The Pelagianism of Charles Finney

Continuing our analysis of the heresies of Charles Finney from my doctoral dissertation Nettleton vs Finney: The Shift in American Evangelicalism 1820-1830:

Finney’s Pelagianism

Here is the sore point in Finney’s doctrine that no one wants to talk about! I have read very few articles questioning Finney’s soteriology. The reason is obvious. Since Finney is the “hero” of modern revivalism, no negative articles can be tolerated regarding his doctrines. If Finney was a Pelagian then he can in no way be used as an acceptable model in either doctrine or practice.

The fact that Finney rejected evangelical Calvinism so strongly ought to immediately set up the red flag in our minds. Now we do not identify ourselves with a Calvinistic theological system personally, but we recognize that there is truth in Calvinism. However, much of this truth in simply out of balance in a Calvinistic system. Yet Biblicists would readily agree with the sovereignty of God in salvation and revival, the depravity of man, the indwelling sin nature in man and the need for a change of nature in salvation. All this Calvinism stresses. All this Finney rejected. Finney believed such doctrine put too many constraints on evangelism and revival. Fewer people would be saved under such a system. A softer, friendlier soteriological system must be erected in order to get more conversions. Yet Finney ignored the fact that God sent powerful revivals under just such a system in years past.

The charge of Pelagianism against Finney is an old one, going back to the late 1820s. After the Troy, New York conference with Nettleton in 1827, the charges flew. A deputation of “Old School” ministers led by Lyman Beecher sat in on the Troy meetings of Finney to observe the New Measures in action first hand. They
came away shocked. The main point of contention was that the New Measures sought to produce conversions through the arm of flesh. The power God was nowhere seen nor did it seem to be required. By 1835, Finney was being widely denounced as a Pelagian.

Pelagianism was developed in the early years of the 5th century by a British monk Pelagius, a Christian moralist who lived in Rome. Distressed by the moral laxity of Christians of his day, he urged them to live moral lives and to reform themselves. Pelagius taught that men could reform themselves and live free from sin if only they wanted to. Human nature is sufficient as created by God to bring about the desired moral changes. The will is always free to choose good or evil without divine aid. The inherited Adamic sin nature is denied. Adam’s fall and sin had no influence upon mankind. Adam’s sin affected only himself. Pelagius also denied the need of internal grace to keep God’s commands. Human nature was created good and was endowed by its Creator with power to live a morally upright life if a man desired to. “By his free will man is emancipated from God.” This statement by the Pelagian Julian is the key to Pelagianism, which is nothing more than a rationalized moralism (David Broughton Knox, “Pelagianism”, Baker’s Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960, pages 399-400). It put a very strong stress on morality.

Does not this definition fit Finney? A sinner may be saved if he desires and that desire is the only requirement for conversion. There is no need for divine conviction. Finney strongly believed that individuals possessed the power within themselves to make the choice for Christ and for holy living. The issue comes down to “Do you want to be saved or not? If so, just ‘decide for God’!” Here is where the term “Make your decision for Christ” comes from. Salvation is not a “decision”, it is a new birth, where the Holy Spirit brings the repentant sinner to repentance and gives him a new divine nature. Human responsibility is a factor of course, but the Holy Spirit must be considered. Revivalism downplays the work of the Spirit, dumping all of the responsibility on man, who may be saved if only he will.

Salvation then is a mere decision, a proper use of the will. Finney will continue to talk as though he believed in the divine work in salvation but he cannot honestly believe it. Remember, we already noted that Finney rejected any element of the supernatural in revival. Revival was nothing more than the right use of appointed means. Is not the new birth seen in the same light? If salvation is simply the making of a “right choice” for God, is it supernatural? If it is all of man, where does God fit in? If it is of man then it cannot be a work of God, cannot be supernatural, cannot be a miracle. Finney then robs the new birth of its miraculous nature as he does with revival.

Emphasis on morality is also a dead giveaway for Pelagianism. Morality is a manmade substitute for holiness. God is holy while man is moral. Holiness is a state of being while morality stems from a moral code of do’s and don’ts. Man can be moral without God. Some sinners are more moral than Christians. Many sinners do not lie, cheat or steal. This makes them moral but not holy.

Morality or Holiness?

In his theological writings, Finney is obsessed with the Moral Law of God. He dwells much on “Moral Law” and “Moral Obligation”. He spends much time discussing our moral obligations toward God and how God operates according to a moral law. There is much emphasis on morality but not as much corresponding discussion of holiness. Finney neglected the holiness of God and the obligations of Christians to live holy lives in favor of morality. Again, it is not hard to understand why. Finney’s gospel is man-centered and dependent upon human ability. Morality is man-generated goodness. Anyone can be moral if he sets his mind to it. Sinners can be moral. All a man has to do is quite drinking, swearing and beating his wife and he may be considered as moral.

Holiness is quite something else. Holiness is divine while morality is human. Man can be moral without God but he cannot be holy. Holiness, both positional and practical, is divine in origin. Man can do nothing to attain it. He cannot decide for holiness as he could for holiness. This explains Finney’s fixation on morality. To the Pelagian Finney, who centers on human ability in salvation and sanctification, morality is the substitute for holiness. To be moral is to be holy. Absolute morality is the goal in complete sanctification of Finney’s
Perfectionism.

This explain the poor quality of Finney’s converts. They got plenty of morality but not much holiness, which would accompany a true divine regeneration. True Biblical salvation emphasizes the work in the Spirit in the heart of the believer, empowering him to live right nd to bring forth spiritual fruit. Since Finney forsook the divinity of the new birth and since the Holy Spirit was not at the center of his soteriology, all Finney could offer his converts was “Strive for moral perfection!” That takes no grace. One can be moral and still be wicked. So as long as one was “moral” and outwardly righteous, these converts were satisfied with their spiritual condition. After all, they did what Finney told them to do. Sanctification is morality. Be moral and you must be saved. Be even more moral and you can attain entire sanctification. “Make yourself a new heart” and all will be will. We rather preach “let Christ make you a new heart.” This is the crux of the difference. Who saves- you or Christ? Who sanctifies- you or Christ? Do you want to be moral or holy?

Later Doctrinal Problems: Sinless Perfection

Finney’s Pelagianism led him to greater errors later in life. After he took the position of professor at Oberlin College, he fell into the pit of total sanctification. It is easy to understand how he could adopt this doctrine. Remember, Finney rejected the teaching of the indwelling sin nature of man as being too “Calvinistic”. The root of the sin problem in man lay in his will and not in his nature. All a sinner needed to do for salvation was to “choose” to forsake sin and stop sinning. He would “choose” against the world and “make a decision for Christ”.

If salvation was to be understood as nothing greater than deciding to turn on a light, then why would it be so hard for Christians to attain total sanctification? Finney recognized that Christians were still sinning after conversion. Why would this be so? Could not a Christian make a simple exercise of his will and stop sinning as a Christian? He did so at his conversion, why not so again for his sanctification? Could he come into total obedience to the moral law of God? Thus Finney began teaching that a Christian could grow in grace to the point where he completely fulfilled the moral law of God. This is called Oberlin Theology, after the school where Finney served as a professor and later president.

Oberlin Theology is an attempt to force a marriage between “liberal” or “New School” Calvinism (the New Haven Theology) with Methodist perfectionism. To Finney, God was benevolent and man was capable of growing toward perfection, although not absolutely.

A. A. Hodge, in his Outlines of Theology, defines Finney’s teaching of perfection, taken from Finney’s own writings in The Oberlin Evangelist: “It is a full and perfect discharge of our entire duty, of all existing obligations to God, and all other beings. It is perfect obedience to the moral law. A Christian may attain a state of “perfect and disinterested benevolence,” may be “according to his knowledge, as upright as God is,” and be “perfectly conformed to the will of God (A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology. Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1878, page 534).”

Hodge would continue with the question “State the points of agreement and disagreement between these several theories, Pelagian, Romish, Arminian and Oberlin (Finney)?”
1st. They all agree in maintaining that it is possible for men in this life to attain a state in which they may habitually and perfectly fulfill all their obligations, i.e., to be and do perfectly all that God requires them to be or do at present.
2d. The Pelagian theory differs from all the rest, in denying the deterioration of our natural and moral powers, and consequently, identifying the necessity of the intervention of supernatural grace to the end of making men perfect.
3d. The Pelagian and Oberlin theories agree in making the original moral law of God the standard of perfection (Ibid.).

This is the cornerstone of Finney’s perfection, his fixation on the moral law of God. His Systematic Theology is obsessed with the supposed necessity of keeping the moral law of God in order to attain perfection.
Finney put too much faith in the ability of man to reform himself without divine aid. Finney’s evangelism did not require the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to bring the sinner to salvation. All that was needed was for the sinner to desire to be saved and to make the right use of his will in order to be “converted”. Perfection or Finney’s concept of Christian maturity also excluded the need for divine aid. A Christian could fulfill the moral law of God in his own power, will and desire. No divine quickening was required. Again, the issue with man, either sinner or saint, is not nature but ability. The sinner has the ability to be saved within himself and the saint has the same inner ability to fulfill the moral law of God.

Origins of the Oberlin Theology: Birthed in Failure

What moved Finney in the direction of perfectionism in the first place? It grew from his successes in the revivals of the late 1820s and 1830s. Many were saved in areas where religion was very low. Since the churches were in a very low state (according to Finney), the level of spirituality in the areas visited by revival would continue to be lower than desirable. Religion was neglected before the revivals and there was no strong moral foundation by which to build up the new converts.

Finney despaired over the relatively low percentage of true converts out of the great multitudes who made professions in his revivals. Why were so few truly saved? Finney believed it was because he had brought the professors only into a traditional Christianity but not into perfectionism. Finney got a profession out of them but did not disciplize them and follow up on them. Finney said “I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction and into a state of temporary repentance and faith.” So up to 1836, Finney admits that the great number of his converts merely were responding to their “great conviction” but were not necessarily getting saved. Finney admitted that his revivalistic techniques were unable to produce permanent results. Something along the lines of discipleship was still missing in the lives of the “converts”. Finney came to believe that if he had only preached his doctrine of perfectionism earlier in his ministry, he would have seen greater numbers of permanent converts.

The low level of the revivalist converts was of great concern to Finney and his followers. There were so many professions yet so little true fruit. The “converts” must be brought into a more positive relationship with God. If the Holy Spirit could not (or would not) bring them into a true Christian life, then the “converts” must do the work themselves. This idea is not so extreme if we remember that these people were largely responsible for their own “salvation.” Man saves himself under a Pelagian gospel by the proper use of his will to reform. Salvation in Pelagianism is nothing more than a moral reformation, not a true spiritual regeneration. This moral reformation must extend past the initial conversion to the entire life. The way to a good Christian life and testimony was to determine to obey the moral law of God to its fullest extent. This is the aim of Oberlin Perfectionism. Save yourself and them pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and live right. No inward help from the Holy Spirit is required, although it would obviously be a nice thing to have. We have already seen where salvation to Finney was no miracle at all, simply the making of a moral choice. With such a low, naturalistic concept of salvation, is it any surprise that the spiritual quality of its adherents would be so low? A low view of salvation produces a low level of spirituality.

Frustration With Abeka History

We homeschool our children and I teach our oldest son history and science this year. We use a combination of Abeka material and Rod and Staff. I am continuing with World History with my 8th grade son, using Abeka’s History of the World in Christian Perspective, Third Edition edited by Jerry Combee. As with most school history books, this one breaks no new ground and demonstrates little original research. It’s what I called “Sloganized History” mainly just repeating on what previous history books have printed and giving “evidences” for America’s supposed “Christian history”.

When dealing with the Second Great Awakening on pages 317-319 (and at least the book does deal with it!), the frustration mounts, for Combee’s presentation of the Second Great Awakening is full of unforgivable errors. It appears the editors have done no research whatsoever on the Second Great Awakening (SGA), but have instead just lifted material from the Sword of the Lord.

ERROR 1-”In the first half of the 19th century, a series of widespread revivals swept the nation. Peaking in the 1850s…” Wrong. The revival was winding down by the 1830s.

ERROR 2- “The revivals that led to the Second Great Awakening began quietly in New England.” How does a revival begin “quietly?” But the book could have been more precise with the location as being Connecticut, as I date the start of the SGA in 1797 in Connecticut.

ERROR 3- While taking a full paragraph on the Western Revivals, no mention is made at all of the various theological and practical errors which were developed on the frontier, or how the Western revivals differed from the Eastern revivals.

ERROR 4- “Revival surged from the western frontier to the cities of the East.” Wrong. It started in the East and flowed to the West, although many errors and excesses of the Western revivals did damage the revivals in the East.

The greatest mistakes deal with the book’s treatment of Charles Finney. Again, showing no original research at all, but merely repeating material found elsewhere, Combee and his editors completely mispresent Finney and exclude other pastors and evangelists that made greater contributions to the SGA.

ERROR 5- “The man most responsible for the nationwide revival…was Charles G. Finney”. An unforgivable error. The SGA began in 1797 and peaked in the 1820s (not the 1850s as the book claimed). Finney didn’t start his ministry until the mid 1820s (about 1825), when the revival was waning. Finney almost missed it. And why no mention at all of Gardiner Spring, Edward Payson, Edward Griffin or Asahel Nettleton? These men did much more to promote the revival than Finney ever did. But the book completely ignores them and that is a crime against both scholarship and church history.

ERROR 6- “Through the grace of God, Finney was saved, called to preach, and so anointed by God’s Spirit that he became one of the most powerful revivalists America has ever known.” This promotion of Finney to the Godhead is sickening and borders on idolatry, even if it was true. Finney was “one” of the most powerful revivalists. Who were the others? Couldn’t Combee even locate another one, like Nettleton? And seeing the fact that Finney was an apostate with his Pelagianism, I would “blame” God for sending this man out to preach.

The errors of this textbook regarding the SGA then are summarized as:
1. Wrong ending date
2. Ignoring other leaders of the revival, like Nettleton and Payson
3. Claiming that Finney was practically the cause of the SGA
4. Ignoring Finney’s many theological errors, many of which were quite severe
5. Ignoring the errors and excesses of the Western revivals

I had to spend an entire class period correcting the textbook and giving out the truth regarding Finney that church historians seem to want to ignore. I have come to expect no better from Abeka, since they also promote the nonsense that America was a “Christian nation” and that we have some sort of a glorious Christian heritage. They mix Christianity and American Patriotism (or Americanism) and end up with a magpie nest of error. I suspect the materials from Bob Jones University are no better. This is why I only use the book when necessary for history, relying more on original source materials. But what is needed are a set of Christian history textbooks that are accurate, full of original research, that give the “politically incorrect” details of American and World History, that doesn’t waste paper and ink trying to make America into a Second Israel. I’m sure there are such texts and I’m going to have to really search them out, as I will not be using Abeka history after this year for any of my younger children. It is simply not reliable or accurate enough.

The Heresies of Charles Finney, Part 3

Continued from my book Nettleton vs. Finney: The Shift in American Evangelicalism 1820-1830:

Finney’s New Methods

With a change in doctrine came a resulting change in method. Finney came to believe that revivals could be produced by following a set of rules. Finney maintained that it was the right and duty of ministers to adopt new measures for promoting revivals (Charles Finney, Revival Lectures. Grand Rapids: Revell, n.d, page 312). It was deemed impossible for God to bring about reformations but by these new measures (Dod, page 149).

Finney’s New Measures were directly inspired by the Methodists of the Western Revivals. Finney portrayed in his Memoirs that these new measures sprung on him suddenly as if under divine revelation but is clear they were adopted from, or at the very least, influenced by, the Western Methodists. Finney had praised the Methodists as practicing the best form of evangelism (Murray, Revival and Revivalism, page 258). Finney was clearly in the group of the Kentucky revivalists and not of the more rational, traditional, and doctrinal New Englanders. Finney encouraged every type of Western-style emotionalism (Ibid., page 242).

We will first consider the revivalistic methods he employed and why Asahel Nettleton opposed them.

1. Praying for Sinners By Name

Nettleton gave his observation of the practice of mentioning sinners by name in public meetings:
“The practice of praying for people by name, in the closet, and the social circle, has no doubt had a beneficial effect. But as it now exists in many places, it has become in the eye of the Christian community at large, an engine of public slander in its worst form. I should not dare, in this solemn manner, to arraign a fellow-sinner before a public assembly without his own particular request (Tyler and Bonar, page 351).”
It seems that this practice went beyond simply saying “pray for so-and-so that he would be saved.” People were holding up these sinners before the community at large and requesting prayer for them in such a manner as to suggest that they were guilty of some heinous sin. It would be like saying “Pray for so-and-so that she would give up her prostitution” in a public meeting. Such prayers need to be made, but do we need to give a complete case history on the sinner? Do such prayers need to be made openly?

Openly naming sinners in prayer meetings was not practiced in the First Awakening nor in the early years of the Second. For example, Edward Payson of Portland Maine detailed how his prayer meetings were conducted: “Members of the church and others, if they think proper, present notes requesting prayers for the conversion of any friend or relative for whom they feel anxious. No names are mentioned. The notes are placed in a small box by the door, and afterwards handed to me to be read (Cummings, 1:251).”

2. Usage of Great Familiarity in Prayer

Finney was accused of being far too familiar with God in his public prayers. Nettleton described it as “this talking to God as a man talks to his neighbor…telling the Lord a long story about A. or B. and apparently with no other intent than to produce a kind of stage effect (Hardman, page 84).”

Nettleton observed with much regret at the rapid degeneration of the spirit of prayer under the hand of Finney. “That holy, humble, meek, modest, retiring form, sometimes called the Spirit of Prayer, and which I have ever regarded as the unfailing precursor of a revival of religion, has been dragged from her closet, and so rudely handled by some of her professed friends, that she has not only lost all her wonted loveliness, but is now stalking the streets in some places stark mad (Tyler and Bonar, page 352).”

3. Encouraged Women to Pray Aloud In Meetings

Nettleton commented on this practice: “Whoever introduces the practice of females praying in promiscuous assemblies, let the practice once become general, will ere long find, to his sorrow, that he has made an inlet to other innovations (Ibid., page 348).”

While Finney did encourage women to pray aloud in his meetings, he did not allow or encourage women preachers. Yet the exhorters, as we have seen in chapter 5, certainly did. Many exhorters were women who anointed themselves with the same authority to preach and exhort as the men.

4. Use of the Anxious Seat

The anxious seat was a particular seat in a public place in the meeting where the anxious may come and be addressed particularly, be made the subject of prayer and be conversed with individually. Finney admitted its design was philosophical, not theological (Finney, Revival Lectures, page 303). We would today say it was psychological. When the sinner came forward, a few minutes would be spent in personal conversation in order to learn the state of mind of the individual in order to remove their difficulties. The goal was to get each of them to promise to give their hearts to God (Ibid., page 296).

Finney saw the anxious seat as vital to evangelism because it served to make conversions quick. Finney was too impatient for sinners to wrestle with conviction for days, weeks or even years as in the old days. He wanted instant conversions and instant results. If a man will not get saved at the anxious seat, Finney believed the Holy Spirit would forsake him there (Murray, Revival and Revivalism, page 246). Thus Finney taught that a person must come to the anxious seat to be saved (Dod, page 124). The anxious (or mourner’s) bench came to be regarded as a veritable mercy-seat where grace is supposed to abound, as though the Spirit of God manifested His saving and sanctifying power there as nowhere else (Porter, page 203). Finney defended the anxious seat because so many were being saved as a result of its use. It worked, or at least it seemed to produce results, therefore God must approve of it (Murray, Revival and Revivalism, page 283). In Finney’s system, the anxious seat was seen to fill the same need for a public testimony as baptism did in the early church (Dod, page 126).

There was much public opposition to the use of the anxious seat. Charles Spurgeon was concerned about the emphasis of stream-lining conversion into a speedy business. He wrote “I am glad to see instantaneous conversions, but I am more glad when I see a thorough work of grace, a deep sense of sin and an effectual wounding by the law.” He also observed that it is a motion of the heart and not a motion of the feet to come to Christ. Many came to Christ in body by going forward to the anxious seat but never came in heart (Iain Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon, Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth, pages 109,112). Horatius Bonar remarked on usage of anxious seats to multiply conversions “Our whole anxiety is, not how shall we secure the glory of Jehovah but how shall we multiply conversions (Ibid., page 117)?” There were fears that the anxious seat would be used to psychologically twist a sinner under conviction. The sinner is under conviction but is now forced to come forward where his condition is made known in public. This would force him into a position of making some sort of public profession. It scared many away from any profession because they did not want to be held up to ridicule.

5. Called on Converts to Stand in Meetings and Give Public Testimony That They Had Given Their Hearts To God

This was a forced public testimony that a newly converted sinner had accepted Christ. While public testimonials are necessary, they should not be forced, especially on men who had just been saved. It was believed that if a new convert was forced to make a quick public profession, it would prevent him from backsliding away from that profession since everyone in the meeting now knew about it. Thus peer-pressure was used to keep a new convert in line spiritually rather than depending upon the inward work of the Spirit in that person’s heart. This tactic should also be considered a psychological aid to evangelism.

6. Protracted Meetings Designed to Wear A Congregation Down

These type of protracted meetings are now called evangelistic meetings or campaigns that might run for weeks. Their use was no doubt influenced by the Kentucky camp meetings of the early years of the Second Awakening. Finney said they were as old as the Bible. He claimed the Jewish festivals were nothing else but protracted meetings- their manner was different but their design was the same. All denominations where religion prospered held them (Finney, Revival Lectures, page 297). But he did admit that protracted meetings were not necessary for a revival (Ibid., page 302).

These meetings were designed to “wear a congregation down” in the hopes that it would result in a large number of conversions and revival. The evangelist would keep hammering at the congregation day after day with highly emotional preaching until he got the results he was after. It would never be admitted that perhaps the Lord had no intention of giving a revival to that area despite the best efforts of the evangelist. Yet in revivalism, the evangelist is under pressure (sometimes very intense pressure, especially from other preachers) to produce results, so he would stay in the area until something did happen. If no revival resulted, the evangelist or the people were blamed. Some secret sin must have held the revival back. Yet a simple study of church history would have revealed that God sends revival in an unpredictable and sovereign manner and man’s programs could not alter that fact.

7. Services Held At “Unseasonable Hours”

These were held to keep a congregation off balance. One problem that churches have is falling into ruts. The same old services with the same old songs and the same old preacher and the same old forms was seen as the problem. People can get lulled into a rut by a constant conformity of routine. Finney saw one way to get people out of ruts was to schedule meetings at abnormal times- weekdays, daytime services, morning services.

8. The Inquiry Room

This was a room that was set aside to give personal instruction and counseling to those who came forward during the invitation. It would be here, away from the hustle and bustle of the meeting, that the sinner would be directed to Jesus. The personal worker would do everything he could to help that person to Jesus.
There is certainly no sin in personal work but the abuses of this practice are evident. High-pressure techniques to wring a profession out of the sinner were employed with regularity. Again, the pressure for conversions on the part of the preacher and personal worker were intense.

The question arises “How did the sinner get to Christ? Was it by means of inward conviction and drawing of the Holy Spirit or through a highly trained personal worker who knew which buttons to push to get a profession?” The inquiry room was looked upon with suspicion because it was believed that it employed Arminian methods by calling attention to human action rather than the divine. Men were then claiming to be saved because they went forward in the invitation and made some sort of profession in the inquiry room. These fears were summed up by Charles Spurgeon: “Go home alone trusting in Jesus. ‘I should like to go to the enquiry-room.’ I dare say you would, but we are not willing to pander to popular superstition. We fear that in those rooms men are warmed into a fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of enquiry-rooms turn out well (Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon, page 102).”

The Heresies of Charles Finney Part 2

From chapter 7 of my book Nettleton Verses Finney: The Shift in American Evangelicalism 1820-1830:

Charles Finney was born in 1792 at Warren, Connecticut. This was an exciting period in the history of Connecticut as it was enjoying occasional but powerful revivals. It was these years that Edward Dorr Griffin could write “We saw a continued sucession of heavenly sprinklings at New Salem, Farmington, Middlebury and New Hartford…until 1799. I could stand at my door in New Hartford and number fifty or sixty contiguous congregations laid down in one field of divine wonders, and as many more in different parts of New England.”

Finney was a converted lawyer known for his high intelligence. After his conversion, he felt that he should go and plead the cause of the Lord before sinners and thus abandoned his law practice. In 1821, Finney joined the Presbyterian church pastored by George Gale in Adams, New York.

While there is no doubt that his law training had afforded him a fine education and mental discipline, he suffered from a near total lack of theological preparation. He entered the ministry with little preparatory study. He had been saved only 3 years when he started his ministry. He thus had no more ministerial training than a Bible College junior. Finney started as an assistant to his pastor in Adams and studied under him. Finney was licensed by his presbytery in 1823 and started missionary work in Jefferson County, New York. Finney went out with the zeal of a young convert but, as Nettleton observed, no friend or guide to check him.

Finney continued his frontier missionary work in upstate New York with noticeable results. In 1825, Gale convinced him to relocate into a more populated area. Finney then concentrated his ministry around Utica, New York. It was in this region that a revival broke out in 1825 and lasted into 1827. Finney cut his teeth in revival work during this time and was deeply influenced by the things he witnessed.

Finney’s Rejection of Established Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

By 1826, Finney was beginning to reconsider the things he had been taught by Gale regarding revival and evangelism. Gale was an Old School Presbyterian who would have supported the doctrines and practices of the First Awakening. As a Presbyterian, Finney would have been taught the evangelistic philosophies that were accepted by the Puritans and the men of the First Awakening. Gale also held to these ideas. But Finney began to have doubts.

From the start, Finney had rejected what he called “the traditions of the elders” both in orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Despite his total lack of theological training, Finney felt qualified to totally reject the theology and teachings of some of the greatest minds in Church History. In 1835 Finney publicly conceded that he was preaching a “new theology of conversion” although he had begun to turn aside long before that. Asahel Nettleton had realized it much earlier.

Finney was preaching that conversion purely the result of the sinner’s decision with little if any influence of the Holy Spirit. Finney had rejected any and all forms of Calvinism (including the moderate, evangelical type) with its emphasis upon the converting work and power of the Holy Spirit. Under Finney, salvation became a simple exercise of the will. The Holy Spirit did not figure into the transaction. The inducing of that decision was the responsibility of the preacher aided by the Holy Spirit, then any measure that would bring the unconverted to the point of instant and absolute submission had to be good (Murray, Revival and Revivalism, page 246).

Finney, as later revivalists, had an optimistic view of the condition of the natural man. Finney’s saw the sin problem with man was in his will, not in his nature. Man was a sinner not because of an inherited sin nature from Adam but because the man had a problem with the will in that he was wrongly exercising it. He rejected the depravity and deadness of man in sin. Finney thought that if a man could be brought to “will to believe”, he would. Finney preached with no consideration of the sin nature of man. Man was not naturally at enmity with God through the fall and sin nature of Adam- he just has never exercised his will toward God. This is pure Pelagianism. Do the promoters of Finney realize they are promoting a heretic? Or do they overlook these heresies simply because of his numbers and results?

Finney did not pretend to teach a slightly modified form of old doctrine, although he did occasionally appeal to Jonathan Edwards to try to bolster his doctrinal position. He often tried to assert that men like Edwards would have supported his new measures (Albert Dod, “On Revivals of Religion” in Essays, Theological and Miscellaneous Reprinted from the Princeton Review. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1847, page 138). In his Memoirs, page 48, Finney admits he repudiated all the fundamental doctrines of Calvinism, including the vicarious nature of the atonement of Jesus Christ in the interests of preaching revival: “These doctrines I could not receive. I could not receive my teacher’s views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will or any of their kindred doctrines.” In the interest in preaching and promoting revival, Finney rejected any and all Bible doctrines he judged would hinder such work.

Finney’s War on Orthodoxy

Unlike the Western-Revival Methodists who influenced him, Finney sought to rewrite doctrinal standards of the churches. The Methodists of the Western Revival never bothered themselves much with doctrine but Finney was more intellectual and he put much emphasis on theology- his brand of theology. Wherever he went, Finney was eager to turn churches away from the old dogmas to his newer ones. Finney wrote “Wherever I found that any class of person were hidden behind these dogmas, I did not hesitate to demolish them to the best of my ability (Charles Finney, Charles Finney: An Autobiography. Old Tappen NJ: Revell, 1876, 1908, page 46).” He waged a constant crusade to change these “old-fashioned” doctrinal standards. Not only was Finney an evangelist but also functioned as a missionary of his “New Divinity” of the
New Haven Theology.

Finney thus rejected Calvinistic doctrines of the sovereignty of God in conversion, the total depravity of man in sin and the indwelling sin nature in man. To Finney, man was a sinner merely due to his wrong use of his will rather than any inherent sin nature. These beliefs will cause major problems later as we will see.

To be continued…

The Heresies of Charles Finney, Part 1

From Chapter 7 of my book Nettleton Verses Finney: The Shift in American Evangelicalism 1820-1830, which will eventually be re-posted on our website.

The Ministry of Charles Finney I: Finney’s Ministry

What is wrong with this statement?

“When Charles Finney was converted and filled with the Holy Ghost the American churches were in a sickly state. Most churches were either Hyper-Calvinistic or Universalist…apathy prevailed (Homer Duncan, cited in Murray, Revival and Revivalism, page 298).”

Or this?

“One hundred years ago, God raised up a voice so cutting, that it penetrated the hardened hearts of sleeping churches. The Christians were shocked and angered by such piercing words. God was crushing the believers by the voice of Charles G. Finney and a tremendous revival swept over our land (Jack Chick, The Last Call: A Revival Handbook. Chino, CA: Chick Publications, 1978, page 3).”

The problem is that both statements are totally wrong! By the time Charles Finney began his ministry in the mid-1820s, America was still enjoying the benefits of the powerful revivals which rocked the country in the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. Finney started his work late in the Second Great Awakening and almost missed it, getting in on about the last few years of it. The majority of American churches were in no way hyper-Calvinistic nor Universalist nor apathetic. Most modern revivalist historians and Finney apologists ignore the powerful ministries of Nettleton, Griffin, Payson and Dwight. Charles Finney has been raised to the level of a hero and a personality cult has been erected around him.

Is Finney worthy of such accolades? The historical records clear say “no”. We must turn our attention to the man who was in reality responsible for the destruction of the foundation that had been set by the First Awakening and the leaders of the Second Awakening in the East.

This man is Charles Grandison Finney. While he is not responsible for developing what would later be known as the “New Measures”, he is responsible for promoting and popularizing them in the East.

Finney and his influence must be studied and analyzed because he is totally almost universally lauded as the man who sparked and fueled the Second Awakening, which is clearly untrue. John R. Rice, founder of the Sword of the Lord and a devotee of Finney, called him “the greatest soulwinner in the 19th century” after Moody (while completely ignoring all the other worthy evangelists of this era) (John R Rice, The Power of Pentecost. Murfreesboro TN: Sword of the Lord, 1949, page 234).” Louis Gifford Parkhurst, writing in Jerry Falwell’s Fundamentalist Journal, referred to Finney as “the greatest preacher and theologian since the days of the apostles (Louis Gifford Parkhurst, “Charles Grandison Finney: Preached For A Verdict.” Fundamentalist Journal, June, 1984, page 41).” Fred Barlow, writing in the Biblical Evangelist, said of Finney

“When you read the messages and the ministry of Charles Finney, you get the strange sensation that you are reading pages right out of the Acts of the Apostles…No American evangelist in his ministry ever more paralleled the apostolic preaching, passion and power of a Simon Peter or an Apostle Paul as did Finney (Fred Barlow, “Charles Grandison Finney- Apostolic Evangelism”. Biblical Evangelist, July 1967).”

These claims must be searched out. After a careful reading of Finney, of his own works and biographies of him, I must reject the high praise heaped on Finney. Instead, I would go so far as to charge Charles Finney of marring the Second Awakening and of being the first true New Evangelical! In very direct terms, Finney was a heretic, both practically and theologically, and is not worthy of the accolates that have been heaped on him. I think many men looked as his “results” but never examined his doctrines or methods, even today.

Was Finney the greatest soulwinner of the 19th century? He is responsible for many professed conversions, yes, yet his evangelism is inferior to that of the preachers who ministered early in the Second Awakening, including Nettleton. Was he the greatest theologian since the days of the apostles as Parkhurst claims? Certainly not. Other men far surpassed Finney in terms of theology. Promoters of Finney also refuse to deal with Finney’s doctrinal problems, including his Pelagianism and teaching of entire perfection.

(more to come)