'Unlikely Friends: The Remarkable Story of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin'

At Leben (A Journal of Reformation Life), Aaron Sharp writes:

"At first glance, the friendship that developed between Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield would seem improbable at best and more likely a work of ironic historical fiction. Yet, the bond that developed between two of the eighteenth century’s most colorful figures was one that was genuine, and probably not as conflicted as one might initially assume.

"Americans today are very familiar with the image of Franklin and his importance to the founding of the United States. As an author, publisher, thinker, politician, inventor, and statesman, Franklin’s contributions to American life, culture, and thinking are all but impossible to calculate. De-spite the fact that Franklin’s parents had in his words, 'brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting way,' he would also recall that, 'I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself . . . I soon became a thorough Deist.'1 By the time that Whitefield stepped foot in America in the late 1730s, Franklin had an illegitimate son, a common-law marriage to a woman named Deborah Reed, and was beginning to develop a reputation as a womanizer.

You may read more about this amazing friendship between these two complex men here: Unlikely Friends: The Remarkable Story of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin - Leben

Image Source: Leben

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