Amy,
It is difficult to comment with certainty without intimate knowledge of a situation. In general the situation you raise in your OP is a perfect example of Finneyism run amok. Never ending altar calls that prey upon people's emotions to either come forward to be saved or rededicate their lives to the Lord. There is also a failure to preach accurately about sin and the progressive nature of sanctification. Philippians 1:6 says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in your will perfect until the the day of Christ Jesus." Sanctification is an ongoing work. We are not perfect in our behavior yet. Because pastors fail to preach on this we have believers who fall into despair.
If genuine faith is met with its evidence, good works (Eph. 2:10), it should not be doubted. Often times the individual is having a problem with assurance; perhaps due to their battle with sin. It is something all of us go through. We need to remember it is not the profession of faith that saves. A profession is simply and outward expression of an inward reality. I counsel people who are struggling with their profession from the Word of God. What do they confess? Do they confess the truth of the gospel? Do they confess Christ? If they answer in the affirmative I tell them to trust in that, not their feelings.
Here are some results of finneyism;
by WR.DOWNING;
MODERN FUNDAMENTALISM AND EVANGELICALISM
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS
The influence of John Wesley and Charles G. Finney has been pervasive throughout modern Fundamental and Evangelical Christianity. Indeed, modern Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are almost entirely based on either the doctrinal teachings promulgated by Wesleyan Arminianism and Finney’s Pelagianism or their modified forms. Much of what John Wesley held was limited to the peculiarities of Methodism until imported into mainline Christianity by Charles G. Finney. Some examples of this trend are:
• a high view of human reasoning that tends to rationalize and filter scriptural truth through humanistic presuppositions.
1034 J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, pp. 318– 319. 375
• the grace of salvation is now thought of in terms of an unscriptural universalism rather than in terms of the Divine decree or scriptural particularism.
• the trend has been away from a strong and detailed confessionalism toward a very general doctrinal approach, an ecumenical inclusivism, or a narrowed separatist–isolationism—yet all are essentially Arminian or Pelagian.
• among some Fundamentalists, there is a trend toward gaining acceptability rather than maintaining a strong emphasis on biblical separation.
• a strong belief in free-will and human ability, with its corresponding idea of salvation and Christian experience.
• a thorough theological revision of the doctrines of effectual calling, regeneration, conversion, justification and sanctification. The call to salvation is general and ineffectual apart from man’s response in faith—
a “faith” that is merely human trust stemming from natural ability. Conversion—faith and repentance—is placed before regeneration.
Justification and sanctification are unscripturally separated. Sanctification is considered optional. This has produced a major shift in the idea of Christian holiness which includes the “carnal Christian” heresy.
• an “age of accountability” stemming from a denial of the imputation of Adam’s sin and a belief in a universal atonement.
• not only salvation but even sinless perfection apart from the Gospel and a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• various “New Measures” that derived from their Arminian and Pelagian systems. Modern mainstream Christianity has embraced the whole evangelistic approach with its “revivalism,” the idea of “religious crusades,” “easy–believism gospel,”
“altar calls,” or “invitational” system, and calls for “rededication.”
• an undue emphasis on an emotional–promotional–psychological type of “soul–winning,” attended by a de–emphasis on expository and doctrinal preaching.
• the lack of reverence in the pulpit ministry and public worship.
• testimony meetings and church services given to singing rather than to the centrality of sound doctrinal preaching.
• the unscriptural innovation of women in church and ministerial leadership.
• the retention of such teachings as “perfectionism,” “falling from grace” [the apostasy of true believers], and the “baptism of the Spirit” by some of the more radical groups [“Holiness,” “Pentecostals, “Free–Will Baptists”] in Evangelical Christianity.
• such phenomena as the “Church Growth Movement,” the modern religious notion of “self–esteem,” and Christian social activism apart from a gospel context.
• the contemporary attitude of many modern theological writers that they are either above or beyond the Arminian–Calvinistic controversies of the past, and write from a more “advanced” or “biblical” perspective. These individuals are usually Arminians or extremely “modified Calvinists” in their doctrinal persuasion.
376
• a down–playing a necessary and thorough ministerial education, theological seminaries have in many instances given way to Bible Colleges.1035 A thorough theological, linguistic classical curriculum has been replaced by studies solely in the English Bible, and courses in how to “grow” churches through programs and techniques.
Finney, then, became a catalyst which allowed the errors of some previous men and movements—Pelagius, Hugo Grotius, Jacobus Arminius, Claude Pajon, John Wesley, and Nathaniel Taylor—to enter into mainstream Fundamental and Evangelical Christianity.
