Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Tom Schwanda
7 Practices for Spiritual Progress According to George Whitefield
Spiritual Practice as Means George Whitefield examined seven practices to encourage spiritual progress: reading Scripture, secret prayer, frequent meditation on Scripture, observing God’s providential dealings, watching the motions of the Holy Spirit, making full use of God’s ordinances, and keeping company with other Christians who were walking with God. This was not intended to be an exhaustive list.
Making Sense of Whitefield’s Legacy and His Complicity in Slavery
A Cautionary Tale Without doubt, one of the most troubling aspects of Whitefield’s legacy was his involvement with slavery—one of the most ubiquitous features of life in the eighteenth century British world. At first, Whitefield was controversial for the way he called out Southern slave owners for their awful treatment of slaves. But it wasn’t too long before Whitefield made the fateful decision to become a slave master himself.
George Whitefield’s Theology of Sin and Salvation
Far from undermining his sense of assurance, the doctrine of unconditional election brought Whitefield tremendous spiritual consolation. In his experience, the two doctrines were inextricably linked.
George Whitefield’s Theology of Sin and Salvation
Conviction of Sin Theological anthropology and soteriology were tightly interwoven in Whitefield’s proclamation of the gospel.
June 2025 New Releases
New Books Below is a list of the new and notable resources releasing this month from Crossway. Titles include Sharing Christ in Joy and Sorrow by Chris Bruno and the ESV Expository Commentary 12-Volume Set. Sharing Christ in Joy and Sorrow: A Theology of Philippians Chris Bruno In this volume of the New Testament Theology series, author Chris Bruno explores the theology and themes of Philippians and highlights how this letter fits into broader biblical theology.
10 Things You Should Know About George Whitefield
Whitefield embodied and exemplified many of the features that have come to characterize evangelicalism for the past 300 years…bypassing ecclesial structures and creating a trans-denominational evangelical community. In the process, he helped cultivate evangelicalism’s signature fondness for parachurch ministries.
George Whitefield: “Occasional Theologian” and Lifelong Evangelist
Whitefield might have had a lifelong allergic reaction to unapplied and abstract theology, decrying “letter-learned” professing Christians who wrote about the new birth but had experienced “no more of it than a blind man does of colours”; and yet, beneath this polemical rhetoric lurked a preacher who, when he arrived at Calvinistic convictions, was willing to expend significant time and energy proclaiming and defending them in the public arena.
George Whitefield: “Occasional Theologian” and Lifelong Evangelist
Theology in the Pulpit By his own admission, George Whitefield was not a theologian—at least, not of the conventional sort. Indeed, he never aspired to be one. In much the same way that his Methodist field-preaching compatriot John Wesley has been famously dubbed a “folk-theologian”1—a practical theologian as opposed to a systematic theologian—Whitefield might aptly be described as an occasional theologian.
10 Things You Should Know About George Whitefield
This article is part of the 10 Things You Should Know series. 1. Whitefield consistently proclaimed the necessity of the new birth. When George Whitefield entered Pembroke College at Oxford University in 1732, he was soon attracted to Charles and John Wesley and others who had formed what has often been called the “Holy Club” (more accurately known as the Oxford Methodists).
Improving Our Baptism: How can we better claim and celebrate our baptism?
The Larger Catechism of the Westminster Standards (1648) asks and answers a very important question in Q&A 167: Q. How is our baptism to be improved by us? A. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others... How do we "improve our baptism"? In other words, how can we better claim and celebrate our baptism?
How George Whitefield Expanded the British Empire
I always celebrate new books about George Whitefield, because so few have been written about him, especially compared to Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. Peter Choi’s lavishly researched and well-crafted book, George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, is the distillation of his doctoral research under the able guidance of Mark Noll.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Tom
Contact Tom, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack