Name That Heretic: Episode Two
You should all know the rules by now. I quote a heretic - you guess who it is - you leave a comment with your guess. Here we go, you’re the next contestant on “Name That Heretic!”
“There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means-as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. . . . A revival is as naturally a result of the use of means as a crop is of the use of its appropriate means”
Clue: This one is burning in hell, meaning that it can’t be Perry Robinson this time (Mario), he isn’t burning - yet.
Special rule (this episode only): Phil Johnson, you can’t participate this time. Sorry, it wouldn’t be fair.
23 Comments, Comment or Ping
John
This is a quote from Charles Finney.
Finney believed in using means, and if the means be the right kind to effect a revival than a revival is what should occur.
John
Feb 18th, 2008
Mary Ann
Is it the leader of the Mormon Church that recently died- Gordon Hinckley?
Feb 18th, 2008
Fusion!
LMPR has thought about it, and we would normally say it’s David Hume, however it is a heretic so this is someone who claimed to be a believer. We’re guessing Rudolph Bultmann or Karl Barth. (Was gonna say Neighbur’s but we don’t know enough about them!)
Feb 18th, 2008
Danny Pelichowski
I agree with John, Finney is the revival heretic who started the emotional appeal to mass evangelism. Its amazing how this so called Christian theist can take God out of his doctrinal teaching and still be praised by many Christians today. I could think of many ministries in our day that have the same views on revival that this heretic had and are leading many ignorant Christians far away from the truth. May God perform a miracle in our day and bring true revival to the church.
Feb 18th, 2008
Stefani
I also agree with John that this is Finney.
Feb 18th, 2008
Mary Ann
My first guess was wrong/Hinckley.
It is Charles Finney ( I found the quote in his
Lecture in Revivals of Religion)
Feb 18th, 2008
John
I used to read alot of finney books; years back I realized that finney’s sanctification was a bondage maker, that his teachings on repentance and faith, righteousness and revival were all skewed. When I was young I couldnt discern the errors because the churches I attended were preaching the same errors and promoting them.All appeared to be safe until I ran into reformation theology, that brought real ruin to finney’s theology. In the end, I praise God for grace and not the twisted version of it from finney.
Feb 18th, 2008
Stephen Macasil
Attention Heretic Namers! John got it right off the bat. Charles Granderson Finney - one of the most vicious servants of Satan that the people of God have ever encountered. [Charles Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), 4-5]. Namely because of the stronghold Finney and his teachings have on the church and her practices. Good job, John. I love this quote from John *(above),
“When I was young I couldnt discern the errors because the churches I attended were preaching the same errors and promoting them.”
This is an epidemic that has no doubt spread across the Protestant church at a rapid pace. I’m not referring to the promotion of error, I’m referencing the spiritual condition of John as a youth. He couldn’t discern the errors (prior to Reformation Theology).
Discerning error is absolutely critical to the children of God for many reasons. One reason is because God has made provision for the errors to be discerned: he left us his word. His word exposes falsehood and exhalts truth, after all, his word is truth.
This means that one aspect of discernment is the ability to recognize falsehood or lies by comparing the doctrine/teaching with Scripture. People, it’s your only hope. Scripture is the Origin of theology and the Destroyer of heresy. This twofold weapon is also known as a Sword with two edges. It slices when swung one way, and slices when brought back the other way. If heresy were personified, she would meet her painful end once the blade of God’s word inflicts fatal-bleeding gashes that she is unable to recover from.
I’m starting to rant, so I’ll end with a congrats to John for being the first to answer, and answer correctly! Feel free to continue the discussions below. Maybe you can share your experiences with the damage that Finney left and how they affected you, how God was glorified by delivering you from Finney’s ugly clutch, etc.
P.S. I want to give a shout-out to my buddy Phil (who is in London this week), who provided me with this quote from the heretic of episode two. Here’s a link to Phil’s full article on the Wolf, C.G. Finney.
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/finney.htm
Feb 18th, 2008
Mario
Finney the Heretic!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Feb 18th, 2008
John
My pastors used to quote Finney in his sermons, I was gifted to preach the gospel and anyone that preached powerfully and directly was going to be one of my favorites. The problem came in reading Spurgeon. I couldnt reconcile the two different theologies. For years I didnt realize I had error in one hand and truth in another. The doctrine of imputed righteousness (which Finney despised)brought me to the place where I had to jettison Finney. Ive never regretted for a moment that decision. I realized after seeing the errors of finneys sancitification teachings that I had all along been struggling with legalistic teachings and bore the results of attempting to practice them. I have always been a zealous reader of scripture, it wasnt until I began to embrace calvinism that I found more power and peace with God. Its like having a dozen of your hardest questions answered in a moment. When I finally understood that God wasnt asking permission to save people, I was able to see scripture in a whole new light a whole veil was torn away.
What was my real attachement to Finney? Believe it or not it was simply because I had been raised on him. Now, I very quickly warn people away from him and reject their approvals of him. For the last 15 or so years I have been a card carrying 5 pointer, uptil then only a 4 pointer.
My two greatest preachers, Finney and Edwards until I had grown so accustom to truth that Finney reaked of error. Edwards has grown brighter and brighter. I thank Jesus Christ for all of this, I praise God for opening my eyes to who God says he is and what He is really about.
John
Feb 18th, 2008
Stephen Macasil
John, I just read your email! Welcome. I didn’t know that was you. For everyone who does not know John, he and I were tangled with some Higher-Life Wesleyan Perfectionists in another forum claiming to be sinnless with pure hearts and all that. Funny thing happened, John had been battling them single-handed for some time before I found the thread. I began to refute them almost line-by-line. Anyhow, I got two emails from that forum just now. One was from John, thanking me and saying that he loves Dr. Bob, and that he’d be around on BT, and the other was from the forum moderator informing me that my thread has been removed due to violations of the Terms of Service #6: Harassment. I’ve been blacklisted for harassment!
That was rude, mean, and unloving of them…next.
Good to see you John, welcome to the next Reformation.
Feb 18th, 2008
Reformed Mama
My fav quote tonight is from John’s most recent post:
“When I finally understood that God wasn’t asking permission to save people, I was able to see Scripture in a whole light…”
Yesss…this was quite eye-opening for me as well having been raised in a Finney-influenced church world. I also agree that it was like having “a dozen of your hardest questions answered in a moment”!
Praise Him!
Stephen~
Sorry to hear about the Higher-Life moderator blacklisting you…doesn’t seem like a very “pure-hearted” thing to do…Reformed Mama still loves ya!
Feb 18th, 2008
Stephen Macasil
“Sorry to hear about the Higher-Life moderator blacklisting you…doesn’t seem like a very “pure-hearted” thing to do…Reformed Mama still loves ya!”
Well, it brought us John! He seems like a valuable addition to the Reformation. It’s funny that you said that, in one of my responses to the sinless bozo, I told him that there is no need to respond in such a sinful manner as he did - no response - I was deleted - so were ALL of his threads, and so were all of the threads started by his other entirely sanctified puppy. See, if you delete ALL the threads you start, all of the comments (like mine and John’s) get deleted with them. Therefore, their pointless pontification of purified perfection and the biblical refutations that accompany John and I - mysteriously disappear, and off they go to another board where they can lurk and prey on the uninformed minds out there.
I saved some of the thread in a docx file, I’ll post it here on BT soon.
And Reformed Mama, much love for you too!
Feb 18th, 2008
John
Stephen: Its rare that as many threads as Mike R created were wiped out. He must have contacted the moderators to wipe them out.
Its a rabbit move to make propositions and when they are refuted to have a sudden urge to ‘houseclean’.
Thanks for the welcome and hello to all.
Feb 19th, 2008
agogley
I didn’t even get a chance to play this round!
Welcome John!
Feb 19th, 2008
Stephen Macasil
*agogley, sorry you missed episode two. I’ll try to make episode three a bit more difficult to provoke more guesses and discussion. But this round was popped in the first comment! I’m going to have to create a game for myself: stump the BT’ers. I’ll get another one going soon.
**John, isn’t that amazing? Every single thread (except for a few comments) have been deleted clean! I wish I had copied some of them, I know I took him to town pretty bad a couple of times - I just don’t remember what I said!
Feb 19th, 2008
John
Pastor such and such was interviewed, this question was asked and he gave his answer. Please tell us who is the heretic answering the question?
Theory of Atonement
Could you elaborate on your personal theory of atonement? If God wanted to forgive us, why didn’t he just forgive us? Why did torturing Jesus make things better?
This is such an important and difficult question. I’d recommend, for starters, you read “Recovering the Scandal of the Cross” (by Baker and Green). There will be a sequel to this book in the next year or so, and I’ve contributed a chapter to it.
Short answer: I think the gospel is a many faceted diamond, and atonement is only one facet, and legal models of atonement (which predominate in western Christianity) are only one small portion of that one facet.
Dallas Willard also addresses this issue in “The Divine Conspiracy.” Atonement-centered understandings of the gospel, he says, create vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else. He calls us to move beyond a “gospel of sin management” – to the gospel of the kingdom of God. So, rather than focusing on an alternative theory of atonement, I’d suggest we ponder the meaning and mission of the kingdom of God.
I hope this is not hijacking the thread, I just thought I would toss out another question.
John
Feb 19th, 2008
Stephen Macasil
John, that’s cool. We get all kinds of extra-curricular activity in the BT sub-level. It’s not highjacking. Good quote! I can’t guess because I’ll kill it. Hint: I’ve blogged this heretic before…
Feb 19th, 2008
Danny Pelichowski
I’m going to guess N.T. Wright, I haven’t seen the interview but from what I understand, Wright is hostile to the historic Christian Gospel of a penal substitutionary “legal model” of the atonement.
N.T. Wright is a professing Christian who is hostile to the true Gospel…. He meets the criteria of a heretic. I just don’t know if he is the guy in the interview.
Feb 20th, 2008
agogley
You guys made this one too easy. It wouldn’t have taken much to track down associates of Dallas Willard and his emergent church, but then Stephen practically handed us the answer:
Brian McLaren
The Emergent Church is such a dastardly heresy IMO. It has little elements that look like truth on the outside, such as wanting Christians to become disciples instead of mere attendees at their local church. But when you take a closer look it gets into weird mysticism and contemplative spirituality.
Feb 20th, 2008
William
Definately Mr Charles Finney. I just finished teaching a class on Presbyterian History in the USA and his name kept popping up all over the 2nd great awakening (Or was it dilusioning?)If it wasn’t him then it was certainly someone paraphrasing him.
Feb 22nd, 2008
agogley
We need a heroes of the faith game too!
Feb 22nd, 2008
The work and the glory
Our approach is very simple- we detail the mandate Joseph was given from the Bible, then look at how well he did to fulfill that. We discuss Twelve Doctrines that his followers are known to believe in and compare those with the purpose of his mandate- The Book of Mormon.
Mar 23rd, 2008
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