Founded and continued in prayer, we follow the Christ-centered vision that the Lord provided to the many people who helped start Whitefield Academy.
Whitefield Academy is named after George Whitefield, the great eighteenth-century Christian revivalist. A native of England, Whitefield helped launch the Great Awakening in Britain’s North American colonies. Preaching outdoors to thousands of people at a time, Whitefield reached a wide range of people with the good news of Jesus Christ, sharing the message of God’s grace in such a way that was clear and accessible to all people, regardless of their socioeconomic status or the color of their skin.
Like all people that God has used in powerful ways throughout history, and as seen repeatedly throughout Scripture, George Whitefield failed to live up fully to the glorious message that he proclaimed. For reasons that are difficult to understand in light of Whitefield’s work, particularly by modern standards, Whitefield committed the grievous sin of defending slavery. We unequivocally renounce and condemn his position on slavery. This aspect of his legacy is inconsistent with Christ’s teaching and how He calls us to live.
The life and ministry of George Whitefield, in both its triumphs and its failures, underscore the importance of Whitefield Academy continuing to pursue a diversity vision for unity in Christ. We believe that each person, uniquely created in the image of God, has inherent dignity and profound worth, and that God has created people with a diversity of cultural, ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. True to the best of George Whitefield’s legacy, the diversity of our school, cultivated in Christ, provides an opportunity for us to experience together what God has always intended for unity in His Son.
