Whitefield’s Connection to the Present?

George Whitefield’s detractors often viewed him at best as a charismatic preacher teetering on the bounds of decency and civility and at worst as a performer.  Kidd builds a picture of a sincere and engaging preacher who drew many crowds and whose scandals and open conflicts drove much of Anglo-American religious debate during the mid 18^th century.  Though Kidd successfully paints Whitefield into his historical context he never delivers completely on answering the question, “So what?”.

It is clear that the revivalist movement Whitefield was an intricate part of is the predecessor and source of many characteristics of Anglo-American evangelicalism, but Kidd doesn’t clearly make that point.  Whitefield wrote several patriotic sermons around British military engagements (the merger of politics and theology being an attribute of the modern evangelical movement), but it wasn’t made clear if this was a Whitefield innovation or not.  Whitefield’s preaching style and enthusiasm brought popularity and visibility to a movement – a movement which had lasting impacts on the American religious scene – however, Kidd never made it clear whether Whitefield’s style was an innovation later to be copied or simply a polished example of a trend happening throughout 18^th century revivalism.

Was Whitefield firmly a star of the 18^th century Anglo-American revivalist movement or does he also have something to add to the contemporary conversation?  To me, Kidd did not make a strong case for Whitefield outside of his historical context.