Benjamin Franklin

Review: The Printer and Preacher

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Printer and the Preacher" by Randy Petersen.

The Printer and the Preacher, Randy Petersen. Thomas Nelson (ISBN: 9780718022211) 2015.

Summary: Recounts the story of the unlikely friendship of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin.

The printer and the preacher. They were the most unlikely friends. One was an Oxford educated Englishman, thoroughly convinced of the gospel of Christ which he preached, and a man of utter rectitude in his marriage and dealings. The other was a Boston-born grammar school dropout, a deist who expounded a gospel of self help, an industrious printer and civic leader in Philadelphia, and not above sexual flirtation and affairs. George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin.

Randy Peterson offers a fascinating account of how these disparate figures became friends, a relationship that lasted until 1770 when Whitefield, the younger man, died. Petersen also sketches the lives and impact of these two important figures in early American history. It all began in 1739 when Whitefield established a business relationship with Franklin as the printer of his sermons. This was a huge success for both men, multiplying Whitefield’s influence, already widespread, and profiting Franklin’s printing business. Franklin used his newspaper to report Whitefield’s preaching engagements (as well as his critics).

Over the years, the two became friends, with Whitefield a regular guest in Franklin’s home whenever passing through Philadelphia. Naturally, Whitefield, the evangelist, tried to convert Franklin, who believed in God, but did not believe Jesus to be God but merely a good teacher. But why did Franklin not only tolerate these efforts but regard Whitefield so highly. Among the reasons, was Whitefield’s eloquence and powerful preaching and its impact. This was because Franklin cared deeply about the civic growth of Philadelphia and the colonies, and the transformed lives of converts contributed to the improvement of morals and the advance of the common good. Not only that, Franklin admired Whitefield’s work in founding and supporting an orphanage in Georgia. And he showed concern for Whitefield’s health, weakened by his tireless preaching.

Petersen argues in this book that not only was their friendship mutually beneficial, it was important to America’s beginnings. Printing was the basis of Franklin’s influence, prospered early on by Whitefield’s sermons. Through printing, Franklin established a communications network, connecting the colonies. Whitefield’s preaching throughout the colonies, amplified by Franklin’s efforts, connected the colonies spiritually. In addition, Whitefield operated outside hierarchies and across denominations, a kind of revolution of the spirit that preceded political revolution.

And there is one more important consequence of their friendship identified by Petersen. They modeled religious freedom in their friendship. Franklin deeply respected and advanced Whitefield’s efforts, while never embracing Whitefield’s faith. And Whitefield remained a fast friend of Franklin, respecting his life and benefiting from his civic vision.

Petersen doesn’t offer the definitive biography of either man but probes deeply into this important friendship. And in this, he probes the wonderful opportunity of what can happen when differing parties keep talking and listening in mutual respect, recognizing common interests and respecting differences without requiring compromise. Might they serve as a model for our own day?

Review: An Infinite Fountain of Light

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

An Infinite Fountain of Light, George Marsden. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A brief introduction to the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards, setting him alongside two of his contemporaries, Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield.

George Marsden is one of the outstanding scholars we have in the area of American religious history, His biography of Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, won the Bancroft Prize in 2004, a prize recognizing outstanding works of American history and diplomacy. This work, much briefer, introduces us to some key ideas of Edwards, setting him alongside two contemporaries, Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield. The chapters began as the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2008 and have been developed in subsequent presentations.

What Marsden hopes to do here, as he explains in his first lecture, is to translate Edwards, who spoke and wrote for his time, for us, at least a few of his profound ideas about the beauty of God who is light and love, and about how we might recognize rightly ordered love of God in the life of one who claims to be in Christ. He then offers a short biography of Edwards focusing on his pastoral ministry and oversight of revivals, his role as an apologist for the “New Light” movement and his publication of the Religious Affections.. He briefly covers his alienation from his congregation in Northampton over who may participate in communion, his ministry with Native peoples in Stockbridge, and his presidency at Princeton and connections to the Burr family.

The second lecture considers Benjamin Franklin and how his ideas cleared the way for the modern/post-modern immanent framing of life, focused on a material universe, human initiative and activity, the autonomous individual. While Franklin and Edwards were acquainted they were worlds apart. Franklin held to vaguely theistic beliefs and believed religion played an important role in motivating the moral life necessary for the democratic ordering of society. Yet his vision of the self made person anticipated Charles Taylor’s “buffered self.”

I thought the third chapter was worth the price of admission in elucidating Edwards ideas of the “new light” of God’s beauty Edwards apprehended in his conversion. In contrast to Franklin’s materialist outlook, Edwards saw “that the universe is most essentially an ongoing expression of a loving God [that] offered a dramatically radical alternative to the emerging perspective on the universe shared by Franklin and others in the era following the work of Isaac Newton” (p. 48). Far from a distant deity, Edwards saw all of this as a personal expression of the Triune God. Edwards was enthralled with the beauty of this love both in creation and the sacrificial work of Christ. He further saw the beauty of God’s love and joy in creation and salvation as a “fountain of light” illumining and transforming the life of one who believes, leading to a life of love ordered by the One whose loving light has shown into the believer’s life.

In Chapter Four, Marsden considers Edwards’ other contemporary, George Whitefield. Edwards welcomed and defended Whitefield’s preaching in New England, hoping that he would stir the revival fires that had died down. While Edwards defended New Light ideas within an establishment shaped by the Reformers, Whitefield innovated both in message and methods of promotion that anticipated modern evangelicalism, anticipating the Wesleyan movement and those which followed. His conversionist message would be recognizable to evangelicals today, and its core paved the way for movements with far less stress on education than that which Edwards and Whitefield shared. It also paved the way for the diversity of churches dotting the American landscape.

The concluding chapter considers the Religious Affections or as Marsden translates the term, the rightly order loves that distinguish those who are truly regenerate from the falsity of those who are not. Such love begins with the indwelling Holy Spirit who makes real God’s love in the believer. This results in love centered on the loving God rather than the self. Such love is drawn to the moral beauty of God. This is more than rational knowledge of the love and beauty of God; it is a heart enthralled by that love and beauty. Yet rightly ordered love also involves right understanding shaped by the scriptures. Such love is humble. It is lamb-like, not proud, arrogant, or self-asserting. It is tender of spirit. The true believer’s life will be one of symmetry and proportion, reflecting an eigthteenth century idea of beauty. Rather than fading, the appetite for the beloved grows, and finally eventuates in a life of actively growing in grace. Against the shallow spirituality and cults of personality in the present day church, Marsden sees the vision of the “infinite fountain of light and love” and the “rightly ordered loves” of Edwards offering profound insight for the growth of believers in Christ.

Marsden appends to this material an edited version of Edwards’ sermon “A Divine and Supernatural Light” from 1733, in which we can see how Edwards develops the ideas Marsden has discussed. If only this were the preferred sermon rather than “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” as representative of Edwards.

This is a delightful little book that both introduces the reader to some important strands of Edwards’ thought, worthy of translation into our contemporary context, and considers the shaping influence of his contemporaries Franklin and Whitefield on both secular belief and evangelical practice. This left me reflecting why the latter have had far greater influence, it seems, than Edwards, when he is often deemed America’s foremost theologian. Perhaps it is this matter of translation. We seem to be better at translating Edwards flaws, whether they be the “Sinners” sermon or his slave holding, than his striking insights into the nature of God and how this bears on true spirituality. Perhaps this book and the renaissance of Edwards studies will help redress this balance, if we keep the necessity of translating well, as Marsden has done, in mind.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Loyal Son

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments

Loyal Son

The Loyal Son, Daniel Mark Epstein. New York: Ballantine Books, 2017.

Summary: The history of relations between Ben and his illegitimate son William Franklin, from filial loyalty to estranged parties as a consequence of the Revolutionary War, and each man’s choices.

I’ve read a biography of Ben Franklin and numerous histories of the Revolutionary War, and had never realized how deeply estranged Franklin and his son were until I read Daniel Mark Epstein’s well-researched study of the lives and the tragic relationship of these two men.

It was not always so. William, an illegitimate offspring of Franklin’s, was raised as a son by him and Deborah. They worked side by side in the affairs of Philadelphia, fought alongside each other against Indian attacks, and went to England together to plead against the Penn family, who as proprietors of Pennsylvania enjoyed an exemption from taxes for defense of the Commonwealth. Franklin supported William in his legal studies while William was at his side in his laboratory and often his emissary in legal pleadings with the Solicitor General. They were engaged together in a land deal for western lands. William gained such a reputation that he even marched in George III’s coronation procession while Ben observed from a distance. While in England William met and married Elizabeth, shortly before they all left for America.

For a few short years, the family was together as Elizabeth gave birth to William Temple Franklin (who would be known as Temple). Ben returned to England as a representative of the colonies for their growing list of grievances against England. William eventually secures an appointment from the Royal Court as governor of New Jersey. From here their paths begin to diverge. Ben becomes increasingly disenchanted with England and concludes that independence for the colonies is the only answer. William remains a loyal to the crown, executing his office well (New Jersey being among the last to join to movement for independence). When Ben becomes involved in the cause against fellow governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts, the divide becomes greater.

After a brief return to America in 1775 (after Deborah had died of stroke during his long absence) and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ben went to France as America’s emissary, taking Temple, who played a role similar to William in his earlier years. Before he departed, he tried to intercede with William to withdraw from his governorship gracefully.  William, stood firm, until finally arrested. When paroled, he acted subversively, endorsing pardons of New Jersey loyalists and otherwise acting to subvert the revolution. When discovered, William is imprisoned under deplorable conditions in Litchfield. Ostensibly, Ben does, and can do nothing without seeming in complicity with the son and giving fodder to his own enemies in the colonies. Eventually, in ill health, he is released, but too late to comfort Elizabeth, who dies in New York City. Instead of leaving the country, William continues efforts to mobilize loyalists in subversive activities in support of England, including and indirect role in the seizure and hanging death of hated Captain Jack Huddy.

Only when peace is finally achieved is an attempt made at reconciliation. William makes the first move, in a moving letter of apology to his father, to which Ben responds with coldness. Eventually the two meet, but only for William to sign over lands to satisfy debts to his father. They remained estranged for the rest of their lives, and it was Temple, and not William, who remained in England on a government pension, who inherited from Ben. Sadly, Temple did not otherwise benefit from the influence of his illustrious grandfather, living a dissolute life without direction or purpose.

The “loyal” in Epstein’s title underscores the crux of this book, William’s choice of loyalty to Crown above family. It might have been one thing had he fulfilled his office of governor until displaced. His persistence in the loyalist cause, against all his father and family held dear was fatal to his relationship with Ben, who could not forgive this. Yet one wonders if things might have been different had Ben been more present as a father, particularly in that critical period after he was arrested, and eventually transported to Connecticut. Did his resistance stem in part from his father’s absence when his mother Deborah’s health was failing, while Franklin engaged in affairs with other women?

While William comes off as stubborn, and from an American point of view, a traitor to his country, Ben Franklin comes off little better, and perhaps worse–more interested in money owed than in restoring the son who once worked and fought at his side. Each had betrayed the loyalty of the other, yet it is a mark against the legacy of the elder Franklin that he was so unwilling to forgive. One may attribute this to the exigencies of war which often presses people to hard choices, yet in Epstein’s telling, the elder Franklin comes off poorly.

Epstein shows us a side of Ben Franklin’s life that has been muted in many portrayals of this founder, as well as giving us a full-bodied rendering of William. One unusual aspect of this rendering is the debt Epstein acknowledges to William Herbert Mariboe, whose unpublished 1962 doctoral dissertation on William Franklin he calls “the best biography of William Franklin ever written.” One wonders what might have been if such generosity had existed between father and son Franklin. Sadly, that is a story not to be told.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.