Chris Not Charles Finney Ames Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on

the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

�But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would

remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for

you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial.

Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and

glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I have been out of the studio for a couple weeks.

I went to California and saw my son Luke graduate from the Master�s University,

and I was very happy that it was in alphabetical order, and I could just go and then leave.

No, that�s not true.

It�s just exciting to see our young people grow up, and I�m thankful that the Lord has

given him a heart for ministry and for preaching the gospel.

But I�m back in the studio, and it�s a Wednesday, not in real time, it�s Thursday real time, but this Wednesday

I have for interviewing theologians, bankrupt

politicians, you know, just interviewing people.

And so today, it�s going to be kind of exciting because this is world news, there�s an anonymous

Twitter account, and I think we�re outing him today with his permission.

And so I�m going to first introduce him as his Twitter account, and then we�ll out him as we go.

Not Charles Finney, welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for having me.

Now if you�re not Charles Finney, but your account says �at chuck under

slash finney� on Twitter, I�m kind of getting the bipolar vibe here.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Interesting, interesting question.

Originally when we conceived of this account, it wasn�t just me, it was actually a friend of mine.

He texted me one night and said, �Oh, I�ve got this wonderful idea and then followed that up with an email

and just laid out this almost like a business model for a Twitter account where

there were going to be three of us and we would just go after the foibles of

evangelicalism.

And originally I was like, �Oh, okay, that sounds great.

� That�s one thing the world needs more of, is angry voices on Twitter.

But then I kind of picked the ball up and ran with it.

The other two guys more or less lost interest.

Now they�re just kind of casual observers and they�re just watching me cruise off into the sunset or off into

Gulag or wherever I end up.

And originally we thought, you know, �Charles Finney, what better foil is there for

retelling the evangelical drama

� You know, it�s just the perfect foil.

But then, you know, just last year sometime, I looked up how many actual Charles Finney

accounts are there on Twitter, and there were 19 of them.

And so I figured, �Well, I�m not actually Charles Finney, and maybe all of these guys are, so I�ll

just go not Charles Finney and I�ll do it that way.

Now the Twitter handle, not Charles, it says, for location, �The Burned Over

District.

Maybe the other 19 Charles Finneys, they�ve doubly burned over, so now we�ve

got extra burned over.

Tell our listeners, before we reveal your real name, what did Finney actually do and why

was that district called the Burnt Over District or Burnt District?

Well, and here�s where I�ve got maybe a little bit of an advantage,

is a good friend of mine did Ph .D. work on Charles Finney,

and I�m really looking forward to actually reading it.

I went over to his house, and you know, he�s been working on this Ph .D. for about 10 years, lots of extensions and

stuff like that.

Just because it�s such a tangled web,

Finney was a complicated individual.

We could probably say that he was an extremely well -meaning individual, it�s just that his theological wires

were all crossed up, and he was in many ways a child of his age.

He was a man of his times, and so the belief in the

human spirit was surging through Charles Finney.

And he really did want the best for people, and that�s why he would preach at them for two hours or more.

But what he did was he took the will

and made that primary, he made that central.

His preaching method was to break that down

and to actually, almost physically, viscerally bring that into submission to Christ.

And if the will decided to wander off from Christ, well, at that point you�d lost your salvation and you need to go

and rededicate yourself.

And thankfully, he invented a whole process, not really invented, he more or less systematized

a process for that as well.

And that was the process of new measures, the anxious bench,

and all of this.

Getting people�s attention became the primary way of arresting

them and getting an opportunity to attack their will.

And if all of that sounds extremely manipulative, it is.

And I�m an Evangelical, it really depends on how you define that.

With Evangelicalism, that�s the water that we are immersed in.

And when you try to climb out of that, you look

weird.

And there�s no way around that, really, is what Finney

did.

I would highly recommend reading some Church history that deals with him.

For example, like the democratization of American Christianity by Hatch, I recommend that to everybody.

I pass that out as Christmas presents.

It�s a great book, and it will help you place ourselves in the historical context that we

belong in.

If the listeners wanted to read maybe a short article on Finney, I usually recommend the Mike Horton

article.

Is that a good article, or do you recommend something else?

Yeah, so read Horton�s article.

Balance that with some of the stuff that Phil Johnson has written.

That�ll give you a little bit more of a popular synopsis.

Ian Murray is very easy to read, and he�s got a good take on

Finney.

I suppose you could find some more glowing accounts of him, but I don�t really think that�s what we�re going for here.

But yeah, Horton�s article is good, and

like I say, if you pick up an Ian Murray Church history book, they�re not dry and dusty.

He�s a good writer, and he believes what he�s writing about.

So NotCharles, what do you think, when it comes to Finney, that you�I

guess I�m trying to figure out your Twitter account.

When you tweet something, are you tweeting against people that

would buy into Finney�s philosophy and methodology and theology, or are you kind of like an

avatar for Finney?

How would people best understand your account if they click it at Chuck

underscore Finney?

I�m trying to help people out.

Just like Oberlin had the Underground Railroad, you know, one of the best things that Oberlin did was they were a station for the

Underground Railroad.

I�m trying to establish a station on Twitter, the Underground Railroad, for people to

see their way out of revivalism, revivalism, the idea that

your visceral response to God is something more than a visceral response to God.

And I want people to see that they have been

and are being manipulated.

And if they�re pastors, that you can actually do ministry without manipulating people.

And so that�s really what the account is about.

And I poke fun at a lot of things, and if you wanted to describe me, I�m

a dork.

Well, maybe that�s why we get along online with No Compromise Radio and not Charles Finney.

They�re almost sister accounts.

You know, they�re very similar.

I�ve always been surprised at the similarity.

And when you interview people, there�s a serious side to it, but then there�s a side that�s just, you know, there

are things to be serious about, and then there�s everything else in the world.

And there�s so much there to have fun with and poke fun at.

Now, before we tell.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say, before we tell your name, Not Charles, let�s talk a little bit more about

this guilty pleasure of Twitter.

You�re a pastor in real life, and so am I.

Yes.

And if people only know you through the Not Charles Finney, do they really know you?

I�d say you could probably figure out.

A lot of my friends have actually figured me out.

It�s not that difficult.

You may think that I�m.

� I�ve had people ask me, you know, are you really this cynical in real life?

And I say, oh, yes, absolutely.

But I limit my exposure to things that bring out my cynicism.

So, you know, like, I live in a small town, and I have very little interaction,

you know, people who think Karl Barth is cool and things like that.

So, really, there�s not a whole lot here to make my blood boil.

But there are things that are really important, and occasionally I run into those online, and occasionally I can be a little bit

savage.

But, you know, if somebody goes after something that�s important to me, I�m going to stand up.

Do people know me through my Twitter account?

I would say you can read through the lines and probably know just about exactly what I�m thinking.

Pretty transparent that way.

So, Not.

Charles, what�s the most trouble you�ve gotten into on Twitter?

I�ve seen a few things go back and forth over the years.

What�s the most trouble you�ve gotten in?

Let me try that.

Well, I guess there are a couple of

accounts out there.

Modus operandi is to go about like roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour.

Projects, and they�ve got their pet, I call them kickstands for the gospel.

You know, something that they want to add to justification by faith alone to make sure that you�re really

on the good guy�s club.

I got dragged by somebody who was kind of part of the

recovery movement, and she hounded me with seven or eight

different accounts, and nothing really came of it.

People kind of figured out that she�s a little bit of a nutter.

It�s not that I�m against people who want to write these survivor blogs and things like that.

It�s just that some of them really have a tough time moving on and

forgiving, and so I kind of pointed that out.

It�s like, why don�t we see more forgiver blogs?

That was a huge red flag.

Some of these ladies are really good about it so much, and so

I got nuked a little bit for that.

I got dragged as a racist because I interacted with the account.

I just thought he was a nice guy.

I didn�t really put it together that he was like this white supremacist guy, and it�s like, well, that�s not

really my project anyway, so it�s kind of like, I don�t that�s

not my thing.

I live in a farm town in rural Wisconsin.

It doesn�t matter.

It doesn�t so much matter here.

We�ve got black neighbors.

It�s not a big deal, and we just don�t care.

I lived six years in urban Minneapolis, north Minneapolis,

and you know, gunfire outside all the time, and it�s not the shooting range like it is here.

First time we�ve lived here and they�re doing some shooting over at the shooting range, we�re like, oh, let�s get inside.

Oh, wait, it�s just the shooting range.

Um, you know, so I�ve had to, you know, deal with race stuff, and I just

don�t buy the intersectionality and things like that.

So I got blasted for that.

Somebody dredged up an old tweet that I sent to somebody that, wise or

unwise, I was just kind of yeah, so I

haven�t really got in that much trouble.

I think that if some of my seminary doing, they might

say, hey, do you really think you should be that hard on Ed Stetzer?

And I would probably say, yeah, but, you know, I�ve

had a lot of sleep from it.

I think somebody said in answer to the question, what�s the biggest problem in the Church

today, they answered that question with pastors on Twitter.

I believe it.

I believe it.

Um, you know, Twitter and Facebook, you know, I�m

part of a couple of, and you

know, occasionally

if there�s a poll or something like that, I�ll chime in, but yeah, you

can really embarrass yourself in those spheres.

Well, the Twitter screeds that come from No Compromise Radio are usually when I�m at the gym and I�m

sitting on the Life Cycle or the Stairmaster and I don�t have anything else to do.

You know, I�m listening to a podcast, I�m listening to Crisis Center or something like that, and I think, okay, here we go.

But many times I just load up HootSuite and just drop in things, you know, here and there.

And I don�t know if I�ve stayed out of the fray because I don�t respond to

detractors, I just think this is kind of a one -way communication deal.

If you don�t like what I say, fine.

Yeah.

But I don�t know if that�s good.

Maybe you could write a book about it, maybe kind of like a productivity on Twitter book for pastors.

Wouldn�t that sell a lot?

Wouldn�t that hold its weight over the next few generations, you could just pick it up and read it in 40 years?

Yeah, great question.

I don�t think people would like what I would say, though.

So I look at Twitter and I say, you know, social media, if we can remember one thing about social

media, it�s that it cheapens everything that it touches.

It devalues things.

And so, you know, I see these, you know, six, seven -day -long

baptism debates between, you know, and Baptists.

I�m a Baptist, but I don�t wear that on my

sleeve.

Like, that�s the badge of honor that I�m going to take on social media and pick a

side, be a jerk about it, because that�s more

important than that.

That�s something I�m not going to drag out there and just debate it because it�s a point of that�s

one of Christ�s ordinances, and I don�t think that it�s a good idea to cheapen it that way.

And that�s why I�m okay with, you know, Presbyterians taking good -natured potshots at Baptists.

Yeah, we deserve it.

We give them right back.

But I don�t really think that Twitter, of all things, is a great place for

theology debates or, for that matter, just about anything important.

So I usually leave my family and a lot of other things, I just kind of leave out.

Yeah, but I�m still waiting for what Chuck, not Chuck Finney, not Charles Finney, eats, you know, a picture of what you have

for lunch in Wisconsin, you know, some...

Oh, that�s a great idea.

I should do that.

You should do it.

I think people would be amazed.

One of the really cool things about being a rural pastor, and I absolutely love this, and, you know, I

commend it to anybody, is that I�m six -tenths of a

mile, I can walk it, I can ride my bike, whatever, and I�m home three meals a day.

It�s the rare day that I�m not home for three meals a day.

Yes, but not Charles Finney.

You�ve got a real problem, because when it comes to city church and urban church and

city to city and social justice church in the city with the cement, I think

you�re dropping the ball.

I think probably your race, ethnicity quotas are

not sufficient as well on that farm church.

You�ve got Italians and Norwegians.

That�s all the drama we need.

I�m going to start boycotting certain churches because there�s not enough blue -eyed people in those churches.

I mean, I�m blue -eyed, and I think it needs to be more blue -eyed people.

Yeah, there are two

black families in our town.

One of them goes to the Lutheran church, one of them just moved here.

They�re our neighbors.

But we�re not going to steal the Lutherans, and I mean, I guess we could try.

I guess I haven�t tried that hard.

All right.

I�ll get back to you on it.

I think since we�re talking about Lutheranism, I would like to talk about Lutherans in Wisconsin, and I grew up

in Nebraska where there�s a lot of Lutherans.

But before that, let�s just do the reveal.

I don�t know, I don�t have drums, I don�t have a drum roll or anything like that.

You�re the pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Boyceville, Wisconsin, and I�ll let

you introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Chris Ames, 42 years old, 5�10�s,

long walks on the beach, piano concertos, and

harpsichord�s not bad if it�s not too tinny.

I don�t like seafood, and that�s about all you need to know about me.

Where did you go to seminary?

Central Seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota.

And as I pull up your website, gbcboyceville, b -o -y -c

-e -v -i -l -l -e .org, I see you�re teaching verse by verse.

Who would have thought, not Chuck Finney, would have gone to 1 Timothy 2, 7 one week, then the next week 1

Timothy 2, 8 to 10.

What�s your philosophy behind that?

I mean, aren�t you trying to build a megachurch?

I�m trying to be a refugee church for people who are getting out of megachurches.

Are there megachurches where you live?

There�s one that pretends to be down in Menominee,

they�re called Cedarbrook.

We call them Cedarbrook because you could mistake the building for a movie theater,

pretentious to that.

But if you think about it, all of the evangelical churches have pretentious to be megachurch, because

they essentially are working with the same template.

It�s the rare church that isn�t doing that, that really is concerned with spiritual formation.

You know, the guy in town here, there�s a little evangelical free church here in town,

I think they�re smaller than we are attendance -wise, but, you know, he�s a nice guy.

It�s just that he sees a new trend or a new fad, and he�s got to be part of it.

It�s just, it�s a magnetic pull to him.

And, you know, when you�re tied to some things like that, spiritual

formation just necessarily goes to the wayside.

I mean, I think I can keep up on certain fads via social media and Twitter and, you know, browsing internet sites

and receiving the latest Christianity Today, probably.

But it�s too tiring for me.

I don�t have enough time to study fadism and then keep up with what the

Bible teaches.

You know, it just seems so obvious to me that these guys run after the

latest ology or fad, and I just think they spend their time in the wrong places.

I think they�d be more pragmatic than that.

Well, as far as preaching goes,

one thing that I�ve noticed is that a lot of guys, and I know guys like this,

I wouldn�t call them great friends or anything, but they�ve

got their couple of sermon series on

easy books of the Bible, and then they�ve got a couple of, you know, these standalone sermons, you know, your

Romans 12, 1 and 2 sermon, and your John 3, 16 sermon.

Well, you know what�s really neat is when you preach those in their context as part of a series and you don�t

lose the thread.

The biblical authors weren�t just writing fortune cookie aphorisms.

They were actually making arguments.

How in the world can you develop a whole argument every week as the

introduction to a sermon, especially in a book, you know, say the book of Romans?

You really want to preach Romans 12, 1 and 2.

Well, praise the Lord, that�s a great passage.

You�re really going to take, actually develop Romans

chapters 1 through 11 in your introduction, and then do justice to chapter

12, verses 1 and 2.

So that�s really my philosophy.

My philosophy is follow the thread through the book as best you can.

You know, look for that theme.

Show how that theme is broadened or

focused or whatever the author is doing with that big book idea.

What�s he doing in this passage?

What�s he doing to communicate that?

So you mentioned 1 Timothy.

You know, you see in that, well, there�s the theme of the whole book.

Through the book,

enhance that or clarify that or focus that or broaden that or whatever Paul wants to do with it.

So that, to me, that�s more important than any project we could do.

And, you know, there are some projects that we just have to do, but it�s really about that spiritual formation that

comes when people understand the Scriptures, understand how they come to bear on their lives, and

understand this life that has a

claim on them.

It has a claim on their loyalty, that they�re citizens of a different country.

And, you know, some people like that, some people don�t, but I think that�s what we�re called to do.

Mark Devereux.

Well, it�s exactly the opposite, Chris, of Charles Finney and his man -centered theology.

I mean, I tell people regularly, if you have to make an important decision, why

don�t you read 1 Kings?

And they say, why would I read 1 Kings?

And I said, because I want you to see history from God�s perspective, a theological perspective,

and I want you to read about God�s rule over the world where you�re not there, right?

You�re not in 1 Kings, but God is.

And so, I just usually send them off to some obscure passage someplace because

they�re thinking too man -centeredly.

And you were just talking about 1 Timothy.

I was thinking about John, you know, how many people get up and teach John 3, which is great and wonderful and fine, but

if they�re not teaching sequentially, then they forget that John 2 ends

with something that makes John 3 necessary.

Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all men, or knew

all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

That�s the end of chapter 2 of John.

Chapter 3, now there was a man, right?

He knows what�s in a man, and he knows inside Nicodemus is a self -righteous man and

a religious man, but needs to be born again.

Speaking of which� Somebody who came to him in the dark.

Absolutely.

Speaking of which, and we need to land this plane pretty soon, but I grew up in Lutheran circles, and I was never told,

�You must be born again.

Because I was made born again, at least I was taught that, I was born again in the waters of

baptism when I was a child.

Chris, what�s your strategy when it comes to Lutheranism and evangelizing Lutherans

since you are in Wisconsin?

The Lutherans around here do a pretty good job of at least educating their

people, where they have a framework that I can work in.

It�s a matter of, you know, do you have to bring a

potential crisis?

And I would argue that in a lot of cases you do, simply because they, like

many evangelical

fundamentalists,

are baptized.

�Oh, I had to go to confirmation, or I had to do this, I had to do that.

� Well, you�re placing all of your hope on something that you did or was done for you in the past.

And my typical question is, where

is your trust now?

Where is your hope now?

And then, you know, if there�s an existential crisis, it�s not going to be of my making, it�s going to be when the person

asks, �Where is my trust?

Where is my hope now?

Working Christ today for your salvation ?

You know, and then we can bicker and haggle about

theological points, but typically, you know, the

folks that I talk to, you know, they

go away sorrowful kind of question, because the Church, and they

participate, and it�s not really so much a matter

of faith for them, it�s just a matter of culture.

Really, the struggle with Lutherans is that they�re super nice people, typically.

It�s the 85 % rule, right?

85 % of people are just fine, and that 15 % of them are jerks.

Across just about every population.

But the Lutherans around here are fairly nice people.

What are you trusting now?

Are you trusting that God is going to accept you based on a decision that

was made for you, or is no live faith going

on in your heart right now?

That�s my typical approach.

Chris, when I meet a Lutheran, and I might be wrong about this, but this is my strategy, and this

is my metanarrative, so I can do what I want.

But when I meet a Lutheran, if somebody says, �Oh, yeah, hi.

I�m a Lutheran.

I default to, in my mind at least, I�m going to need to do some evangelism,

versus my default, well, I�m going to, I don�t know, if I met somebody and they said, �I�m OPC

Presbyterian.

� I might think, oh, I�m going to default to, we have a lot in common and we�re brothers and sisters in Christ.

When I hear someone and they say, well, I�m a Lutheran, my default is, well, you know, I�m going to have to try to get to the

gospel somehow.

And just like you said earlier, the present tense of believe, right?

Are you believing right now?

What are you trusting in right now?

Is that how you go about it, or is it different in Wisconsin with a bunch of Wisconsin Missouri Synod

people up there?

What�s the scoop?

You know, the Wisconsin Synod people, they are much more conservative than the ELCA.

Missouri Synod, I�ve met some pretty conservative Missouri Synod too, but the

Wisconsin Synod, it�s usually they�re

fairly with it.

Now, you know, again, being Baptist, I definitely have to put on corrective lenses

to be able to read them because, you know, in Lutheran

faith, it looks a little different when it�s lived out than from how Baptists would go about things.

But I tend to find a lot more real, live Wisconsin

Synod believers, certainly than I would in the ELCA.

Although among the older people, you�d be surprised at how many real believers

there are, because evidently there was some conservatism.

You know, the gospel was being preached in many of these churches.

For example, in our town, the Missouri Synod church closed down.

The Lutherans here in town, well, they had to go to the ELCA church, or they had to go

to a church down in Menominee that�s more conservative.

So it was kind of like driving this far.

They stayed here in town, and they�re kind of getting whatever they�re getting.

And some of the other ones went down to Menominee, where I think that guy�s a believer.

Now, he�s wrong about some stuff, but, you know, just between us, I

probably am too.

Right.

Well, and I think that�s true, you know, with these, like the Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod.

Yeah, there are Christians in there in spite of what their statement of faith says on baptism,

right?

I think to myself, well, if there�s some kind of regeneration in baptism, then that�s kind of

a big deal, but then maybe they don�t believe that.

I just pulled up WELS .net, the Wisconsin Evangelical

Lutheran Synod webpage, their real webpage, and I just picked this one.

Where does it say in Scripture that baptism creates faith?

That�s a question.

Here�s their answer.

We will not find a passage in the Bible that states specifically and succinctly baptism creates faith.

Yeah.

It says we know that baptism is a faith -working act on God�s part by looking at several Bible passages and

seeing how they relate to baptism.

Anyway, then they go on to say the Bible explains that people enjoy forgiveness of sins and eternal life by

God�s grace through faith in Christ Jesus his Son.

So they�re kind of bipolar on that thing.

Yeah, it�s a little bit confusing, but that tracks right back to Luther too, because he

was a little, I think he was a little bit muddled.

I think some of the other Reformers did a really good job of clarifying some of the areas where he was muddled,

and yeah, I mean, I don�t

really have a problem, like I say, with well

-developed, articulate some things

differently from how I articulate them.

But at least they�ve thought them through, you know?

It�s not just like, �Well, of course I�m going to heaven.

I was baptized.

� Probably it�s something like that.

At least in your presence as the NotCharlesFinney account.

I really don�t plumb the depths of

Lutheran Twitter too much.

You know, I follow a couple people.

I try to get the thoughtful ones here and there, but I�m not really interested in

having more liberalism in my life, so I tend to stay away from that.

I think that someone said recently on Twitter, maybe PresbyCast or someone, that, you know, the Lutheran Twitter

does not really yield much fruit.

That was Hans Finney, of all people.

Oh, it was?

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, he�s about as Lutheran as they get, as far as I know.

All right.

Well, we should probably wrap up this show.

Chris Ames Pastoring in Wisconsin, preaching the Bible verse by verse.

They can go listen to some of your sermons at the website as well, and if they want to go to the Twitter account,

it is at Chuck underscore Finney, F -I -N -N -E -Y, and

NotCharles, it�s been good to have you on No Compromise Radio.

You�re kind of like a sister account.

As Happy Days is to Laverne and Shirley, maybe NoCo is to NotCharlesFinney.

That�s hilarious.

Well, one day I�ll meet you in the flesh.

Are you five?

How tall are you again?

I was six -one -and -a -half.

I�m now six foot.

I�m shrinking.

Okay. Nice work.

If my weight could shrink, too, I would appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I�m doing my part.

All right.

NotCharlesFinney, thanks for being on the radio show.

Thank you.

God bless.