Charles Finney

Life

Finney was born in 1792 in Warren, Connecticut. In 1794 his family moved to New York State, where he grew up. He began studying law in 1818, but in 1821 he experienced a sudden conversion (a turning of the heart to embrace faith) and resolved to become an evangelist. After being licensed to preach by the Presbyterian Church in 1824, he began holding revival meetings in the small towns of western New York.

In 1832 he became pastor of the Chatham Street Chapel in New York City, and he later joined the Congregational Church. In 1835 he became professor of theology at Oberlin College in Ohio, and from 1837 he also served as pastor of the First Congregational Church of Oberlin. From 1851 to 1866 he was president of Oberlin College. He died in Oberlin on August 16, 1875. His memoirs, which he began writing in 1868, were published after his death.

Ministry and Achievements

• Revival meetings: From the mid-1820s he led meetings in upstate New York and in the major cities of the East. For this reason he is regarded as a representative figure of the Second Great Awakening. The high point is generally considered to be his campaign in Rochester from September 1830 to March 1831, during which he preached 98 times.
• The New Measures: These included protracted meetings held every night for several weeks; the "anxious bench," a front seat set apart for those troubled about their salvation; permitting women to pray publicly in mixed gatherings of men and women; and informal prayer in everyday language. Most of these practices already existed, but they became controversial as Finney popularized them. In July 1827 ministers met at New Lebanon to examine these methods, but no resolution either for or against them was adopted.
• Writings: His Lectures on Revivals of Religion, published in 1835, deals with how to prepare for and conduct revival meetings. American revivalists read it as something of a handbook.
• Social reform: He supported the abolitionist movement and the movement to expand women's rights. Oberlin College, with which he was associated, is known as one of the earliest colleges to admit Black students and women.

Influence on the Korean Church

Finney's writings on revival and his sermons have been translated into Korean and read there; one example is True Revival (translated by Hong Sung-chul, Word of Life Press, 2009). Some hold that the "altar call," in which those who have made a decision are invited to come forward at the close of a meeting, originated with the anxious bench. Similar practices are common in the revival meetings of Korean churches. Korean theological scholarship treats Finney, together with Jonathan Edwards, as a central figure in the history of American revivalism, and papers and presentations on his theology of revival have continued to appear in recent years.

Assessment

• Positive assessments: He is credited with leaving a major mark on nineteenth-century American Protestantism as an evangelist, pastor, educator, and social reformer. At a presentation held by a Christian academic institute in Korea, it was suggested that Finney's pneumatology combined the Calvinist doctrine of justification by faith (the teaching that one is declared righteous through faith) with a Wesleyan, experiential doctrine of sanctification.
• Criticism: Reformed critics charge that Finney denied the total depravity of humanity. They also contend that in revival he gave priority to the human role over the sovereignty of God. A frequent contrast is drawn between Edwards, who regarded revival as a sovereign work of God, and Finney, who held that revival could be produced when the proper conditions were met. Critics have also argued that his methods manipulated audiences. Debate continues over whether his theology belongs within Arminianism or is closer to Pelagianism. His doctrine of Christian perfection was likewise a subject of controversy. A representative critical work introduced in Korea is Iain Murray's Revival and Revivalism (Korean edition, 2005). Some Reformed writers go so far as to call Finney a heretic, but this reflects the views of individual authors.