New Measures and the Anxious Seat

Let all things be done decently and in order. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:40

Nothing in Finney’s ministry caused more controversy in his lifetime than what his critics called the new measures. Protracted meetings held night after night. Anxious meetings for personal conversation with the awakened. Praying for people by name in public. Women praying aloud in mixed gatherings. Plain, pointed, sometimes harsh language from the pulpit. And, most famously, the anxious seat: a bench at the front where those concerned for their souls were invited to come and sit, to be prayed for and spoken to. The fourteenth of his Lectures on Revivals, Measures to Promote Revivals, is his defence. It is worth reading carefully, because the practices he defended are now so common in evangelical churches that most people have no idea they were ever controversial.

No prescribed system

Finney’s first argument was simple. Under the old covenant, God prescribed forms of worship in detail, because they were types of Christ. When Christ came, those types were fulfilled, and no new system of measures was laid down. The gospel was appointed as the means of promoting religion, and it was left to the church’s discretion to decide from time to time what measures would give it power. The New Testament tells us almost nothing about how the apostles ordered their meetings.

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. ROMANS 14:17

His second argument was historical. Much of what the church now takes for granted, he said, was once new — hymns in place of metrical psalms, choirs, instruments, extempore prayer, preaching without notes, kneeling to pray, laymen praying and exhorting, prayer meetings for women. Every one of them had been opposed as an innovation. The apostles, the Reformers, Wesley and Edwards had all been innovators in their day. The only thing insisted on in the New Testament regarding measures is that there be decency and order, and by order Paul did not mean whatever a particular church happened to be used to. “I believe new measures are right,” Finney wrote, “that is, that it is no objection to a measure that it is new or old.”

The anxious seat

He then defended the three measures that were drawing the most fire. Anxious meetings, he said, allow instruction to be fitted to each individual and lead people straight to Christ. Protracted meetings concentrate attention for days together; the feasts of Israel, he said, were nothing else. And the anxious seat, he argued, had two purposes. First, it breaks the hold of pride. When a person is convicted but ashamed to be known as anxious, calling him to come forward and publicly take his place helps him break through the false shame that keeps him from God. Second, it tests sincerity. A person who says he has decided but will not rise and come forward shows that he has not really decided.

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 10:32

“The design of the anxious seat is undoubtedly philosophical, and according to the laws of mind,” Finney wrote. He argued that in the apostles’ days baptism served this same purpose, as a public sign of a person’s decision to be on Christ’s side, and that even those who opposed the anxious seat found substitutes: asking the concerned to stay behind, or to sit still while others left, or to bow their heads on the pew in front.

His own warnings

Finney saw the dangers clearly. In the same lecture he warned against relying on a protracted meeting as if it would produce a revival by itself. “This is the great reason why the church in successive generations has always had to give up her measures,” he wrote, “because Christians had come to rely on them for success.” In an earlier lecture he said that a minister needs wisdom to know when to put a stop to new measures, and that once a measure has enough novelty to gain attention for the truth, no other should be added. He warned that measures introduced merely for effect would later look like tricks and do more harm than good. He wanted measures to serve the truth, not replace it.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. TITUS 3:5

Where care is needed

Even so, the new measures need honest weighing, because their long-term effects have been mixed.

First, the comparison with baptism does not hold. Baptism is an ordinance appointed by Christ, a sign of union with Him. The anxious seat, and its descendant the altar call, is a human device. It may be wise or unwise in a given setting, but it has no promise attached to it, and to present it as the moment of salvation confuses a response with a new birth. Countless people since Finney’s day have been assured that they were saved because they walked forward, and have lived without any sign of new life.

Second, measures designed according to the laws of mind can produce their effects whether or not the Spirit is at work. Public pressure, emotional music, repeated appeals and the sight of others going forward can move people who have not been convicted of sin or drawn to Christ. Finney knew this, and warned against false hopes. But a theology in which conversion is essentially a change of choice, and a method aimed at securing that choice, together made it very hard to tell the difference.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 7:21

Third, the history of the region where Finney’s revivals burned brightest is sobering. Western New York became known as the Burned-over District, because it had been swept by so many revivals. In the decades that followed it produced not only strong churches but also a remarkable crop of new movements outside historic Christianity — Mormonism, Millerite adventism, the Oneida community, spiritualism — and a great deal of spiritual exhaustion. Finney was not responsible for these, and he opposed many of them. But a climate of repeated excitement, novelty and a belief that the right means will produce the right results proved to be fertile ground for them.

Fourth, the success of the measures helped fix in the American church the assumption that techniques can be judged by their results. That assumption has served the gospel poorly when numbers have been bought at the cost of depth.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:11–13

Freedom and humility

Finney was right that Scripture gives the church freedom in how it orders its meetings, and right that being new is no argument against a practice. The church should not be enslaved to its customs. But freedom must be used humbly. Every measure should be judged not only by what it produces in a night, but by the lives of those it produces over years. And no measure should ever be allowed to stand in the place of the Spirit, or of Christ Himself.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Think about the practices your church uses to invite a response. Which serve the truth, and which might put pressure in its place?

2. If you made a public decision at some point, ask whether your life since then shows the marks of new birth. If not, go to Christ now.

3. Beware of trusting any method — a course, an event, a programme — to produce spiritual results by itself.

4. Pray for those who lead evangelistic meetings, that they may call people to Christ plainly without manipulating them.

5. Ask whether you are more attached to your church’s customs than Scripture requires, or more attracted to novelty than wisdom allows.

A PRAYER

Lord of the church, You have given us freedom in how we gather and how we call people to You. Give us wisdom to use it well.

Keep us from trusting methods, and from mistaking a response for a new birth.

Let every invitation we give point clearly to Christ, and every decision made be Your work and not ours.

Build Your church with gold, silver and precious stones, and let our work abide in the day that tests it. Amen.