Decisional Regeneration is not God’s method of evangelism, and the saving of the human soul. Part two
· Who's Charles Finney?
- Reacting against the pervasive Calvinism of the Great Awakening, the successors of that great movement of God's Spirit turned from God to humans,
- from the preaching of objective content (namely, Christ and him crucified)to the emphasis on getting a person to "make a decision."
- http://withchrist.org/Finney-Horton.pdf
· William McLoughlin summarized Finney's major contribution to revivalism by saying that,
- both he [Finney] and his followers believed it to be the legitimate function of a revivalist to utilize the laws of mind in order to engineer individuals and crowds into making a choice which was superficial based upon free will.
· The results justify my methods.
- This factor helped lead later generations of evangelists to adopt Finney's success theme as the barometer of God's blessing.·
- Billy Sunday stated, "theory has got to go into the scrap heap when it comes to experience."
- In effect, this statement meant that the historic doctrines of grace could be ignored if not altogether rejected by the evangelist
- Indeed, D.L. Moody picked up on this reasoning when he said, "It makes no difference how you get a man to God, provided you get him there."
- Until his conversion, Finney claims to have only heard that type of preaching where the pastor would blandly read his sermon, telling the congregation that they should sit and wait upon God to save them.
- These memories greatly affected the young convert. He took this style and content of preaching to be the practical outworking of Calvinism.
- In his view, the passivity of man in salvation brought deadness into the pews.
- Therefore, his preaching and his methods were designed to catch the sinner's attention, and once caught, to create an emotional outpouring that would result in conviction, which would then result in conversion.
- Among the "new measures" that Finney employed to do this work were protracted prayers and meetings, the anxious or inquirer's meeting, the anxious bench, public prayers for know sinners, coarse and irreverent language, and women praying in mixed gatherings
- Was this judgment of the Calvinistic pulpit methodology a fair one? After all, had not Jonathan Edwards "blandly" read his sermons? And yet, his ministry was blessed in the First Great Awakening. The key to this question is not found in methodology, but in theology.
- The deadness that Finney perceived, was not due to the methods (or lack thereof) which were used in the pulpit, but to the type of response required of the congregation.
· In contrast to this, Jonathan Edwards and, later, Asahel Nettleton (who was a contemporary of Finney)
NeASAHEL NETTLETON: 1783-1844 (note footnote)
- exhorted their hearers, upon coming under conviction of sin, to go privately before the Lord and plead for their souls. Both of these committed Calvinists witnessed great spiritual awakenings under their ministries.
· At issue is Finney's definition of "revival."
- The debate over methods was, in reality, a debate over the proper means of conversion.
- Finney, believed that a revival "is not a miracle or dependent on a miracle. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means."
