Chantry on Finney

I was raised in churches which always had altar calls. Like most American Christians I took the word of the preachers and teachers that this is the way Christ had decided to build his church. I didn't question my leaders, I just went along with them as they plied their emotional trade trying my best to "feel good" about my life.

Then something happened. I got into a jam in my life in the midst of which I told God, "I give up. If you don't do it, it doesn't happen." From that point on my life has not been the same. I had admitted to God and to myself - for the first time in my life - that I was not in control of anything. I was at my wits end.

I had to start over and re-think everything about me, particularly my relationship with Christ. I learned the hard way that anything I thought I was doing that might have value to God was viewed by him as "filthy rags."  So I began a journey to understand how it was that I thought just by doing certain things, acting in a certain manner, showing up at the church building each time it was open, being polite, and talking religiously had not protected me from what I had done to myself. After all, I was a Christian, and the churches I attended never talked about Christian suffering: they only talked about doing good, tithing and faith-promise giving and that God would bless everything I did.

I was born, bred, and raised a Pelagian and didn't know it. Everything I had been taught told me I was in charge and that if bad things happened then I had done something wrong. So, I began a journey of self-education to learn if what I had been brain-washed with was actually true. To my profound sadness I learned that most of it was Paganism dressed up as Christianity designed to perpetuate the little empires of the preachers and teachers I had learned from.

Eventually my reading and studies led me to investigate the Reformation. I was stunned by the concepts of Scripture alone and Grace  alone. How could these thing be? I learned that God's Holy Spirit does everything through the "hearing" of His word. I wasn't told I had to do anything. In fact the exact opposite is the message of the Reformation. Inevitably, as I progressed in my search for truth, I came across a guy named Charles Grandison Finney. I learned from his writings that he withheld full disclosure when he was ordained and that was enough for me. He saw no ethical problem with telling a half-truth but I did. So I decided then and there anything he was associated with had to be corrupt. As I read more about him, dug more into his tactics and beliefs, I have no choice but to stay with my conclusions about him. The guy was a fraud and probably not a Christian. But, his legacy as a fraud lives on in most of American Christianity in the "altar call." He invented it, and Billy Graham via television made it famous to modern Americans. Who hasn't heard "every eye closed, every head bowed..."  "your friends will wait for you," followed by "come down the aisle now." Those words are ingrained in Americanized Christianity just as much as "apple pie," and "baseball."

When I have tried to talk to preachers about their use of emotional manipulation begging people to get saved, among other shady tactics, I'm generally blown off as a grouch and trouble-maker. Therefore, I have quietly lived my life - for the most part - putting up with this stuff in the hopes of reaching a friend or two with the truth here and there.

Now comes Pastor Chantry who has written two very good posts about Finney and the legacy he left Christianity in America. Without asking permission, I don't think Pastor Chantry would mind, I have posted his papers under the "Pages" heading at the top of this page as "Finney's Legacy."

I highly recommend everyone read Chantry's papers and finally make an honest "decision." For many it will take a lot of prayer and thinking about things never thought of before, but my prayer is that you will be "quickened" and the truly "narrow way" will be opened to you, as it was for me.