Who Saves Your Soul? - Brad Anderson

The early and mid-nineteenth century in America was characterized by a wave of religious excitement which quickly spread. There is much difficulty in pinpointing the genesis of this movement, but since it shared some characteristics of the awakening in the mid 18th century under Edwards, Whitfield, et al, it was easily labeled the Second Great Awakening. Basic similarities between the two awakenings were: transforming personal experience of God’s grace, an awakening to sin and personal sinfulness, a turn to trust in God’s deliverance through faith in Jesus Christ, and personal assurance of divine salvation. The striking difference which separated these awakenings was the latter created and implemented tactics called “new measures”. Unlike the earlier Awakening, however, where the proponents seemed somewhat content to wait for the working of God to change the sinner, the advocates of the Second Great Awakening created and utilized tactics called “new measures” which were designed to expedite the conversion of the unregenerate.

​Penning Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Charles G. Finney sought to instruct preachers on how to effectively implement revivals using these new tactics with one whole chapter dedicated to “Measures in Promoting Revivals”. Tactics that were promoted were: the “anxious meeting” where people present would be called by name to give testimony of their present condition; “protracted meeting”- an extended revival meeting lasting days and even weeks; and the “anxious seat (bench)” where sinners would forcibly consider their own sinfulness and come to deliverance by momentarily considering their depraved state and hopefully confessing Christ.  Here Finney most clearly explains the seat’s use:

The church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles baptism answered this purpose. The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ were called to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious seat does now, as a public manifestation to their determination to be Christians.

Of the “new measures” general necessity to the historical life of the church Finney states, “Without any new measures it is impossible that the church should succeed in gaining the attention of the world to religion… the church cannot maintain her ground, cannot command attention, without exciting preaching, and sufficient novelty in measures, to get the public ear.” For Finney the method of conversion was a psychological matter. All efforts and energies needed to be expended to aid in the greatest possible atmosphere for one to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

John Williamson Nevin opposed Finney’s “new measures quackery” after observeing these meetings of excitement and warned that they would only harm true revival.

The Anxious Bench and its kindred extravagance may be held justly responsible for a vast amount of evil in this view. As a caricature always wrong the original it is made falsely to represent, so has this spurious system, officially usurping a name and place not properly its own, contributed in no small degree to bring serious religion itself in to discredit, obscuring its true form, and inviting towards it prejudices that might otherwise have no other place. It has much to answer for… the name of God to be blasphemed, and the sacred cause of revivals to be vilified and opposed.”

Dealing with sin and repentance, in Nevin’s experience, was an inward struggle which these measures turned into public manipulation. 

Nevin and the Anxious bench

Nevin specifically used his attack on the “anxious bench” to represent his issues with the larger system of “New Measures.” Nevin did not negate revivals wholesale but he made a distinction between “new measure” revivals and Biblical revival (such as that with Peter at Pentecost) stating, “Special effusions of the Spirit the Church has a right to expect in every age, in proportion as she is found faithful to God’s covenant; and where such effusions take place, an extraordinary use of the ordinary means of grace will appear, as a matter of course.” When true revival of religion appears it is accompanied by those means issued by the Bible: preaching of the Word, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper. 

​Nevin lists four main arguments toward the anxious bench. First, “The Anxious Bench… creates a false issue for the conscience.” In the moment when a sinner is to be grappling most with the greatness of his sin and the need to repent, the use of the anxious bench brings a great distraction. “The question is not will he repent and yield his heart to God, but will he go to the anxious bench; which is something different altogether.” The decision to go to the anxious can divert attention away from actually dealing with sin.  Whereas the sinner ought to be grappling with repentance he is rather grappling with the physical act of going to the bench. 

Second, the bench “distracts the thoughts of the truly serious and thus to obstruct the action of truth in their minds”. Those who would need to consider their sin and the need for salvation calmly might be overwhelmed too greatly by the distraction of coming to the bench. The need to move outwardly would make some so anxious they would lose what calm reflection would help them retain: focus on God’s grace. 

Thirdly, coming to the bench would give the false understanding that it was a “real decision in favor of religion.” In Nevin’s observation the act of walking toward the bench would be counted as righteous steps toward Jesus. Comparing the bench and some acts of the Roman Catholic church Nevin explains, “In both cases the error is practically countenanced and encouraged that coming to Christ and the use of an outward form are in whole, or at least to some considerable extent, one and the same thing…” The act of coming to the bench is nearly considered salvific on its own. 

Fourthly, the bench creates “harm and loss to the souls of men.” Those who had sat in the anxious bench and only a short time later feel depressed and down might be in a worse place than prior to their experience. The “feelings” have diminished. It’s as if the bench promotes seeds being planted in shallow soil.

​Nevin summarizes his view of the system of the bench being

characteristically Pelagian with the narrow views of the nature of sin… involving in the end the gross and radical error that conversion is to be considered in one shape or another the product of the sinner’s own will, and not truly and strictly a new creation in Christ Jesus by the power of God.... The man gets religion, and so stands over it and above it in his own fancy as the owner of property in any other case. The system may generate action; but it will be morbid action, one-sided, spasmodic, ever leaning toward fanaticism.

The experience of the bench was too one-sided and subjective for Nevin. There was not a true measure of depth; the personal experience did not reach beyond one’s own actions, and there was no sense of the “Divine Spirit”.

The revival was more “magical than mystical” in Nevins estimation. There was no revelation of the mysterious works of God saving his people. All these measures were tangible and rational endeavors that led to the conclusion that one was in charge if his or her own destiny. God was not given room to be about the business of calling his people to himself. The salvation of a soul should affect a sense of awe and wonder and not be something that can be calculated and manipulated. For Nevin, the call of the Gospel 

was a going forth of the soul to meet the voice of the heavenly Bride groom, Jesus Christ himself; whose words according to his own declaration, are “spirit and life,” and as such for the inward far more than for the outward ear; whose miracles are parables, and whose parables are miracles; and whose whole presence in the world, indeed, is for faith the sacrament of the invisible and eternal, in a way transcending all natural intelligence or thought.