one that I could read straight through.  It wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down, and I did read a few other books while I was working on this one, but the information in this book was interesting.  The book is worth reading if you want to learn more about this preacher.

I realize that there have been several non-YA book reviews over the last week and a half, and unfortunately, that’s just how it worked out… I really couldn’t move the dates of my reviews because I wanted the ARCs to get out in a timely manner, and I also wanted to keep my upcoming Throne of Glass and Red Queen reviews together.  On Thursday, we will resume our normal YA reviews with Strange the Dreamer.