Almost Christian

George Whitefield's "The Almost Christian" is a sermon delivered in 1739 during the early years of the Great Awakening, when the young Anglican evangelist was challenging the spiritual complacency he perceived in both clergy and congregations. Preached to university audiences and published widely, this discourse emerged from Whitefield's conviction that the Church of England was filled with people who possessed the external forms of Christianity without its transforming power.

Whitefield builds his argument around the distinction between being "almost" a Christian and being "altogether" a Christian, drawing from Acts 26:28 where King Agrippa tells Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." He systematically exposes how someone can fulfill religious duties, maintain moral behavior, and even experience certain religious affections while remaining fundamentally unchanged by the gospel. The "almost Christian" practices devotions, avoids gross sins, and participates in church life, yet lacks the essential experience of the new birth. Whitefield then describes the "altogether Christian" as one who has been truly converted, possessing not merely external religion but an inward transformation that produces genuine love for God and authentic spiritual life. His treatment moves beyond behavioral modification to insist on the necessity of supernatural regeneration.

The sermon became one of Whitefield's most influential pieces, reprinted throughout the eighteenth century and beyond, because it articulated a central tension of evangelical awakening: the inadequacy of nominal Christianity. It helped establish the evangelical emphasis on personal conversion as distinct from church membership or moral reformation. Who should read this: Those wrestling with questions about the nature of true conversion and anyone seeking to understand the theological foundations of evangelical revivalism will find Whitefield's clear distinctions illuminating, though readers uncomfortable with sharp evangelical categories may find his approach overly rigid.