The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney (click here)
A disturbing one, truly when one has lived in the area of New York State between Buffalo and Albany, which area was so consumed with the wildfires of false evangelism that it has the pejorative designation of "The Burned-Over Terrotory.
The unrealized dreams of cheap grace and easy believism so vitiated the Finneyized trail of gospel failures that people no longer even wanted to hear the truth. Grahamism with its "just pray this prayer" salvation and lack of applying the practice of separation, has again so aggravated this blanket approach that sincere attempts to reach sin-laden people there have been effectively neutralized, and unbelief now controls the hoi polloi.
Why do you think it is that politicians like the socialistic Cuomos and the Clintons and Schumers have a firm grip on the government and economy there that people are leaving the state in droves?
What he did or did not do with Masonry in the New York villages has little import when one regards his major deviations from Jesus' plan of bringing the Good News to people. His methods distinctively proceeding from the moralists' form of Arminian social gospel rejuvenation of society now distorts all church efforts there, even those of Catholicism.
I lived in this area, most of my young life until about age 48, and experienced the general coldness toward non-denominational outreach, including my own, until I was ruined.
I don't even want to revisit Finneyism and Crusadism again. I have no interest in debating it, nor that of Masonry.
I went to school in that area, so I know exactly what you mean, but I attributed it to being the birthplace of Joseph Smith’s false visions and Mormonism, as well as a 19th century hotbed of gambling and bootleg era gangsterism, not Charles Finney!
Anyway, the Holy Spirit works one heart at a time, not en masse. We are to “preach the word in season and out of season”, and trust that “My Word never comes back to Me void except that it accomplishes that which I sent it out to do” Isaiah 55:11
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal “force” - it is a person. I attended a racous non denominational spirit filled church in the area, that was very much alive... so it all depends upon the faith of the preacher and the open hearts to the “abundant life in the spirit” that Christ promises.
Revival only happens one heart at a time, beginning with us. One cannot repent for another’s sins, and repentance is the foundation of revival.