Finney, Charles Grandison

Finney, Charles Grandison

(1792–1875) Protestant religious leader, educator; born in Warren, Conn. Raised on the verge of the frontier in Oneida County, N.Y., he studied for the bar but turned to evangelism after an emotional religious conversion in 1821. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1824 and shortly afterwards launched an eight-year revival campaign that carried him through New York, New England, and the mid-Atlantic states. Named pastor of the Second Free Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1832, he resigned two years later to become pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, a Congregational church organized especially for him. In 1835 he became professor of theology at Oberlin College in Ohio, beginning an association that would continue for the rest of his life. Two years later he accepted the pastorship of the First Congregational Church in Oberlin. He was president of Oberlin College from 1851–66. His Memoirs, about his lifetime of teaching, preaching, and evangelism, appeared the year after his death.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.