How Did Finney Respond At Such A Tension?

Priority of Evangelism to Social Activity
Finney was involved in many types of social activity. Most of all, he was famous as an activist of antislavery movement. Molly Oshatz mentions in terms of Finney’s influence, “Most immediatists followed Charles Grandison Finney in assuming that individuals were perfectly free to renounce sin.” Finney’s contemporary antislavery activists, who argued for immediate freedom of slaves, trusted and followed Finney.
However, Finney was a revivalist and evangelist. Finney must have contacted a tension between a revival ministry and an antislavery activity. How did Finney respond when he got at such a tension? How did Finney evaluate people who exhausted all effort to antislavery activity? Finney plainly had priority of evangelism even though he was enthusiastic about immediate abolitionism. Finney’s priority of evangelism is well shown in his relation with his coworkers and friends.
Finney Never Allowed Slave-Holding Members to Join Communion Service
Finney’s opinion of slavery was firm and strong. Finney was infuriated by churches and individual Christians who kept silent about slavery. Finney raised his voice in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion. He taught as follows:
Christians can no more take neutral
ground on this subject [of slavery], since it has come up for discussion, than they can take neutral ground on the subject of the sanctification of the Sabbath. It is a great national sin. It is a sin of the church. The churches by their silence, and by permitting slaveholders to belong to their communion, have been consenting to it.
To Finney, neutral stance to slavery issue with silence was exactly same as support of slavery. Finney continued his strong tenet toward both slave-supporting churches and slave-holding Christians. He wrote as follows:
It is the church that mainly supports this sin. Her united testimony upon this subject would settle the question. Let Christians of all denominations meekly but firmly come forth, and pronounce their verdict; let them clear their communions, and wash their hands of this thing; let them give forth and write on the head and front of this great abomination, SIN! and in three years a public sentiment would be formed that would carry all before it, and there would not be a shackled slave, nor a bristling, cruel slavedriver in this land.
Finney consistently asserted that churches never permit members who were involved in this sin of slavery to join communion service. Finney in practice banned slave-holding members to be involved in communion service in his church when he served as a pastor of the Chatham Street Chapel. Hardman explains the situation when Finney as a pastor came to the front for antislavery. He says:
Finney not only condemned slavery in the abstract, but he brought his convictions into practice in forbidding slaveholders to take communion in the Chatham Street Chapel. After his return from overseas, he presided at a sacramental service in the church on November 3, 1834. At that time he forbade slaveholders from taking communion, saying that those who held others in slavery, and who claimed a right of property in the bodies of their fellow men, could hardly be in accord with God’s will, and therefore were not worthy of taking the sacrament.
Finney disagreed in slavery not only theoretically but also practically. He often uttered, mentioned, and preached the issue of slavery. Finney even condemned slavery and all involving it. Finney showed his belief by disallowing slaveholders to take part in communion.
Finney Opposed Amalgamation
In Finney’s time, two opinions existed among abolitionists. First, slavery immediately should be abolished. Second, in addition to the immediate abolition, white and black people should not be segregated in a public place. The latter was called amalgamation. There was a division among Finney and his coworkers due to this issue. Hardman mentions this issue, “[The most explosive] issue was the frenzied debate over ‘amalgamation,’ the nineteenth-century euphemism for the social interaction and mingling of blacks and whites. Multitudes who were eager for abolition still opposed amalgamation.”
What was Finney’s opinion about this? Surprisingly, He did not support amalgamation. Hardman continues to say, “Charles Finney, strong exponent of freedom for blacks, on the other hand thought that if a white person had a ‘constitutional taste’ that excluded blacks, that was quite legitimate and should be respected. Here he disagreed with the Tappans and Theodore Weld.”
Finney seemed to be satisfied with immediate freedom of slave. To him, the assertion of mingling of whites and blacks seemed to have a pessimistic factor. Lawrence Thomas Lesick says, “Finney believed that antislavery activities increased the total amount of happiness of mankind by working to free slaves from slavery and slaveholders from the sin of slavery. However, he believed the advocation [sic] of amalgamation, or the intermingling of blacks and whites, did not increase the total amount of happiness in the world, but decreased it in several ways.”
Finney’s opposition to amalgamation was really performed in his church. During his pastoring at the Chatham Street Chapel (known as Second Free Church) and the Broadway Tabernacle, Finney always maintained segregation of blacks by opposing whites and blacks sitting in the same places. Blacks were set aside to the sides or in the balconies.
Finney Prioritized Evangelism to Social Activity
Why was Finney against amalgamation while he strongly supported immediate abolition?
What made Finney not take another step toward amalgamation? The reason why Finney was opposed to amalgamation is that he kept in mind the priority of evangelism and revival to social activity. Hardman says, “Finney never surrendered the idea that revivals were God’s primary means of reforming both the church and the world, because he remained convinced that only individuals who were soundly converted could bring about social reform.” His assurance like this was embodied at Rochester revival as mentioned
previously.
Finney revealed his priority of ministry of evangelism and revival at the time when he was about to join as a faculty member of Oberlin College. At that time when Finney would join to Oberlin College, Oberlin was frustrated by strong demand that black students be admitted. He suggested a solution. Finney’s solution was an assertion to accept blacks, but its reason was not focused on the issues of race and antislavery but focused on establishment of ministers. Lesick records, “Finney himself did not consider the race question the central issue. He believed that the most important goal for Oberlin was not antislavery, nor the acceptance of blacks as students, nor freedom of speech.” Finney wrote his own opinion in a letter, “I see & have long seen that without a new race of ministers we can not [sic] possibly go much further.” Finney insisted that Oberlin accept, train, and equip black students as revival ministers in order to reinforce present revival and social reform. Finney asked the trustees of Oberlin to entrust dealing with the issue to faculty. Finney wrote, “We do not wish the Trustees to hold out an Abolition or an Antiabolition flag but let that subject alone for the faculty to manage.” Finney’s intention in this letter showed that the issue of antislavery and equal acceptance was secondary to the establishment of a revival ministry.
Finney’s priority of evangelism and revival appeared in his Lectures on Revival published in 1835. Finney’s concern was not only social activity but also removal of hindrance of revival in order to keep and accelerate a fire of revival. Finney stated, “Revivals are hindered when ministers and churches take wrong ground in regard to any question involving human rights.”
In the letter to Arthur Tappan in 30 April, 1836, Finney articulated his different opinion from Arthur and Lewis Tappan concerning the issue of amalgamation. Arthur and Lewis Tappan are Finney’s supporters financially and spiritually. At the time Finney sent this letter, their strong proponent of amalgamation bothered Finney. Finney grieved for loose relation due to different opinion. Finney wrote as follows:
Br. Lewis, & I now fear yourself, think my views are the result of halfway Abolitionism, & my opinions seem for that reason to have no weight. Now Dr. Br. this consideration although it grieves, does not offend me. Nor shall it deter me from speaking freely. Br Lewis used to have confidence in my judgment. But unfortunately our differing upon this point has destroyed my influence with him.
Concerning this situation, Hardman points out priority issue. Hardman explains as follows:
He [Finney] looked on the Tappan brothers kindly, as marvelously generous benefactors, . . . But these, and many others, seemed to Finney to be losing sight of priorities in the mad swirl of benevolent enterprises and the evils of slavery. The conversion of sinners was not just another in a long list of good causes that must be attended to, Finney fervently believed. Evangelism was the mainspring from which all else must be energized! And these, his friends, were rapidly losing sight of this bedrock truth.
Finney’s approach to this issue of amalgamation was moderate. Finney was so cautious in this issue. Nevertheless, Finney emphasized “saving souls.” In his Lectures of Revivals of Religion, Finney taught as follows:
Writings, containing temperate and judicious discussions on this subject, and such developments of facts as are before the public, should be quietly and extensively circulated, and should be carefully and prayerfully examined by the whole church. I do not mean by this, that the attention of the church should be so absorbed by this, as to neglect the main question, of saving souls in the midst of them.
To Finney, the radical approach to abolitionism by demand of amalgamation was a pessimistic factor to quench a fire of revival. At this point of time, one question can be raised. Why did the demand of amalgamation have a negative effect on revival? Finney really experienced damage which resulted from practice of mingling of blacks and whites in his church ministry. Lesick writes, “Indeed Finney experienced some conflict in his own church; Lewis Tappan’s mixing of black and white choirs in the Chatham Street Chapel in May, 1835, caused some conflict after the riots in New York in July.” The issue of amalgamation was controversial not only among whole abolitionists but also in the church. Thus, if mingling of blacks and whites in a church was practiced without agreement of a whole church, it must have caused severe split in a church and quenched a fire of revival.
Finney was a man of revival. He always kept priority of soul-concern in mind. Lesick reports, “Finney’s major objection to Tappan’s antislavery [of amalgamation] was based on the belief that the energies of reform-minded people should go into the promotion of revivals of religion, which created the greatest amount of happiness and dealt with the whole gospel, and that other reforms should be subsidiary to that. Amalgamation was the issue which demonstrated to Finney that abolitionists were willing to sacrifice revivalism, and therefore evangelical religion, for their cause.” Hardman clarifies Finney’s priority of revival when he concludes his book as follows:
For Finney the most pressing insight (and also the most elusive) was to comprehend that all evils that afflict human society—wrongs done to women, slavery, drunkenness, war, and all the rest—were but natural consequences of sin, and that if faithful pastors attacked this central evil by the cure of conversion, in time all subordinate evils would begin to diminish. To him, mounting campaigns against various problems was a noble thing, but if it was done at the expense of the central Christian mission, evangelism, then it was like spanking the giant dragon but not slaying it.