what did charles finney believe, as relating to religion?

American government minister and author

Charles Grandison Finney
2d President of Oberlin College
In office 1851 (1851)–1866 (1866)
Preceded by	Asa Mahan
Succeeded by	James Fairchild
Personal details
Born	(1792-08-29)August 29, 1792 Warren, Connecticut, U.Due south.
Died	August 16, 1875(1875-08-sixteen) (aged 82) Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.
Spouse(southward)	Lydia Root Andrews (m. 1824) Elizabeth Ford Atkinson (chiliad. 1848) Rebecca Allen Rayl (m. 1865)
Profession	Presbyterian government minister; evangelist; revivalist; writer
Signature

Charles Grandison Finney (Baronial 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the Us. He has been called the "Male parent of One-time Revivalism."^[1] In his beliefs and teachings Finney departed from traditional Reformed theology by education that people take free will to choose salvation.

Finney was best known every bit a flamboyant revivalist preacher from 1825 to 1835 in the Burned-over District in Upstate New York and Manhattan, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate of Christian perfectionism, and a religious writer.

Together with several other evangelical leaders, his religious views led him to promote social reforms, such equally abolitionism and equal didactics for women and African Americans. From 1835 he taught at Oberlin College of Ohio, which accustomed students without regard to race or sex. He served as its second president from 1851 to 1865, and its faculty and students were activists for abolitionism, the Cloak-and-dagger Railroad, and universal education.

Early life [edit]

Born in Warren, Connecticut, on August 29, 1792,^[2] Finney was the youngest of nine children. The son of farmers who moved to the upstate frontier of Jefferson Canton, New York, after the American Revolutionary State of war, Finney never attended college. His leadership abilities, musical skill, half-dozen'3" height, and piercing eyes gained him recognition in his community.^[three] He and his family attended the Baptist church in Henderson, New York, where the preacher led emotional, revival-style meetings. The Baptists and the Methodists displayed fervor in the early 19th century.^[four] He "read the law", studying as an apprentice to become a lawyer nether Benjamin Wright.^[five] In Adams, New York, he entered the congregation of George Washington Gale and became the managing director of the church choir.^{[6] : eight} After a dramatic conversion feel and baptism into the Holy Spirit he gave upwardly legal practise to preach the Gospel.^{[seven] [eight]} As a young man Finney was a Main Mason, but after his conversion, he left the grouping as antithetical to Christianity and was active in Anti-Masonic movements.^[9]

In 1821, Finney started studies at 29 nether George Washington Gale, to get a licensed government minister in the Presbyterian Church. Like his teacher Gale, he

took a commission for half dozen months of a Female Missionary Social club, located in Oneida County. I went into the northern part of Jefferson County and began my labors at Evans' Mills, in the town of Le Ray.^[10]

When Gale moved to a subcontract in Western, Oneida County, New York, Finney accompanied him and worked on Gale'due south farm in exchange for instruction, a forerunner of Gale'due south Oneida Institute. He had many misgivings about the fundamental doctrines taught in Presbyterianism.^[11] He moved to New York City in 1832, where he was minister of the Chatham Street Chapel and took the breathtaking step of barring from communion all slave owners and traders.^{[12] : 29 [4]} Since the Chatham Street Chapel was not a church building simply a theater "fitted up" to serve equally a church, a new Broadway Tabernacle was built for him in 1836 that was "the largest Protestant house of worship in the country."^{[13] : 22} In 1835, he became the professor of systematic theology at the newly formed Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Oberlin, Ohio.^[14]

Revivals [edit]

Finney was active every bit a revivalist from 1825 to 1835 in Jefferson County and for a few years in Manhattan. In 1830-1831, he led a revival in Rochester, New York, that has been noted as inspiring other revivals of the 2nd Great Awakening.^[15] A leading pastor in New York who was converted in the Rochester meetings gave the following account of the effects of Finney'south meetings in that urban center: "The whole community was stirred. Religion was the topic of conversation in the business firm, in the shop, in the part and on the street. The simply theater in the city was converted into a livery stable; the only circus into a lather and candle factory. Grog shops were closed; the Sabbath was honored; the sanctuaries were thronged with happy worshippers; a new impulse was given to every philanthropic enterprise; the fountains of benevolence were opened, and men lived to skilful."^[16]

He was known for his innovations in preaching and the comport of religious meetings, which ofttimes impacted entire communities. They included having women pray out loud in public meetings of mixed sexes; development of the "anxious seat," where those considering becoming Christians could sit to receive prayer; and public censure of individuals by name in sermons and prayers.^[17] He was also known for his ad-lib preaching.

Finney "had a deep insight into the almost interminable intricacies of human depravity.... He poured the floods of gospel love upon the audience. He took curt-cuts to men's hearts, and his trip-hammer blows demolished the subterfuges of unbelief."^{[eighteen] : 39}

Disciples of Finney were Theodore Weld, John Humphrey Noyes, and Andrew Leete Rock.

Abolitionism [edit]

In addition to becoming a widely-popular Christian evangelist, Finney was involved with social reforms, particularly the abolitionist movement. Finney frequently denounced slavery from the pulpit, chosen information technology a "great national sin," and refused Holy Communion to slaveholders.^[19]

President of Oberlin Higher [edit]

In 1835, the wealthy silk merchant and benefactor Arthur Tappan (1786-1865) offered financial backing to the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute (every bit Oberlin College had been known until 1850), and he invited Finney on the recommendation of abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-1895), to establish its theological department. After much wrangling, Finney accepted if he was allowed to keep to preach in New York, the school admitted blacks, and gratuitous speech was guaranteed at Oberlin. After more than a decade, he was selected as its second president, serving from 1851 to 1866. (He had already served equally acting president in 1849.)^[xx] Oberlin was the starting time American college to accept women and blacks as students in improver to white men. From its early years, its faculty and students were active in the abolitionist movement. They participated together with people of the boondocks in biracial efforts to assist fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad and to resist the Fugitive Slave Act.^[21] Many slaves escaped to Ohio across the Ohio River from Kentucky, which made Ohio a critical surface area for their passage to liberty.

Personal life [edit]

Finney was twice a widower and married 3 times. In 1824, he married Lydia Root Andrews (1804–1847) while he lived in Jefferson County. They had six children together. In 1848, a year afterward Lydia's death, he married Elizabeth Ford Atkinson (1799–1863) in Ohio. In 1865, he married Rebecca Allen Rayl (1824–1907), also in Ohio. Each of Finney's iii wives accompanied him on his revival tours and joined him in his evangelistic efforts.

Finney'due south keen-grandson, also named Charles Grandison Finney, became a famous writer.

Theology [edit]

Finney was a New Schoolhouse Presbyterian, and his theology was similar to that of Nathaniel William Taylor. Finney departed from traditional Calvinist theology by education that people accept free will to choose salvation. He taught that preachers had important roles in producing revival and wrote in 1835, "A revival is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the correct use of the constituted means."^[22]

A major theme of his preaching was the need for conversion. He also focused on the responsibilities that converts had to dedicate themselves to disinterested benevolence and to work to build the kingdom of God on earth. Finney's eschatology was postmillennial, pregnant he believed the Millennium (a thousand-year reign of truthful Christianity) would begin earlier Christ'southward Second Coming. Finney believed Christians could bring in the Millennium by ridding the world of "slap-up and sore evils." Frances FitzGerald wrote, "In his preaching the accent was always on the ability of men to choose their own salvation, to work for the full general welfare, and to build a new society."^[23]

Finney was an advocate of perfectionism, the doctrine that through complete faith in Christ believers could receive a "second approval of the Holy Spirit" and reach Christian perfection, a higher level of sanctification. For Finney, that meant living in obedience to God's police force and loving God and one'due south neighbors just was non a sinless perfection. For Finney, fifty-fifty sanctified Christians are susceptible to temptation and capable of sin. Finney believed that it is possible for Christians to backslide and to lose their conservancy.^[24]

Benjamin Warfield, a student of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, claimed, "God might be eliminated from it [Finney's theology] entirely without essentially irresolute its character."^[25] Albert Baldwin Dod, another Erstwhile School Presbyterian, reviewed Finney'south 1835 volume, Lectures on Revivals of Faith.^[26] He rejected it as theologically unsound.^[27] Dod was a defender of Reformed orthodoxy and was especially critical of Finney's view of the doctrine of total depravity.^[28]

In popular civilisation [edit]

In Charles W. Chesnutt'south short story "The Passing of Grandison" (1899), published in the collection The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, the enslaved hero is named "Grandison," which is likely an allusion to the well-known abolitionist.^[29]

The Charles Finney School was established in Rochester, New York, in 1992.

See besides [edit]

• Manie Payne Ferguson
• Theodore Pollock Ferguson
• Keith Green
• Joshua Hall McIlvaine
• Nathaniel William Taylor

References [edit]

1. ^ Hankins, Barry (2004), The 2nd Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists, Westport, CT: Greenwood Printing, p. 137, ISBN0-313-31848-4 .
2. ^ Charles Finney, Ohio History Central, retrieved July 31, 2019 .
3. ^ "I. Nativity and Early Education", Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, Gospel truth, 1868 .
4. ^ ^{a b} Perciaccante, Marianne (2005), Calling Downwards Fire: Charles Grandison Finney and Revivalism in Jefferson Canton, New York, 1800–1841, pp. 2–4 .
5. ^ Bourne, Russell. Floating West. Due west. Due west. Norton. 1992. p. 177
6. ^ Fletcher, Robert Samuel (1943). History of Oberlin College from its foundation through the Civil State of war. Oberlin College.
7. ^ "III. Beginning of His Work", Memoirs, Gospel truth, 1868 .
8. ^ "3. Beginning of His Work", Memoirs, Gospel truth, 1868 .
9. ^ Charles East. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles 1000. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (1996), p. 112
10. ^ Finney, Charles Yard. (1989) [1868]. "Chapter V. I Embark Preaching as a Missionary". In Rosell, Garth M.; Dupuis, A. 1000. (eds.). The Original Memoirs of Charles Finney . Retrieved September three, 2019.
11. ^ "IV. His Doctrinal Education and Other Experiences at Adams", Memoirs, Gospel truth, 1868 .
12. ^ Essig, James David (March 1978). "The Lord'southward Free Human: Charles G. Finney and His Abolitionism". Civil War History. 24 (1): 25–45. doi:10.1353/cwh.1978.0009.
13. ^ Barnes, Gilbert Hobbs (1964). The antislavery impulse, 1830–1844. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
14. ^ Hyatt, Eddie (2002), 2000 Years Of Charismatic Christianity, Lake Mary, FL: Charisma Business firm, p. 126, ISBN978-0-88419-872-seven .
15. ^ William, Cossen. "Charle'south Finney'south Rochester Revival". Retrieved March 27, 2017.
16. ^ Hyatt, 126
17. ^ The diverse types of new measures are identified mostly by sources critical of Finney, such as Bennet, Tyler (1996), Bonar, Andrew (ed.), Asahel Nettleton: Life and Labors, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, pp. 342–55 ; Letters of Rev. Dr. [Lyman] Beecher and the Rev. Mr. Nettleton on the New Measures in Conducting Revivals of Organized religion with a Review of a Sermon by Novanglus, New York: Grand&C Carvill, 1828, pp. 83–96 ; and Hodge, Charles (July 1833), "Dangerous Innovations", Biblical Repertory and Theological Review, vol. v, University of Michigan, pp. 328–33, retrieved March 31, 2008 .
18. ^ Wishard, Due south. E. (1890). "Historical Sketch of Lane Seminary from 1853 to 1856". Pamphlet souvenir of the sixtieth ceremony in the history of Lane Theological Seminary, containing papers read before the Lane Gild. Cincinnati: Lane Theological Seminary. pp. 30–40.
19. ^ FitzGerald, Frances (2017). The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America. Simon and Schuster. p. xl. ISBN978-1439131336.
20. ^ "Charles Grandison Finney Papers". Oberlin College Archives. Oberlin College. Retrieved April thirty, 2020.
21. ^ Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (1996) p 199
22. ^ FitzGerald 2017, p. 36.
23. ^ FitzGerald 2017, p. 37.
24. ^ FitzGerald 2017, p. 44.
25. ^ B. B. Warfield, Perfectionism (two vols.; New York: Oxford, 1931) 2. 193.
26. ^ "On Revivals of Religion" Archived July xx, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Biblical Repertory and Theological Review Vol. 7 No. 4 (1835) p.626-674
27. ^ Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles 1000. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996. ISBN 0-8028-0129-3, p.159
28. ^ Rev. Albert B. Dod, D.D., "On Revivals of Religion", in Essays, Theological and Miscellaneous, Reprinted from the Princeton Review, Wiley and Putnam (1847) pp. 76-151
29. ^ Cutter, Martha J. "Passing as Narrative and Textual Strategy in Charles Chesnutt's 'The Passing of Grandison'", Passing in the Works of Charles W. Chesnutt, Eds. Wright, Susan Prothro, and Ernestine Pickens Glass. Jackson, MS: Mississippi UP, 2010, p. 43. ISBN 978-1-60473-416-iv.

Sources [edit]

• Martin, John H. (Fall 2005). "Charles Grandison Finney. New York Revivalism in the 1820-1830s". Crooked Lake Review . Retrieved August 10, 2019.
• Perciaccante, Marianne. Calling Down Burn: Charles Grandison Finney and Revivalism in Jefferson Canton, New York, 1800-1840 (2005)
• Guelzo, Allen C. "An heir or a rebel? Charles Grandison Finney and the New England theology," Journal of the Early Commonwealth, Spring 1997, Vol. 17 Issue 1, pp 60–94
• Hambrick-Stowe, Charles Due east. Charles One thousand. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (1996), a major scholarly biography
• Rice, Sonja (1992). Educator and Evangelist : Charles Grandison Finney, 1792-1875. Oberlin College Library. OCLC 26647193.
• Hardman, Keith J. Charles Grandison Finney, 1792-1875: Revivalist and Reformer (1987), a major scholarly biography
• Johnson, James E. "Charles G. Finney and a Theology of Revivalism," Church History, September 1969, Vol. 38 Issue 3, pp 338–358 in JSTOR

External links [edit]

• The Theology of C. G. Finney explained and defended
• "The COMPLETE WORKS of CHARLES One thousand. FINNEY", collected by Gospel Truth Ministries
• A biography of Charles Finney by Thou. Frederick Wright Archived April 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine (Holiness perspective; supportive)
• A Vindication of the Methods and Results of Charles Finney'due south Ministry (Revivalist perspective; supportive; answers many traditional Old School Calvinist critiques)
• Charles Grandison Finney: New York Revivalism in the 1820-1830s by John H. Martin, Crooked Lake Review
• Articles on Finney (bourgeois Calvinist perspective; critical)
• How Charles Finney's Theology Ravaged the Evangelical Movement (conservative Calvinist perspective; critical)
• "The Legacy of Charles Finney" Archived May 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine by Dr. Michael S. Horton (conservative perspective; critical)
• The Oberlin Heritage Center-Local history museum and historical society of Oberlin, OH, where Finney lived and worked for decades.
• Finney's Lectures on Theology by Charles Hodge (conservative Calvinist perspective; critical)
• The Church in Crisis A critical expect at Finney's revivalist methods and their impact on the modernistic church in America
• "Oberlin Theology". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandison_Finney

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