3 things

3 things

1. We don’t take God at His word
2. This is happening on our watch
3. Personal responsibility is the key

RESPONSIBILITY: Brethren, our preaching will bear its legitimate fruits. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discrimination, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart, and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of this nation. --Charles G. Finney, December 4, 1873

Are we not all part of the same Royal Priesthood, ministers of and unto the Lord our God,... As such, ought we not bear some responsibility for the spiritual conditions round about us...
The Lord only asked Lot for 50 righteous who would pray 😇🙏🏻

I agree with the sentiment of the OP but I think it is an example of exaggeration for rhetorical effect.

If you can pick out a time in history when the church was at its most dynamic effectiveness, immorality was still rife in the community and certainly the world.

This fact does not lessen Finney’s exhortation one whit; but to lay the responsibility of man’s immorality at the foot of the pulpit or believers in general is a bit much. It’s simply a matter of numbers.

It is easy to overstate. Only during awakenings have we seen any real governmental reform and even then it is short lived and leavened with ungodly motives. It seems unjust to lay all that at the church door.

It is also easy to overlook. God evidently provides a measure of peaceable living when His people are seeking Him. Why else would we be instructed to pray for those in authority? We don’t estimate well the impact of our prayer lives. There is a lot we leave undone that ought to be done simply on our knees let alone other overt ways we can witness of the righteousness of God in Christ.

Yes with Finney it seems to be a disposition and an aspiration.
While viewed objectively, the hyperbole is apparent tho something tells me that subjectively Finney’s faith in what God can do allowed him to view it as an absolute potential. Being trained and licensed as an attorney, he was well equipped and displayed a remarkable skill in separating the literal and the potential in handling the scriptures, albeit unconventionally.
In any case, the fruits of his preaching like Wesley, Whitfield, Edwards, etc... are undeniable and so we see that with even one man, God can do miracles if they will truly believe.
(For me) the great awakenings (revivals) are exemplary of this principle which is, as you say, a sentiment but that’s not the whole of it as it displays emergent properties that does and has changed the course of people, nations and history.

Even today the effects of the preaching of the word of God by Keith Daniels, Art Katz, Leonard Ravenhill, Paris Reidhead, Gbile Akanni, (to name just a few) continues to affect the world around us and we each have a function in the body and have been; gifted, called, discipled, equipped, and yet we (the church/body) appear to be MIA for the most part 🤷🏽”â™‚️ and (for me) I highly doubt that a Wesley, Finney or any like them would capitulate as the current church leaders have done, but would have prevented it from ever getting this bad...