Charles
Finney is said to be the Father of American revivalism.
The 29-year-old lawyer Charles Grandison Finney had decided
he must settle the question of his soul's salvation. So on
October 10, 1821, Finney headed out into the woods near his
Adams, New York, home to find God. "I will give my heart to
God, or I never will come down from there," he said. After
several hours, he returned to his office, where he
experienced such forceful emotion that he questioned those
who could not testify to a similar encounter.
"The Holy Spirit … seemed to go through me, body and soul,"
he later wrote. "I could feel the impression, like a wave of
electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed
to come in waves of liquid love, for I could not express it
in any other way."
The next morning, Finney returned to his law office to meet
with a client whose case he was about to argue. "I have a
retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause," he
told the man, "and cannot plead yours."
Timeline
1792 Charles Finney born
1875 Charles Finney dies
1878 William & Catherine Booth found Salvation Army
And so began the new career of the man who would become the
leading revivalist in the nineteenth century.
Born in Connecticut, Finney was raised in Oneida County, New
York. After a couple years teaching in New Jersey, he
returned to New York to help his mother, who had become
seriously ill. Meanwhile, he began studying law and became
an apprentice to a judge in Adams.
After his conversion, Finney prepared for ministry in the
Presbyterian church and was ordained in 1824. Hired by the
Female Missionary Society of the Western District, he began
his missionary labors in the frontier communities of upper
New York. A rigid Calvinism dominated the theological
landscape, but Finney urged his listeners to accept Christ
openly and publicly. His style differed too; his messages
were more like a lawyer's argument than a pastor's sermon.
At Evans Mills, he was troubled that the congregations
continuously said they were "pleased" with his sermons. He
set about to make his message less pleasing and more
productive. At the end of his sermon, which stressed the
need for conversion, he took a bold step: "You who have made
up your minds to become Christians, and will give your
pledge to make your peace with God immediately, should rise
up."
The entire congregation, having never heard such a
challenge, remained in their seats.
"You have taken your stand," he said. "You have rejected
Christ and his gospel." The congregation was dismissed, and
many left angry.
He rode from town to town over what was known as the
"burned-over district," a reference to the fact that the
area had experienced so much religious enthusiasm that it
was thought to have burned out. Newspapers, revivalists, and
clergy took notice of the increasingly rowdy
meetings—meetings unlike those of reserved Calvinists.
Identifying Finney's revivals with those a few decades
earlier in places like Cane Ridge, Kentucky, many were
ecstatic about prospects for "awakening" in the northeast.
But others were opposed to the "plain and pointed preacher."
The Old School Presbyterians resented Finney's modifications
to Calvinist theology. Traditional Calvinists taught that a
person would only come to believe the gospel if God had
elected them to salvation. Finney stated that unbelief was a
"will not," instead of a "cannot," and could be remedied if
a person willed to become a Christian.
The zenith of Finney's evangelistic career was reached at
Rochester, New York, where he preached 98 sermons between
September 10, 1830, and March 6, 1831. Shopkeepers closed
their businesses, posting notices urging people to attend
Finney's meetings. Reportedly, the population of the town
increased by two-thirds during the revival, but crime
dropped by two-thirds over the same period.
From Rochester, he began an almost continuous revival in New
York City as minister of the Second Free Presbyterian
Church. He soon became disenchanted with Presbyterianism,
however (due largely to his growing belief that people
could, with God, perfect themselves). In 1834, he moved into
the huge Broadway Tabernacle his followers had built for
him.
He stayed there for only a year, leaving to pastor Oberlin
Congregation Church and teach theology at Oberlin College.
In 1851, he was appointed president, which gave him a new
forum to advocate social reforms he championed, especially
abolition of slavery.
Finney produced a variety of books and articles. His
Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), a manual on how to
lead revivals, inspired thousands of preachers to more
consciously manage (critics said "manipulate") their revival
meetings. His Lectures on Systematic Theology (1846) teach
his special brand of "arminianized Calvinism."
Finney is called the "father of modern revivalism" by some
historians, and he paved the way for later mass-evangelists
like Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham.
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