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Christianity Today, July, 2009

Evangelicals on the Newburyport Trail

George Whitefield's tomb is attracting a brisk flow of visitors. Just don't make a big deal about it.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald | posted 7/23/2009 09:26AM

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Anyone looking for the burial site of George Whitefield, the bigger-than-life 18th-century evangelist who paved the way for American revivalists from Billy Sunday to Billy Graham, needs to have good eyes and perseverance to find it here in the small seaside city of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

That's because no signage exists to help visitors locate his tomb beneath the pulpit of "Old South" First Presbyterian Church, which organized in 1742 in response to a Whitefield-led revival in a nearby field. Newburyport's chamber of commerce doesn't list the crypt among its historic sites. Only an 8.5 x 11 inch computer printout, taped to a side door of the church, tells Whitefield fans that they've reached their destination.

Lack of tourist infrastructure, however, doesn't keep crowds away. Anywhere from 700 to 1,000 visitors, mostly evangelicals from as far away as California and the United Kingdom, make a pilgrimage to Old South's crypt each year. Over the past two years, travelers from 41 states and 22 countries have signed the tomb's guest book. So brisk is the visitor flow in warm-weather months that more than one of every ten church members is trained to give tours.

"If you're into spiritual renewal or revival, and a lot of conservative people are, then this is where you come," says Old South pastor Rob John.

Evangelicals walk a fine line in journeying to pay homage to Whitefield (pronounced "WIT-field"), a Calvinist who scorned pilgrimage and veneration of relics as so much "works righteousness." "Human beings collect relics and associate with tombs," says Tom O'Loughlin, a pilgrimage expert at the University of Wales-Lampeter. "So you have the classic pilgrimage basis there, but it's for a preacher who would have been shocked and annoyed [by the practice]. That's an interesting irony: You can preach a theology as long as you like, but human nature will reassert itself."

Yet 239 years after the Grand Itinerant died while passing through Newburyport, his tomb's custodians and visitors alike are finding a way to honor his legacy as well as their own traditions. The key, it seems, lies in the tomb's remarkably low profile, which belies its international drawing power. This subtlety helps mitigate tensions that enduringly surround the site. And after centuries of trial and error at Whitefield's gravesite, his admirers may at last be learning that in Protestant shrine keeping, sometimes less is more.

Passion and Ambivalence

Whitefield in life was anything but subdued. Pioneer of the open-air revival meeting in the First Great Awakening, he reached millions with his dramatic style and controversial endorsement of emotional outpourings in Christ's name. He was so famous that when he died in 1770, delegations from as far away as Georgia (where Whitefield had served as priest) arrived within days to claim his remains. But locals rebuffed the would-be pallbearers from out of town, making Newburyport an unlikely destination for pilgrims to this day.

Pastor John leads a gracious tour of what's known to some evangelicals as "the Whitefield Church." He points out the sanctuary's hulking cenotaph, which describes Whitefield as "bold, fervent, pungent, and popular." In the narthex, glass cases exhibit Whitefieldian memorabilia, such as a letter of congratulations from George Washington and the hymn Whitefield wrote for his own funeral. Then it's downstairs to what John calls "our world-famous basement." Across from an oil-burning furnace and recessed in a mostly enclosed alcove, a plaster replica of Whitefield's skull atop a Bible marks the spot where he and two early Old South pastors rest in peace. Signatures in guest books date to 1869.

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July 2009, Vol. 53, No. 7

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Ben

July 27, 2009 11:34am

cenotaph: A monument erected in honor of a dead person whose remains lie elsewhere. I thought this was a neat word and one that I might run across again if I knew what it meant. It turned out that the author of the story may not have quite known what it meant either. But maybe the fact that the cenotaph is upstairs and the remains are in the basement fulfills the meaning of the word. If you go away renewed in energy from "touching your roots" then it is a useful trip.

Ken Stewart

July 24, 2009 8:34am

A really stimulating article! Yet this article oscillates between treating Whitefield in his own right, as an influential eighteenth century evangelist (good) -- and making him the first in a succession of 'revivalists', or leaders of revival meetings -- a succession extending into our own time (not good). The latter questionable approach 'telescopes' downward distinctions which are worth preserving. According to the Dictionary of American English (as well as the Oxford English Dictionary) most of the terminology we are now accustomed to applying to this succession of intinerant preachers extending down to our own time (revival meeting, revivalist, etc) have no history of usage earlier than the nineteenth century. Thus when we use this terminology in a 'one size fits all' way, we unwittingly make a Whitefield, a Wesley, an Edwards into the likeness of nineteenth century figures, rather than likening the later figures to the earlier. This is in no one's interest.

Roy

July 24, 2009 7:30am

One small historical tidbit was missing from this otherwise fine article. Whitefield's thumb is in the archives of Drew University, part of that long heritage of venerating the remains of the saints who have gone before.

James Reid Ross

July 24, 2009 4:28am

May our Lord baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with Fire to ignite a new "Great Awakening" looking to the past as an example but also to the present to seek unity in the Body of Christ divided into evangelical and liberal way too much, as long as Christ is preached we have a common bond! The Lord's Will will come to pass He is Soverign Lord and He and our Father's will, shall come to pass. May the Word be preached and the lost saved before they perish in the lake of fire.

Parel

July 23, 2009 11:35pm

Jane: A correction. Whitefield was not a Presbyterian but an ordained priest in tge Church of England. He succeeded John Wesley as the Anglican missionary/pasor in Georgia. Ironically, an Evangelical ecumenist, he had much less to do with the Anglican church in this country, but worked mainly with Presbyterian and Congregational churches, which largely benefitted from his labors. I read two of his biographies this year: Harry Stout's Divine Dramatist and an older one, The Awakener. Whitefield was a co-founder of Methodism at Oxford and trail blazer for the Wesleys in preaching in the open air. He organized an orphanage in George, first such venure in the colonies. The Awakener has a photo of his statue on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia as he was associated with his friend Benjamin Franklin in the founding of the school which eventually developed into the universtiy. How sad that our generation of Evangelicals knows so little of our spiritual ancstors!

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