‘A Great Awakening’: How Benjamin Franklin’s Press and Whitefield’s Pulpit Inspired America’s Revolution

The story of an English preacher George Whitefield, “A Great Awakening,” is in theaters ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. On a one-man crusade across the Thirteen Colonies, Whitefield is seen catching the eye of “the First American,” Benjamin Franklin, a believer only in selling newspapers until the young nation is on the brink of “anarchy.”“A Great Awakening” depicts the disarray behind “the Miracle of Philadelphia” at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. In portraying Franklin, John Paul Sneed is admirable. The cinematography, costumes, props, and sets are superior to many films with larger budgets than its $13 million.The director-screenwriter, Joshua Enck, lets Franklin take over “A Great Awakening,” as legendary figures are prone to do. Jonathan Blair’s George Whitefield is passionate and likeable. Yet the film spends more time exporting the American, who is turned into a witty religious skeptic by “hypocritical” preachers. His is a soul Whitefield wants to save. When told that something “must be providence,” Franklin replies, “or a coincidence.” Yet he knows “religion sells” and plans “to make a lot from” printing Whitefield’s sermons. News can “soothe or stoke the hearts of the people,” Franklin says. “Both sell papers,” and the Pennsylvania Gazette is the largest newspaper in the colonies. Whitefield spoke to an estimated 8 million people in America, where the population in 1776 was only 2.5 million. “He spent more time on a horse than on the ground,” Franklin says. Skeptical of the “fish tale” about how far the preacher’s voice carried, the newspaperman applied science only to find it even more powerful.“One tiny candle,” Franklin says, “illuminates a thousand.” Religious differences aside, he and Whitefield are both rebels. “I’m sorry to see you here,” a fellow reverend tells Whitefield before one sermon. “So,” Whitefield responds, “is the devil.” Fired by the Anglican Church, he builds his own pulpit and preaches in the streets. Whitefield finds America a better place to preach and do good works. He opens an orphanage but, to sustain it, turns to slave labor. When Franklin mocks this as “a stain on your name” and ungodly, the pastor admits that he lived a “flawed life,” although he sought only to save the children. At London, Franklin warns Admiral Richard Howe that the crown risks rebellion by ignoring colonial concerns. “An entire generation of Americans have been awakened” by Whitefield, Franklin says, “to believe that liberty is not a gift given to them by a king but a right given to them by God.” Howe dismisses the colonists as “vagrants” and “farmers,” saying any war will be “short-lived, but exhilarating.” The resulting conflict was neither. By the Constitutional Convention, the unity born of fighting a common enemy was gone. Along with Franklin, Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Madison are left struggling to save the country.Small states like Rhode Island — which, for skipping the convention, Franklin calls “Rogue Island” — fear domination. Madison urges the delegates not to repeat the mistakes of Rome and Greece but fails to persuade. Washington beseeches Franklin to raise his voice, believing the convention will listen to its most senior member.Franklin draws inspiration from Whitefield, observing that in peace the convention had “forgotten that powerful friend” who answered their pleas in wartime. He moves that they once again have a clergyman lead them in prayer before the start of each session. It’s a tradition that Congress maintains to this day.“A Great Awakening” focuses less on the Christian revival than on how it transformed the generation that dared to challenge an empire. That makes it a good insight into early America and how Whitefield helped spread the revolutionary concept of God-given rights — one candle lighting 250 years of liberty.

‘A Great Awakening’: How Benjamin Franklin’s Press and Whitefield’s Pulpit Inspired America’s Revolution

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