Charles Grandison Finney | |
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| 2nd 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.S. |
| Died | August 16, 1875(1875-08-16) (aged 82) Oberlin, Ohio, U.S. |
| Spouses | |
| Profession | Presbyterian minister, evangelist, revivalist, author |
| Signature |  |
Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an AmericanPresbyterian minister and leader in theSecond Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of OldRevivalism".[1] Finney was a member of theNew School Presbyterians and a part of theHoliness Movement.
Finney was best known as a passionate revivalist preacher from 1825 to 1835 in theBurned-over District inUpstate New York and Manhattan, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate ofChristian perfectionism, and a religious writer.
His religious views led him, together with several other evangelical leaders, to promote social reforms, such asabolitionism and equal education for women and African Americans. From 1835 he taught atOberlin College of Ohio, which accepted 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, theUnderground Railroad, anduniversal education.
Born inWarren, Connecticut, on August 29, 1792,[2] Finney was the youngest of nine children. The son of farmers who moved to the upstate frontier ofJefferson County, New York, after theAmerican Revolutionary War, Finney never attended college. His leadership abilities, musical skill, 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) height, and piercing eyes gained him recognition in his community.[3] He and his family attended theBaptist church inHenderson, New York, where the preacher led emotional, revival-style meetings. The Baptists and the Methodists displayed fervor in the early 19th century.[4] He "read the law", studying as an apprentice to become a lawyer under Benjamin Wright.[5] InAdams, New York, he entered the congregation ofGeorge Washington Gale and became the director of the church choir.[6]: 8 After a dramatic conversion experience andbaptism into the Holy Spirit he gave up legal practice to preach theGospel.[7][8]As a young man, Finney was aMaster Mason, but after his conversion, he left the group as antithetical to Christianity and was active inanti-Masonic movements.[9]
In 1821, Finney started studies at 29 underGeorge Washington Gale, to become a licensed minister in thePresbyterian Church. Like his teacher Gale, he took a commission for six months of a Female Missionary Society, located inOneida County. "I went into the northern part ofJefferson County and began my labors atEvans' Mills, in the town ofLe Ray."[10]
When Gale moved to a farm inWestern,Oneida County, New York, Finney accompanied him and, along withTheodore Dwight Weld, worked on Gale's farm in exchange for instruction, a forerunner of Gale'sOneida Institute. He had many misgivings about the fundamental doctrines taught in Presbyterianism.[11] He moved toNew York City in 1832, where he was minister of theChatham Street Chapel and took the breathtaking step of barring all slave owners and traders fromCommunion.[12]: 29 [4] Since the Chatham Street Chapel was not a church but a theater "fitted up" to serve as a church, a newBroadway 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 recently createdOberlin Collegiate Institute inOberlin, Ohio.[14]
Finney was active as a revivalist from 1825 to 1835 in Jefferson County and for a few years in Manhattan. In 1830–1831, he led a revival inRochester, New York, which has been noted as inspiring other revivals of theSecond 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's meetings in that city: "The whole community was stirred. Religion was the topic of conversation in the house, in the shop, in the office and on the street. The only theater in the city was converted into a livery stable; the only circus into a soap 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 good."[16]
Finney was known for his innovations in preaching and the conduct of religious meetings, which often impacted entire communities. Innovations included having women pray out loud in public meetings of mixed sexes, the introduction of the "anxious seat" in which 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 hisextemporaneous 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 short-cuts to men's hearts, and his trip-hammer blows demolished the subterfuges of unbelief."[18]: 39
Disciples of Finney includedTheodore Weld,John Humphrey Noyes, andAndrew Leete Stone.
In addition to becoming a widely popular Christianevangelist, Finney was involved with social reforms, particularly theabolitionist movement. Finney frequently denouncedslavery from the pulpit, called it a "great national sin," and refusedHoly Communion to slaveholders.[19]
In 1835, the wealthy silk merchant and benefactorArthur Tappan (1786–1865) offered financial backing to the newOberlin Collegiate Institute (as 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 on the conditions that he be allowed to continue to preach in New York, the school admit black people, and free speech be guaranteed at Oberlin. After more than a decade, he was selected as its second president, serving from 1851 to 1866. (He had already served as acting president in 1849.)[20] Oberlin was the first American college to accept women and black people as students in addition to white men. From its early years, its faculty and students were active in the abolitionist movement. They participated together with people of the town in biracial efforts to help fugitive slaves on theUnderground Railroad and to resist theFugitive Slave Act of 1850.[21] Many slaves escaped to Ohio across the Ohio River from Kentucky, which made Ohio a critical area for their passage to freedom.
Finney was twice widowed and married three times. In 1824, he marriedLydia Root Andrews (1804–1847) while he lived in Jefferson County. They had six children together. In 1848, a year after 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 three wives accompanied him on his revival tours and joined him in his evangelistic efforts. He died in 1875 age 82.
Finney's great-grandson, also namedCharles Grandison Finney, became a famous author.
Finney was aNew School Presbyterian, and his theology was similar to that ofNathaniel William Taylor. In the field ofsoteriology, he denied the doctrine oftotal depravity, implying humans can please God without the intervention of hisgrace.[22] Some consider his stance asPelagianism.[23] Finney affirmed both the external and internal work of theHoly Spirit within the context ofsalvation, though with the sole purpose of motivation.[24] This is why theologian Christopher Bounds call his stance "softsemi-Pelagianism", although recognizing its mere Pelagian nature.[25]
Finney's theory ofatonement combines principles from different historical theories, notably themoral influence theory, but can't be associated exclusively with either of them.[26]
Finney was an advocate of perfectionism, the doctrine that through complete faith in Christ believers could receive a "second blessing of the Holy Spirit" and reachChristian perfection, a higher level ofsanctification. For Finney, that meant living in obedience to God's law and loving God and one's neighbors but was not a sinless perfection. For Finney, even sanctified Christians are susceptible to temptation and capable of sin. Finney believed that it is possible for Christians tobackslide.[27]
A major theme of his preaching was the need for what he calledconversion. He also focused on the responsibilities that converts had to dedicate themselves todisinterested benevolence and to work to build thekingdom of God on earth. He taught that preachers had vital 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 right use of the constituted means."[28]
Finney'seschatology waspostmillennial, meaning he believed theMillennium (a thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth) would begin before Christ'sSecond Coming. Finney believed Christians could bring in the Millennium by ridding the world of "great and sore evils".Frances FitzGerald wrote, "In his preaching the emphasis was always on the ability of men to choose their own salvation, to work for the general welfare, and to build a new society."[29]
Benjamin Warfield, a professor of theology atPrinceton Theological Seminary, wrote, "God might be eliminated from it [Finney's theology] entirely without essentially changing its character."[30]Albert Baldwin Dod, anotherOld School Presbyterian, reviewed Finney's 1835 bookLectures on Revivals of Religion.[31] He rejected it as theologically unsound.[32] Dod was a defender of Reformed orthodoxy and was especially critical of Finney's view of the doctrine oftotal depravity.[33]
InCharles W. Chesnutt's short story "The Passing of Grandison" (1899), published in the collectionThe Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of theColor Line, the enslaved hero is named "Grandison", likely an allusion to the well-known abolitionist.[34]
The Charles Finney School was established inRochester, New York, in 1992.
Finney is included as a political figure in the video gameVictoria 3.
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