Charles Finney: Revivalism, Controversy, and Lasting Impact

Finney was a staunch believer that that was true. It was connected to his optimism, and what he says that is so intriguing is we need excitements until the millennium comes, and the millennium will come soon. At one point he said, "If we all just do our duty, the millennium could come within three years," and then he said, "Of course, we know the millennium needs to come soon, because we cannot long continue excitements. A nervous system long excited will break down." [00:01:25]

But in his own day, what he was particularly remembered for as I mentioned last time, were these "new measures," the new methods he used to try to break down walls of opposition to the preaching of the gospel and to conversion as he saw it. Let me go through some of these new measures, because they may not seem quite so new or surprising to us in our day, but they were all of them quite controversial in this day. [00:02:23]

First of all, he allowed women to preach in mixed audiences. This was very shocking, for women to be allowed to pray publicly where men were present, and this lead to a good deal of discussion and controversy. Then he introduced what were known as "protracted meetings." When Wesley preached or when Whitefield preached in the 18th century, they would preach once, and then they would move on somewhere else to preach. [00:02:53]

Finney would also pray for the unconverted by name, whether they recognized themselves to be unconverted or not, and this understandably was rather controversial in his day. He also would allow people immediately on their conversion to become members of the church, and this was controversial because some people thought you need more than one sermon to be ready to become a member of the church. [00:04:34]

Nevin said, "Either you believe that Christianity is primarily about excitement and sudden conversions, or you believe that Christianity for most people is a matter of gradual development and instruction." A lot of people in the 19th century really loved biological metaphors. "We need to be growing up into Christ. We do not suddenly bloom in Christ," and the catechism is what leads us fully, gradually, maturely to understand the faith. [00:07:34]

Hodge wrote at one point, "The constant exhortation is to make choice of God as the portion of the soul, to change the governing purpose of the life, to submit to the moral governor of the universe. The specific act to which the sinner is urged as immediately connected with salvation is an act which has no reference to Christ. The soul is brought immediately in contact with God. The mediator is left out of view. We maintain that this is another gospel." [00:13:29]

Hodge would continue, "Conviction of sin is made of little account. Christ and his atonement are kept out of view, so that the method of salvation is not distinctly presented to the minds of the people. The tendency of this defect, as far as it extends, is fatal to religion and to the souls of men." And then really intriguingly, Hodge would write at another place of Finney's system, "A very slight modification in the form of statement would bring the doctrine of Mr. Finney into exact conformity to the doctrine of the modern German school, which makes God but a name for the moral law or order of the universe or reason in the abstract." [00:14:37]

I think this is an important warning to us. Just because someone has a lot of passion in their religion is not evidence that they are very biblical in their religion. Later Hodge's successor at Princeton, B. B. Warfield, would write a great tome, usually published in two volumes or more called "Perfectionism," in which he would write extensively about Charles Finney, after Finney's day of course. [00:15:55]

Warfield summarized what he had to say about Finney this way, "It is quite clear that what Finney gives us is less a theology than a system of morals. God might be eliminated from it entirely without essentially changing its character." Now, if your Christianity can get along without Christ and without God, it's not Christianity. It is not even close to Christianity and that is a serious critique that we need to bear in mind whenever we think about these things and about this whole matter of what in revivalism can be good and what can be bad. [00:16:32]

I like Nevin's definition of revivalism. He said, "Real revivalism is the extraordinary blessing of God on the ordinary means of grace." The ordinary means of grace are always with the people of God, particularly the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. Those are always with the people of God, but sometimes God in his mercy sends the Holy Spirit to grant a special blessing where those ordinary means are operating, and that is what should properly be known as a revival. [00:17:24]

Almost always when Mark Twain commented on anything, he sort of had the best thing to say or at least the cleverest thing to say. Many people have forgotten that he has something very important to say about revivalism in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Tom Sawyer was published in 1876 and towards the end of the novel, after Tom has escaped from Injun Joe, Twain writes that Tom had been in bed for two weeks with the measles and when he got out of bed, so this is quoting Twain now, "There had been a revival, and everybody had got religion, not only the adults, but even the boys and girls." [00:18:18]

It could come to town, it could convert everybody, it could be exciting, it could be new, it could seem to transform things. But within a few weeks, it was all gone, and that is not perhaps a fully fair or comprehensive statement, there were people who genuinely affected and changed by revivals and by revival preachers, but it is also true that there was a lot that was ephemeral and that was not lasting. [00:20:23]