On Sunday I noticed that the movie “A Great Awakening” was available on Amazon Prime, and I watched it. As an old man who remembers the Bad Old Days, I approach all Christian movies with suspicion, but I was pleasantly surprised.
In case you’re not familiar with it, the film is about the relationship between Benjamin Franklin and the evangelist George Whitefield. Generally, it avoided preachiness, despite the fact that one of the main characters was a preacher.
The film opens during the Constitutional Convention, as the assembly seems about to collapse, with federalists and states’ rights advocates unable to find common ground. Someone calls on Benjamin Franklin to share his wisdom, but he goes home without making a statement. That night he is reminded of his old friend Whitefield, and he tells his grandson the story of their friendship.
We travel back to Whitefield’s childhood as the son of a widowed innkeeper in England. A kindly patron offers to provide funds for him to attend Oxford University. However, he’ll have to attend as a servant, caring for the needs of wealthy students. Those students treat him with contempt, except for the members of the “Holy Club,” the Christian group led by the brothers John and Charles Wesley. Joining them, George becomes a zealous worker with the poor, and in time experiences his own faith breakthrough. Once ordained, he finds his fiery preaching unwelcome in the Church of England, and concludes that there will be better fields of harvest in America.
On this side of the ocean, his preaching (particularly his ability to project his voice to huge numbers at once) impresses Franklin. Whitefield, for his part, wishes to contract with Franklin as his publisher. As Whitefield’s mission prospers, the arrangement brings great profit to both of them, though Whitefield’s percentage goes to support an orphanage he establishes in the south, which proves more expensive than he hoped.
We watch Franklin’s increasing involvement in revolutionary politics, and learn that Whitefield didn’t live long. In their final meeting, Franklin continues to reject Whitefield’s invitations to believe in Christ, denouncing Whitefield’s decision (hypocritical in light of his previous condemnations of slavery) to use slave labor at his orphanage, in order to prevent bankruptcy.
But when Franklin returns to Congress, he draws on his memories of Whitefield to suggest a possible plan for bringing the representatives together.
All in all, it was a pretty effective movie. I believe it’s questionable whether Whitefield himself would have ever supported independence – he was a loyal subject to the king all his life. I was a little disappointed that they changed his appearance – he famously had one crossed eye; here the eye looks cloudy instead. The writers made an honorable choice in including his failure on the slavery issue – though it weakens the story line a little.
I think it’s questionable whether Franklin’s resolution was really offered with Whitefield in mind, and I’m pretty sure historians will question whether it was that resolution that saved the Constitution.
But movies aren’t about exact history; compared to films like “Braveheart,” “A Great Awakening” towers like a monument to verisimilitude.
The actors’ performances are extremely good. The production values are quite high, considering the production company’s available resources. The plot is generally effective and even moving.
We have in fact reached a point in history when Christian and conservative filmmaking is often palpably superior, both in content and artistry, to most of Hollywood’s output. I look forward to seeing “Young Washington” when it becomes available to me.
Movie-wise, the future looks pretty bright for our side.
