• The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney – Dr. Michael Horton
• A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing – Phil Johnson

I still have yet to understand why so many leading evangelical pastors (Billy Graham and the late Jerry Falwell to name two) and others in the movement uphold this man as someone who championed the faith once for all delivered to the saints. If there is one person that can be blamed for so many of the current theological and ecclesiological problems we find in the evangelical movement (though there are many causes to be sure), it is Charles Finney. These articles deal with the content of what Finney taught and how it was anything but evangelical, in the historical, Gospel sense of the word.

After reading these, you will see a little bit clearer how much of his influence is still felt in the church today and how much damage it continues to cause. Even much of the pragmatic, mega, seeker movement in the church owes its pragmatic thought process about how to “get people in the door” to the teaching of Finney, which he himself rooted in the error of Pelgius, the fifth century heretic. Very insightful.

Here are some of Finney’s quotes taken from these articles. Some of them are just shocking:

“Whenever [a person] sins, he must, for the time being, cease to be holy. This is self-evident. Whenever he sins, he must be condemned; he must incur the penalty of the law of God … If it be said that the precept is still binding upon him, but that with respect to the Christian, the penalty is forever set aside, or abrogated, I reply, that to abrogate the penalty is to repeal the precept, for a precept without penalty is no law. It is only counsel or advice. The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true … In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground (p. 46, Systematic Theology).”

“… full present obedience is a condition of justification. But again, to the question, can man be justified while sin remains in him? Surely he cannot, either upon legal or gospel principles, unless the law be repealed … But can he be pardoned and accepted, and justified, in the gospel sense, while sin, any degree of sin, remains in him? Certainly not” (p. 57, Ibid).

“Finney declares of the Reformation’s formula simul justus et peccator or ‘simultaneously justified and sinful,’ ‘This error has slain more souls, I fear, than all the Universalism that ever cursed the world.’ For, ‘Whenever a Christian sins he comes under condemnation, and must repent and do his first works, or be lost’” (p.60, Ibid).

“If he [Christ] had obeyed the Law as our substitute, then why should our own return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our salvation” (p.206, Ibid)?

“The atonement would present to creatures the highest possible motives to virtue. Example is the highest moral influence that can be exerted … If the benevolence manifested in the atonement does not subdue the selfishness of sinners, their case is hopeless” (p.209, Ibid).

Penal substitutionary atonement “assumes that the atonement was a literal payment of a debt, which we have seen does not consist with the nature of the atonement … It is true, that the atonement, of itself, does not secure the salvation of any one” (p.217, Ibid).

“Throwing off Reformation orthodoxy, Finney argued strenuously against the belief that the new birth is a divine gift, insisting that ‘regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice, intention, preference; or in changing from selfishness to love or benevolence,’ as moved by the moral influence of Christ’s moving example (p.224, Ibid). ‘Original sin, physical regeneration, and all their kindred and resulting dogmas, are alike subversive of the gospel, and repulsive to the human intelligence’ (p.236, Ibid).”

“But for sinners to be forensically pronounced just, is impossible and absurd… As we shall see, there are many conditions, while there is but one ground, of the justification of sinners … As has already been said, there can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law. This is of course denied by those who hold that gospel justification, or the justification of penitent sinners, is of the nature of a forensic or judicial justification. They hold to the legal maxim that what a man does by another he does by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ’s obedience as ours, on the ground that he obeyed for us.” …

… “To this, Finney replies: ‘The doctrine of imputed righteousness, or that Christ’s obedience to the law was accounted as our obedience, is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption.’ After all, Christ’s righteousness ‘could do no more than justify himself. It can never be imputed to us … it was naturally impossible, then, for him to obey in our behalf. ‘ This ‘representing of the atonement as the ground of the sinner’s justification has been a sad occasion of stumbling to many’ (pp.320-2, Ibid).

“We shall see that perseverance in obedience to the end of life is also a condition of justification. Some theologians have made justification a condition of sanctification, instead of making sanctification a condition of justification. But this we shall see is an erroneous view of the subject.” (pp.326-7, Ibid).

I really appreciate Phil Johnson’s conclusions and perspective about how this whole controversy reflects the errors committed by fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals in the 20th century. I fall into Johnson’s camp on this issue more than anyone else that has weighed in on the subject.

On Piper’s Choice:

“Of course I think it’s a bad turn of events, and I didn’t find Dr. Piper’s rationale for handing his platform over to Warren satisfying at all. I was surprised when I heard about it, but on second thought, I have to admit that it is consistent with Dr. Piper’s modus operandi.”

“So Piper likes to feature speakers from outside the boundaries of his own circle of close fellowship, and that’s a good thing, within limits. But Piper’s choice of Warren as a keynote speaker proves his idea of where those limits lie is vastly—perhaps fundamentally—different from mine.”

On Warren:

“I can’t think of anyone who would make a finer poster-boy for the pragmatic, spiritually impoverished, gospel-deprived message of modern and postmodern evangelicalism than Rick Warren. He is shallow, pragmatic, and chameleonic. He is a spiritual changeling who will say whatever his audience wants to hear. He wants desperately to be liked and accepted by Muslims, evangelicals, and everyone in between. The length to which he will go to indulge his ecumenical bent is seen in the fact that he was one of a handful of professing evangelicals who signed “A Common Word Between Us and You,” a declaration of spiritual accord between Muslims and Christians.”

“Warren has squandered too many opportunities to proclaim the gospel accurately and muffed too many questions on national television to be given a platform by one of the leading figures of Together for the Gospel, The Gospel Coalition, and similar movements whose central goal, after all, is to undo the damage Warren’s philosophy has caused in the evangelical movement.”

On Piper’s critics and the nastiness:

“Speaking of Twitter chatter and Facebook feedback, I can’t touch on this whole subject without pointing out that the tone of some of the criticism leveled at Dr. Piper is simply revolting. Within fifteen minutes of Dr. Piper’s live webcast the other night, I had to delete a comment on my Facebook page from a woman who called him a clown. Over the past week I have deleted an average of two or three comments each day that were personally insulting or deliberately disrespectful toward Dr. Piper. One woman expressed a hope that his sabbatical would be permanent.”

“These things ought not to be.”

No kidding! It is unbelievably ridiculous how loud and obnoxious some have gotten about this whole thing. I can’t help but think that kind of response is worse than Piper inviting Warren to begin with. It is the height of Pharisee-ism. They have created a set of man-made rules imposed upon everyone else that if broken are somehow worthy of death. Unbelievable. I have my qualms about this, but for a people that claims to deeply know the justice, grace and mercy of God, I see very little of any of this coming from these loud mouths.

Conclusions:

“It seems to me the whole controversy reflects in microcosm why the evangelical and fundamentalist movements of the 20th century have both failed so egregiously.”

“From my perspective it looks like Dr. Piper is repeating the worst errors of the neo-evangelicals, and his critics are imitating the worst misconduct of the hyper-fundamentalists. I find myself in unfamiliar territory—in the middle—pleading for more restraint, more biblical discernment, less raw passion, and less impulsive behavior on both sides.”

On a similar note, I gleaned these thoughts from three lectures by Lee Gatiss in the UK on J. Gresham Machen concerning the good he did in calling out those who were subverting the Gospel and yet how he came across to many: “Confusing the Effects of the Gospel With the Gospel (MP3)“. These lessons should certainly be applied by the verbally violent Reformed groups out there.

A Beginner’s Guide to Postmodernism (MP3) – 6.30.2006

What is the Emerging Church Movement, and why is it a problem? (MP3) – 7.1.2006

The Theory of Relativity (Understanding the influence of post-modern thought on the church today) (MP3) – 3.7.2007

One answer is that we can do both Gospel-preaching and be politically active on issues such as abortion or feeding the homeless or whatever your pet issue may be, so long as the political activism does not eclipse the Gospel message. One example of this would be someone like William Wilberforce (mp3 audio biography) who fought to abolish slavery through legislation and eventually won in British Parliament (something I am extremely grateful for).

But the other camp says we should not be politically vocal at all really for the sake of the Gospel, stating that all we need in culture is pure Gospel-preaching and living and the culture will change as the Lord uses that preaching and living as He sees fit to save people and move in the core of their being on these issues. At this point, I’m leaning toward this second response, though I sway back and forth.

During the election, I leaned toward the first answer, that we can do both Gospel preaching and at the same time be publicly involved in the political process on various issues, attempting to convince others, as best we can, of the rightness of it. However, in hind sight, and after having read a blog post by Phil Johnson, as well as this one, I’m second guessing my original stance now. I just have to think to myself, “Did others, especially unbelievers, remember what my political stance was or how great Christ is?” I feel like maybe to my shame it is the former answer.

Now of course, I know that the Gospel should take priority above politics; that is a given. But I’m still navigating through this issue and swaying back and forth on what I should do next time around or even before then. I’ll confess to everyone that sometimes, I got a little bit too excited about the whole thing. I saw through the political nonsense at times, and at other points, I got caught up in the nonsense. At times it distracted me from my pursuit of Christ in prayer, the Word and studying of theology. For this, I was clearly in error.

So how involved should we be in politics as believers, if at all? I pose this question to get ideas from others. I think about Tim Keller (along with Phil Johnson’s comments) and see the amazing fruit of not going after political issues. Through pure Gospel-preaching and living, he has transformed an area of Manhattan that would not otherwise have been possible (i.e., I highly doubt anyone in Manhattan would listen to a rant about abortion, knowing of course at the same time that it is indeed morally wrong, abhorrent and murderous, that regardless, a lot of walls would go up instantly with these hearers).

But then I think about John Piper as one of my heroes of the faith and his vocal stance from the pulpit in clearly proclaiming the evils of abortion. I also think about John the Baptist in telling Herod he was in the wrong and as a result having his head cut off. Standing up for morality can be costly, but the question is, why are you doing it? So I’m really wrestling through this issue at the moment. Any thoughts would be appreciated.