THE LIVES OF DAVID BRAINERD
The Making of an American Evangelical Icon
By John A. Grigg
Oxford University Press
276 pages. £40.00
ISBN 978-0-19537-237-3
Few men have had the extensive posthumous influence of David Brainerd.
John Grigg, in this doctoral thesis, has sought first to set Brainerd in the context of 18th-century American life and then to examine the accounts that have been written of his life. I thought when I saw the title that it would be iconoclastic, but I ended with a great respect for Brainerd and scepticism towards those who have retold his life story to further their own interests. Edwards, as the first chronicler, left out Brainerd’s visions and other enthusiasms as he sought to present him as the ideal Christian example for the standards he wanted to see in his congregation. Wesley removed as much of his Calvinism as he could. Later writers exaggerated his work and claimed for him, among other things, the solution of the Indian problem in American life as well as inventing a romance between him and Edwards’s daughter. This section of the book is a great warning to those whose homiletical purposes overwhelm accurate storytelling.
