Speak Dramatically...Because It's Real

John Piper on George Whitefield and his dramatic preaching...

But the question is: Why was Whitefield “acting”? Why was he so full of action and drama? Was he, as Stout claims, “plying a religious trade”? Pursuing “spiritual fame”? Craving “respect and power”? Driven by “egotism”? Putting on “performances” and “integrating religious discourse into the emerging language of consumption”?

I think the most penetrating answer comes from something Whitefield himself said about acting in a sermon in London. In fact, I think it’s a key to understand the power of his preaching—and all preaching. James Lockington was present at this sermon and recorded this verbatim. Whitefield is speaking.

“I’ll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop . . . said to Butterton . . . ‘pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why my Lord,’ says Butterton, ‘the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’”

“Therefore,” added Whitefield, ‘I will bawl [shout loudly], I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher.”

This means that there are three ways to speak. First, you can speak of an unreal, imaginary world as if it were real—that is what actors do in a play. Second, you can speak about a real world as if it were unreal—that is what half-hearted pastors do when they preach about glorious things in a way that says they are not as terrifying and wonderful as they are. And third is: You can speak about a real spiritual world as if it were wonderfully, terrifyingly, magnificently real (because it is).

Read or hear John Piper's entire bio of George Whitefield from the 2009 Desiring God Pastors' Conference.

Comments

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I know this is totally unrelated to the point of the conversation here, (I loved the article, thank you for posting it) but why are the quotes at the beginning written with the closing punctuation after the quotations marks?

Example:
"But the question is: Why was Whitefield “acting”? Why was he so full of action and drama? Was he, as Stout claims, “plying a religious trade”? Pursuing “spiritual fame”?"

I would have written, "But the question is: Why was Whitefield "acting?"

I've seen this kind of punctuation several times recently. I appreciate any response.
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[Joe Thorn]

Steve, you have permission to smite Jwow with the sword of relevance.

[Ben Coleman]

Jwojo: it could be the influence of computer programmers. While putting the ending punctuation inside the quotes has been traditional for quite a while, to those of us who are used to dealing with computer languages, it seems illogical. In computer languages, quotes delimit a string, and if you put the punctuation that ends a statement inside the string, the compiler or interpreter will effectively not see it (it is seen as merely being part of the string), and it will result in an error. Get used to that when writing computer programs, and it tends to carry over to writing English.