Friday, August 16, 2024

It is the 16th of August 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Calling anyone the “father” or “mother” of a movement, especially a far-reaching movement, is bound to get some scrutiny.

But I’m pretty sure I can make a good argument in calling Charles Finney the Father of Modern Revivalism.

Charles Finney was born the youngest of 9 in Connecticut in 1792- his family moved to upstate New York when he was two, and there he spent his early years- he spent his youth in the Baptist church where he witnessed some of the Awakening movements and services. He didn’t go to college but was apprenticed under a lawyer and began to practice law.

This is when, sometime in 1821, he had his famous conversion. He walked into a forest, meditating on the state of his soul, and came out as a changed man. He quit his job the next day and began the process of being ordained in the Presbyterian church. By 1824, he had been working with the Female Missionary Society and doing missionary activities for families on the frontier.

He was a tall man, noted for his striking eyes it was said that he preached more like a lawyer making a case than a standard pastor. And at the end of the sermon, he wants a verdict. And so he would ask: You who have made up your minds to become Christians and will give your pledge to make your peace with God immediately should rise up.”

Thus, the modern altar call completed a service Finney carefully created and curated to raise the emotion of his listeners to a fever pitch before his call for his audience to make “the pledge.”

His services relied on what would be called the “New Measures,” which, in a way, are not specific “measures” at all but instead a rejection of so-called stale forms and traditions that don’t service anyone.

Why just church on Sunday? He would hold services all week.

He and those with him were not bound by liturgy or how it used to be. They created spectacles and sent flyers and people into town ahead of them to prime them for days-long services- often into the night- sometimes segregated by sex, sometimes between what we might call “seekers” and “believers”.

The seeker services employed not just the “anxious bench” but an “anxious gathering”- that is- if you were on the “anxious bench,” you were on a bench near the preacher, and you are self-designating as “unsure”- thus the pastor's fiery stuff could be directed right at you. Finne would use the bench but sometimes forgo it for an “anxious” service.

His abandoning of forms and traditions made him a pariah. Still, he seemed to revel in tweaking the noses of, especially, the Presbyterians he first worked with and believed to be hopelessly out of touch.

Eventually, his followers would build him the “Broadway Tabernacle” to hold regular services in Manhattan. The following year he took a call to the Oberlin Congregational church in Ohio and to a job as a professor at the newly formed Oberlin College. By 1851, he was president of the college and was known for his lectures on Revivals and Systematic Theology.

His “ecclesiology,” or doctrine of church and how we “do it,” is largely irrelevant today because it was so successful. Those who decry modern worship trends and a model of church consumption often point to Finney as the beginning of the entertainment model. More problematic might be that his runaway from Calvinism ended up holding questionable positions, such that his Systematic Theology is still of some interest today. 

Born in August 1792, Charles Finney lived until August 1875, just missing his 83rd birthday. He died on this day, August 16th, 1875.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and the final benediction from the book of Romans:

17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 16th of August 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who doesn’t follow too many modern worship trends but just installed his first fog machine- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who enjoys smooth talk and flattery, I know… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.