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

by Harry S. Stout

Commonly acknowledged as Anglo-America’s most popular eighteenth-century preacher, George Whitefield commanded mass audiences across two continents through his personal charisma. Harry Stout draws on a number of sources, including the newspapers of Whitefield’s day, to outline his subject’s spectacular career as a public figure.

Stout shows that Whitefield was from first to last a Calvinist, earnest in his support of orthodox theological tenets and sincere in his concern for the spiritual welfare of the thousands to whom he preached

Although Whitefield here emerges as very much a modern figure, given to shameless self-promotion and extravagant theatricality, Stout also shows that he was from first to last a Calvinist, earnest in his support of orthodox theological tenets and sincere in his concern for the spiritual welfare of the thousands to whom he preached.

Harry S. Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University and general editor of The Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia and director of the Jonathan Edwards Center.