Asahel Nettleton on emotionally manipulative preaching:
Terrific [calculated to terrify] sermons and other means are artfully contrived to stimulate the feelings of ignorant people. In compliance with the call given at the period of the highest excitement, they repair to the anxious seat by scores. As their fears are soon aroused, they are generally as soon calmed; and in a few days many profess to entertain hope. Many such converts soon lose all appearance of religion; but they become conceited, secure, and Gospel-proof; so that, while living in the open and habitual neglect of their duty, they talk very freely of the time when they experienced religion.
—Bennet Tyler, The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton (Banner of Truth, 1975), 289.
There is no greater example of this method than Nettleton’s famous contemporary Charles Finney. Later in life, Finney himself would confess,
I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state. [source]
TrackBack URL: http://www.thirstytheologian.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1889
Share this post:
Posted in: Asahel Nettleton · Bad Theology · Charles Finney · Church History · The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton
Link · 0 Comments · 0 TrackBacks
← Previous · Home · Next →
