Whitefield's failings

Here are some criticisms Mark Noll has of George Whitfield in his The Rise of Evangelicalism. He is especially reflecting on the enduring mark he might have made on American evangelicalism:

  • 'Extraordinary disregard for inherited church traditions' (along with 'a breathtaking entrepreneurial spirit'),
  • A tendency towards 'insubstantial castle-building, it was much easier for him to begin things than to follow through,
  • 'Whitfield was winsomely naive and casually judgmental in ways that continue to mark at least some strands of evangelicalism in America',
  • 'All-or-nothing commitment to evangelism at the expense of well-considered Christian social ethics'.