Charles Finney was born 1792, in Warren, Connecticut, as the youngest of seven children.
\nHis parents were farmers and Finney was never able to attend college.
\nBut with his six-foot-two-inch height, musical ability and leadership skills, he gained a good reputation in his community.
\nHe studied to become a lawyer but after a dramatic conversion experience at the age of 29, Finney became a minister of the Presbyterian Church.
\nHe moved to New York City in 1832 where he founded and pastored the Broadway Tabernacle, known today as the Broadway United Church of Christ.
\nHis logical explanations and presentations of the Christian Gospel reached thousands. Some estimate that he led over 500,000 people to faith in Jesus Christ.
\nFinney is esteemed by Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, singer Keith Green and Jim Wallis of Sojourners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Magazine.
\nFrom the Vineyard movement to political and social crusades, his imprint can be seen.
\nHe was well known for his preaching innovations and allowing women to pray in public.
\nIn addition to his preaching of the Gospel, Finney was active in the abolitionist movement and denounced slavery from the pulpit and denied communion to slaveholders at his churches.
\nHe became a professor and then president of Oberlin College in Ohio. The university became the first American university to allow blacks and women into the same classrooms as white men.
\nFinney envisioned a church that was large in measure as an agency of personal and social reform.
\nIt was from this thought that the evangelical movement became increasingly identified with political causes. Abolition of slavery, child labor legislation, women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and the prohibition of alcohol became the causes of the 19th century church.
\nWith a huge influx of Roman Catholic immigrants coming to America at the turn of the century, Protestants made desperate efforts to regain institutional power and the glory of “Christian America.”
\nThe church launched moral campaigns to “Americanize” immigrants, enforce moral institution and “character education.”
\nThe church pitched their American Gospel in terms of its practical usefulness to the individual and the nation.
\nFinney had experienced “a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost” which “like a wave of electricity going through and through me\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 seemed to come in waves of liquid love.”
\nThe next morning he informed his first client of the day, “I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause and cannot plead yours.”
\nRefusing to attend any seminary, Finney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one question for any teaching was, “Is it fit to convert sinners with?”
\nHe instituted the “anxious bench,” a precursor to today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alter call as well as emotional tactics that led to fainting and weeping and other “excitements” as Finney called them.
\nFinney reacted to the “Great Awakening” by turning from God to humans and from the preaching of objective content to the emphasis on getting a person to “make a decision.”
\nHis entire theology revolved around human morality.
\nFinney believed that God demanded absolute perfection, but instead of that leading him to seek his perfect righteousness in Christ, he concluded that perfect justification was only found in full perfect obedience to Christ.
\nFinney believed that human beings were capable of choosing whether they would be corrupt by nature or redeemed.
\nHe argued against the church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theology of “original sin,” the doctrine that we have all inherited a sin nature and we will sin anytime given the chance.
\nFinney attacked justification by grace alone through faith alone.
\nIn his theology, God is not sovereign, man is not a sinner by nature, atonement is not a true payment for sin, justification by imputation is insulting to reason and morality, the new birth is simply the effct of successful techniques and revival is the result of clever campaigns.
\nFinney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s “New Measures” made human choices and emotions and the center of the church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ministry and replaced the preaching of Christ with the preaching of conversion.
\nWhen church leaders claim that theology gets in the way of growth and insist that it does not matter what a particular church believes, growth is a matter of following particular church principles, they are displaying a debt to Finney.
\nWhen churches praise this sub-Christian enterprise and the barking, roaring, screaming and laughing on the basis that “it works” and one must judge its truth by its fruit, they are following Finney.
\nAccording to Michael Horton, a professor at Westminister Seminary in California, a Gospel that “works” for zealous perfection one momment merely creates tomorrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disillusioned and spent super-saints.
\nNow if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read this far you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re probably asking what in the world does all this have to do with me?
\nAllman tells me “I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m too critical of the church today.” I think part of that comes from my belief that a lot of it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really “work.”
\nBut to find out why it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, I think we need to stop pointing fingers at only today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders and look at where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come from and how we got to where we are today.
\nI personally believe the church should be used to lead the cause in moral change, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe the church should lead the charge legislate their morality on others.
\nIf the church truly shines with the “Glory of God” people will see a difference in us and come join the party.
\nPeople will want to be a part of what we’re doing, not because of what we’re not doing, but because they see a difference in our lives that they want to see in their own.
\nIf not, we become nothing more than a legalistic party pooper wanting to spoil everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun.<\/p>\n
Portions of this piece were taken from “The Legacy of Charles Finney” by Michael S. Horton, Ph.D. a professor of theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, CA).<\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charles Finney was born 1792, in Warren, Connecticut, as the youngest of seven children. His parents were farmers and Finney was never able to attend college. But with his six-foot-two-inch height, musical ability and leadership skills, he gained a good reputation in his community. He studied to become a lawyer but after a dramatic conversion … Continue reading This week’s column: Finney’s reformation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-9Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}