That awkward moment when you realize all your religious duty and carefully nuanced theology means nothing without a new birth…
George Whitefield was a contemporary of John and Charles Wesley. While the Wesley bros grew up in a strict, religious environment, Whitefield’s mother ran an Inn, where George would spend his childhood serving church folk, government leaders, hookers, drunks and thieves. George’s father died when he was two, and his step-father eventually divorced his mother. Whitfield was a poor student, but excelled in theater, with a natural gift to memorize, move an audience, and relate to any kind of person put before him. With little direction as a teenager, he began drinking and stealing from others, fighting with his mom so much that she actually kicked him out of the house, so he moved in with his older brother. Eventually, he got a scholarship for poor students to Pembroke College, where he would make ends meet by serving the wealthier students. After about a year at school, Charles Wesley invited George to breakfast, and to consider a deeper faith with the Oxford Methodists, called the Holy Club.
George was hesitant. He was already an unpopular, poor servant to others, so why connect to a group that was sure to bring further ridicule? He was deeply moved by the books Charles gave him to read, but it was Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man that would completely change the direction of Whitefield’s life, and with him, the religious landscape of England and America. Scougal died from tuberculosis at the age of 28, almost 100 years before Whitfield and the Wesleys would read his letter. His letter began strong:
I cannot speak of religion, but I must lament, that among so many pretenders to it, so few understand what it means: some placing it in the understanding, in orthodox notions and opinions; and all the account they can give of their religion is, that they are of this and the other persuasion, and have joined themselves to one of those many sects whereinto Christendom is most unhappily divided. Others place it in the outward man, in a constant course of external duties, and a model of performances. If they live peaceably with their neighbours, keep a temperate diet, observe the returns of worship, frequenting the church, or their closet, and sometimes extend their hands to the relief of the poor, they think they have sufficiently acquitted themselves. Others again put all religion in the affections, in rapturous hearts, and ecstatic devotion; and all they aim at is, to pray with passion, and think of heaven with pleasure, and to be affected with those kind and melting expressions wherewith they court their Saviour, till they persuade themselves they are mightily in love with him, and from thence assume a great confidence of their salvation, which they esteem the chief of Christian graces. (Read the full letter here)
Whitefield would go on to say, “Alas! thought I, ‘If this be not religion, what is?’ God soon showed me. For in reading a few lines further that ‘true religion was an union’ of the soul with God, and Christ formed ‘within us;’ a ray of divine light was instantaneously darted in upon my soul, and from that moment, but not till then, did I know that I must be a new creature” (R. Philip, “The Life & Times of George Whitfield,” p17). Scougal argued that most people put their stock in one portion of the religious experience (intellectual knowledge, physical action, or emotional experience), confusing the part for the whole of Christ. This man’s words would influence Whitefield and the Wesleys understanding of regeneration, or being born again, as being central to the Christian experience. For Scougal, and this would be true of the Wesleys and Whitefield, regeneration/the new birth/the new creation means the fullness of Christ is being renewed in humanity, revealed through four key components, which Scougal defined saying, “”If faith is the root, then love to God and charity to man, along with purity and humility, are the branches.” The characteristics of Christ (faith, charity, purity and humility) grow in the life of the believer who has been born again by the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. This message, proclaimed with dynamic force by George Whitefield to at least 80% of the American population the 1730s and 40s, would come to be known as The First Great Awakening.
I think it is very natural for us to focus on the part of the faith that resonates most with our personalities, whether it be intellect, action, or emotion. Whitefield would argue that until a person is born again, we often function like Nicodemus, unsure what difference a new birth makes. For me, it’s a complete acceptance that I have nothing that I have not received from God’s incredible grace, coupled with a complete desire to welcome the fullness of Christ to transform how I understand the world, how I act in the world, how I feel about the world. Neither Scougal nor this article is arguing that orthodoxy, morals, or positive emotions don’t matter. Rather, they are each a portion of the fullness of Christ, whose confidence was always expressed through compassion and humility. May you find blessing and mercy in a spirit renewed through the fullness of Christ.