Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 121

REVIEWS

In other words, two ways a person's work survives their death is
through institutions-for Wesley, Methodism-and thought-
for Edwards, his voluminous writings. But Whitefield left neither,
and the impression that Kidd's book gives is that the evangelist's
nomadic existence prevented him from staying put long enough
to found an institution or craft reflection that could endure.
This is not Kidd's final verdict, to be sure. As someone who is
both an evangelical and a research-university based historian,
Kidd hopes to bridge the gap in Whitefield studies between hagiographical and skeptical accounts. True to his own evangelical
Protestant sympathies, Kidd contends that Whitefield was "the
key figure in the first generation of Anglo-American evangelical
Christianity." His conclusion follows directly from his premise:
Whitefield linked a fledgling religious movement through his
travels, preaching, and publicity. "Without him," Kidd writes,
"Anglo-American evangelicalism would have hardly represented
a coherent movement."
Kidd's conclusion has merit but overreaches. To be sure, Whitefield became the cynosure within a constellation of zealous and
introspective eighteenth-century English-speaking Protestants
who questioned the adequacy of churches patronized by civil
authorities to nurture genuine Christian devotion. As the most
famous of the promoters of the new Protestant piety, Whitefield
was the banner under which pastors and laity alike could rally.
But whether his followers and admirers amounted to a coherent
religious movement is simply an assertion.
The very comparison Kidd makes of Whitefield to Wesley
and Edwards suggests a different measure for coherence. Did
Whitefield's followers achieve organizational coherence? Did
formal membership in Whitefield's movement (or in born-again
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

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