Last week at the Sons of American Revolution conference on religion and the American Revolution, I started my keynote lecture this way: On April 5, 2020, Donald Trump announced (via Twitter of course) that he would be streaming the Palm...
George Whitefield
Liberty University’s Falkirk Center meets all expectations at its “Get Louder” event
Yesterday, Liberty University’s Falkirk Center, the culture war wing of the largest Christian university in the world, held a 1-day conference titled “Get Louder: Faith Summit 2020.” Evangelical Trump supporters were encouraged to yell and scream more, fight more, and...
How Princeton is dealing with John Witherspoon’s slave ownership
I must have missed this from two weeks ago, but the Princeton Public Schools Board of Education unanimously voted to change the name of John Witherspoon Middle School because the Presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and former...
A George Whitefield statue is coming down at the University of Pennsylvania
George Whitefield was arguably the most popular man in colonial America. His preaching was the catalyst for the colonial-wide evangelical revival that historians call the “First Great Awakening.” Recently, the University of Pennsylvania decided to remove a Whitefield statue on...
Tuesday night court evangelical roundup
What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since our last update? Rudy Giuliani shares a tweet from a spokesperson for Liberty University’s Falkirk Center. Notice how Giuliani uses Jenna Ellis’s tweet of Psalm 27 to make a political statement. When he says “we all...
Pastor Greg Laurie Wrongly Tells Fellow Court Evangelicals that the United States Was “founded in a time of spiritual revival”
Here is what Laurie recently told his congregation (as reported by the Christian Post) about his speech (and prayer) at the August 27 court evangelical celebration at the White House: Laurie reminded those in attendance for the dinner that the...
The Author’s Corner with Peter Choi
Peter Choi is Director of Academic Programs at Newbigin House of Studies. This interview is based on his recent book George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (Eerdmans, 2018). JF: What led you to write George Whitefield? PC: It was a seemingly...
The Willow Creek Mess
A couple of weeks ago I was lecturing about George Whitefield to a group of K-12 history teachers gathered for a summer seminar at Princeton University. I was rambling-on about Whitefield’s celebrity and his ability to attract large crowds. I...
The Author’s Corner with Fred Witzig
Fred Witzig is Professor of History at Monmouth College. This interview is based on his new book, Sanctifying Slavery and Politics in South Carolina: The Life of Alexander Garden (University of South Carolina Press, 2018). JF: What led you to write Sanctifying...
On Misspelling George Whitefield’s Name
Twenty-five years ago I was writing an M.A. thesis on separatist fundamentalism in twentieth-century America. One of the key figures in my research was a mid-century fundamentalist named Carl McIntire. (I actually published an article about him in 1994). As...
The Author’s Corner with Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell is Associate Professor of Church History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, Theologies of the American Revivalists: From Whitefield to Finney (IVP Academic, 2017). JF: What led you to write Theologies...
My Review Series on Metaxas's "If You Can Keep It": A Wrap-Up at RNS
Six posts are enough. I could say a lot more about Eric Metaxas’s book If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty, but I decided, for a variety of reasons, to bring the series to an end yesterday....
Review of Eric Metaxas, "If You Can Keep It": Part 5
We are in the midst of a short series on Eric Metaxas’s new book If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. This post examines Metaxas’s understanding of the First Great Awakening and, specifically, the role in the...