Charles Finney
| Charles Grandison Finney | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 2nd President of Oberlin College | |
|
In office 1851 – 1866 |
|
| Preceded by | Asa Mahan |
| Succeeded by | James Fairchild |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 29, 1792 Warren, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | August 16, 1875 (aged 82) Oberlin, Ohio, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Lydia Root Andrews (m. 1824) Elizabeth Ford Atkinson (m. 1848) Rebecca Allen Rayl (m. 1865) |
| Profession | Presbyterian minister; evangelist; revivalist; author |
| Religion | Evangelical |
Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism. Finney was best known as an innovative revivalist during the period 1825–1835 in upstate New York and Manhattan, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate of Christian perfectionism, and a religious writer.
Together with several other evangelical leaders, his religious views led him to promote social reforms, such as abolition of slavery and equal education for women and African Americans. From 1835 he taught at Oberlin College of Ohio, which accepted all genders and races. He served as its second president from 1851 to 1866, during which its faculty and students were activists for abolition, the Underground Railroad, and universal education.
Born in Warren, Connecticut in 1792, Finney was the youngest of nine children. The son of farmers who moved to the upstate frontier of Jefferson County, New York after the American Revolutionary War, Finney never attended college. His leadership abilities, musical skill, six-foot three-inch stature, and piercing eyes gained him recognition in his community. He and his family attended the Baptist church in Henderson, where the preacher led emotional, revival-style meetings. Both the Baptists and Methodists displayed fervor through the early nineteenth century. He "read the law", studying as an apprentice to become a lawyer, but after a dramatic conversion experience and baptism into the Holy Spirit in Adams, he gave up legal practice to preach the gospel.
...
Wikipedia