Ben Franklin’s Calvinist Sister
One of the main arguments of my forthcoming religious biography of Ben Franklin is that key relationships with evangelicals and Calvinists, like the revivalist George Whitefield, tethered the skeptical Franklin to the Puritan faith of his upbringing. One of the most important tethering relationships for Franklin was with his evangelical sister Jane. I first encountered Jane (Franklin) Mecom in Jill Lepore’s marvelous Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.
Lepore details Ben and J..