Emergent Nazarenes

A Covenant of Kindness

2011-01-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

We have lost the skills of civil discourse. We have forgotten how to be kind to those with whom we disagree.
The Board of General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene is attempting to recall us to basic Christian kindness in our conversations and debate. They have released a "Covenant of Kindness."
As the debates here and in our home communities have been overheated at times, I rejoice that more people are speaking out on behalf of mutual respect and genuine humility in conversation. May this be part of our collective healing.

Too Close for Comfort

2010-08-27T02:58:00.004-04:00

This was originally posted on an anti-emergent site. Perhaps we can see this in two ways:
1) A humorous reminder to pursue true humility.
2) A call to think more deeply about the nature of humility amid conflicting ideas.

General Superintendents Statement

2010-08-15T21:49:00.002-04:00

New statement by the Board of General Superintendents released this month concerning the Emergent Church

http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/superintendents/statements/emergent/display.aspx

New Obit

2010-08-12T00:21:00.003-04:00

I am posting a recent blog by Scott Daniels on the Death of the Emergent Church
http://drtscott.typepad.com/pastor_scotts_thoughts/2010/08/the-death-of-the-emerging-church.html

Dr. Daniels starts the blog with the following

A little over a year ago a friend of mine and I were invited to lead a seminar at Nazarene General Assembly assessing the Emerging Church and its relationship to the denomination. I said then, I have written in several places, and I will repeat it here, I have never considered myself to be part of the EC. (It’s hard to truly be emerging when you pastor the second oldest church in the denomination. We still have a choir and orchestra for goodness sake J). I have, however, considered myself a somewhat sympathetic critic of the movement. I consider my own position to be a Wesleyan version of the Reformed position Jim Belcher takes in his book Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional.

Anyway, a year ago, the EC conversation was THE buzz. People loved it or hated it. They considered it the hope of the church or the seed of its destruction. When I wrote my five-part series on the EC a year ago my blog received hundreds of hits each day with people wanting to read all they could about this important movement.

A year later, I can’t find a whole lot of people who care. In particular I can’t find any scholarly folk who want to talk about it. One of my theological colleagues here at APU summed it up well in a conversation last week. “For all practical purposes the EC movement is dead. It is over and done. Does anybody care about it anymore?”

Oh sure, there are still plenty of people talking and blogging about the EC. There are a few seminars still going on with either pro-emerging or anti-emerging overtones to them. But it is my prediction that one year from now even those lingering conversations will largely have faded into the distance. I would agree with my colleague. The EC movement is essentially dead.

I know it is not fair to post this and run but I am up to my earlobes with other assignments right now; however I did want the group to hear of this now rather than wait till it goes viral :0-). Reverend Daniels also references the writing of Anthony Bradley whom I heard this summer at a different conference. [http://online.worldmag.com/2010/04/14/farewell-emerging-church-1989-2010/

Bradley writes for (what I think) is a fairly conservative e-zine known as World Magazine but Bradley represents himself (if I remember correctly) as formerly working with Rob Bell at Mars Hill. His presentation appeared to be pretty condescending at the conference, but I know personality often factors into these situations (can you say Tony Jones? :0-) Some of you probably know that there is also a new book/website that also seems to lampoon Emergent in a way that modulates between irony and sarcasm. http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/

Please note: Bradley and Hipster do not mirror Scott Daniels' writing at all (Scott is too charitable for that tone) and I am not trying to lump the three interpretations together. However, I am not always sure what motivates the need to see/accept a movement's "death." Just an FYI to the members of the blog, you might remember the same issue surfaced here in a different iteration in Jan 2009 thread titled Emerging Church Obituary

To be upfront, I have some personal misgivings with the "death" language (as you might have suspected by now). There is something to the pronouncement of an ontological dissolution of a set of passions/perspectives that united real people in real contexts that always makes me nervous. I am not surprised the language of Emergent might have to change (my first article offering to this group suggested something similar, which got me in trouble then :0-) but I always suspected this would be an gradual shift that occurred from churches sharing similar perspectives and not an outright pronouncement from sympathetic or otherwise onlookers. I could say more but right now I need some sleep.

Daniels presents some interesting, accurate, and charitable observations (his critiques match most of my earlier concerns). But dead? Not sure I would ever try to use this term myself (somewhere I feel Mark Twain in the room), particularly in light of Ezekiel 37. Nuff said (maybe too much). Got to go to bed, enjoy the reading.

Blessed are....

2010-08-10T11:46:00.005-04:00

Blessed are you who are rich, for you can give much without sacrificing much of your own comfort and are a witness of how God blesses the truly faithful.

Blessed are you who are satisfied, for you do not need to worry about going hungry and can focus on heavenly things.

Blessed are you who laugh, and do not get distracted from what is really important for eternity by the shortsighted weeping of those who futilely mourn because of, and for, a doomed world.

Blessed are you when everyone loves you, when they tell you how great you, and what a saint you are, because of your faithfulness to the Son of God. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how our fathers treated those whom they determined where truly faithful.

But, woe to you who are poor, for if you were willing to work rather than beg you would receive comfort to the degree of your effort. You need to fix your attitude and get right with God.

Woe to you who are hungry, for you focus so much on your stomach that it is difficult to seek after the spiritual bread of life so you can go to heaven when you die.

Woe to you who weep and act as a victim neglecting your own responsibility. You try to make others feel guilty because you have had no success, but you have reaped what you have sown.

Woe to you when people speak ill of you, for you are only as good as your reputation – honor is given to whom honor is due.

The above sentiments are what I keep hearing from many today about who they think are honored and blessed by God and who isn't, but it doesn't seem to match up with what Jesus says in Luke 6:20-26:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."

24-7 Prayer

2010-06-27T22:44:00.001-04:00

This spring, we did one week of 24-7 Prayer in our church (Korea Nazarene University International English Church). This is a movement started by young, alternative, punk Christians in England. It has spread around the world, and after participating, I can see why.

We set up a prayer room on the KNU campus, and we invited people sign up for an hour to pray IN the prayer room - stringing together a continuous week of prayer night and day (hence 24-7). Our prayer room had several different "stations": repentance, The Lord's Prayer, a wailing wall (for deep unanswered prayers), general requests, maps, thanksgivings, a cross, music, and a "Holy of Holies" quiet, curtained off space in the middle of the room. We covered most of the walls with white paper, and we invited people to write or to draw their prayers all over the place. Some people even brought their own art supplies and added in some paintings. We gave people prayer request cards and asked them to take requests from their students, friends, and coworkers.

This week of prayer was the best thing our church has done in a very long time. This infused us with spiritual life and creativity like nothing we've ever done. I had some fears that it might feel contrived or strained, but the opposite was true. Having a prayer room that evoked creativity moved our community into spontaneous and free-spirited prayer. This gave us a hunger and a longing for prayer. We completed our week of prayer with a prayer service on Pentecost Sunday, and this was by far the most powerful service that I have ever seen in our church. Now, 5-6 weeks later, our services are still having more of a "sense" of God's Spirit.

I love that the 24-7 Prayer movement is not just "spiritual." Their catchwords are: prayer, mission, and justice, and they actively promote mission in a variety of different ways. Also, hosting a community prayer room really strengthened our church's sense of community - even though most of us prayed our hour alone. This thing is ancient, modern, and post-modern all at the same time. Joining together in prayer unites the various cultures and perspectives in our diverse church. This is a place where we can all agree and participate.

We are planning to do another week or two of prayer in the Fall semester. We are considering a variety of options for how to do it in the fall: teaming up with another church (or group of churches), making a larger prayer room open to the wider KNU community, linking the prayer room with our Wednesday night service, etc. We're still praying about what to do and how to do it, but I fully expect that 24-7 Prayer will become part of the regular rhythm of our church.

I highly recommend checking out the 24-7 prayer website and reading Red Moon Rising, the book describing this prayer movement.

The First Emergent Nazarene

2010-04-23T15:50:00.003-04:00

I’ve noticed that many who self-identify as emerging or emergent Christians emphasize following Jesus, pursuing Jesus’ way, or living a life that imitates Jesus. I like this emphasis.

Of course, there are other aspects of being a Christian too. Christianity is also a social movement, affirms various beliefs, pursues particular practices, and involves institutions and organizations. But there seems something profoundly true about being committed first to following Jesus’ way of loving God and others and second to Christian institutions, creeds, and rituals.

The emergent/emerging Church voices have their critics, of course. Some criticisms are justified, but many more are not. I’m especially unimpressed when critics blast emerging/emergent church leaders for seeking new language, strategies, and methods to present the Christian good news.

I ran across a reprinted newspaper report recently that caught my attention. The report was of a sermon preached by an early Church of the Nazarene leader.

As I read, I noticed similarities between the leader’s sermon and the emerging/emergent church’s emphasis upon following Jesus. Here’s what the early Nazarene preacher said:

Notice that Christ does not say: “Accept the creed which I frame; observe the church forms or rituals I devise; join the church which I have found.” He only said, “Follow Me.” It is as though he had said, “Come, live my life with me.”

What does it mean? It means that Christianity is not a creed, not an ecclesiasticism, not a ritual, but a life.

It is this simple Christ life, which the world hungers for, and which gives birth to the cry that goes up from all lands: “We are tired of forms and creeds. Let us go back to Christ.”

It is this Christ life that we are to take out with us and teach and live in this city mission work that is our chosen field.

Yet the present question has been asked, “Why not do this work under present church lines with their machinery, instead of forming a new organization?” The question contains its own answer. It is because of the machinery. The churches are steadily withdrawing from this field.

Folks in the Church of the Nazarene congregation wouldn’t – and couldn’t – embrace every statement or idea advocated by those self-identified as “emerging” or “emergent.” Diversity abounds. I reported in an earlier blog about a letter from a denominational general superintendent seeking to identify differences and similarities between the denomination and the emerging/emergent church.

But there is a strong connection between the spirit of the early Church of the Nazarene and the cry for transformation arising from the emerging/emergent movement. The denomination and the movement share common cause and similar desires.

I also see similarities between critics of the early Church of the Nazarene and critics of the present-day emergent/emerging church. I have a hunch contemporary critics of the emerging/emergent church would have been among those criticizing the newly formed holiness denomination more than 100 years ago!

By the way, the leader whose sermon I quoted (and pictured above) is the very person who coined the denomination’s name, “Church of the Nazarene.” He was Dr. J.P. Widney, second president of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and the founding dean of the USC School of Medicine.

Even more interesting is that the quotation above comes from the very first sermon preached at the newly organized Church of the Nazarene congregation. Widney’s words above were reported in the Los Angeles Times after the congregation’s 1895 formation.

It seems accurate to say that a central theme in the very first sermon of the first Church of the Nazarene congregation – following Jesus’ way – is a central theme in the emerging/emergent church. And although it’s anachronistic to say it, J. P. Widney may be rightly regarded as the first emergent/emerging member of the Church of the Nazarene!

At the end of the day, I think history is of secondary importance. It matters, of course. But what matters more is that we follow Jesus.

But I hope I have reminded those in my own tradition that our birth and roots are not so different from the emergent movement we see arising today.

May we all seek to follow Jesus!

By Thomas Jay Oord
From his blog, re-posted with permission

A Postmodern Prayer

2010-04-19T03:01:00.002-04:00

God, as I read and talk with people in my generation, there seems to be this great ambivalence about you. It seems as if we’ve lost you on a walk through the forest in thick fog. Sometimes we are almost certain that you are there walking beside us or behind us - maybe even putting a gentle, affectionate hand on our backs. Other times, it seems as if you’ve never been there and the thick fog has been playing tricks on us all along.
Why is that? Why do we wander in and out of awareness of you? Why does faith come and go? Why do so many who grew up in the church and had clear experiences of you - or at least every opportunity to experience you - why do we later in life - as we grow up and enter adulthood - why do we doubt or lose faith or wander unanchored or feel overwhelmed and lost in the fog?
Are we casualties of postmodernism? Are the gears of centuries crunching our souls between the cracks of tectonic era shifts? That’s what I’m telling people. Is it true that so many of us are innocent casualties of some huge philosophical traffic accident?
What can be done? What should we do? Are we applying first-aid like EMS personnel? Are we working in a rehab hospital teaching people how to walk, to eat, to write again? Is there something we can do to keep people out of the way of the colliding trains? Must we all lose an arm or leg or eye? Is this a necessary part of an honest faith journey in these kaleidoscopic times?
Is there no vaccine, no preventative medicine, no way to lessen the pain or to lessen the fall? Must we be boggled by the complexity before we can search out a new simplicity?
Why are the answers so hard to find these days?
Why do the questions feel so much more ready on the lips, so much more true to the mind?
How long will this last?
Where will this end?
Where will we all go from here, and is that where you want to take us?

The Importance of Ritual in Transformational Community

2010-04-13T23:38:00.005-04:00

At the core of our being we long for another or others to share our life with. Our first inclination as humans is bonded and intimate community which begins with our family. In our earliest moments we bond to our mother as we nurse, her hand caressing our head, cradling us to her. We recognize the smell of our father, the roughness of his face against ours. From the start we reach out and latch on with our hands when a finger is presented. Our instinctual desire is connection, intimacy, and belonging.

As we grow so does our community, starting with our parents and siblings, then our extended family, next our neighbors and community, and then school friends. As we live we throw an ever larger net that establishes our community. Some of course are closer, and others more distant. This net however is only one abstract layer in many layers that we establish. These are layers of affinity, of attraction, of like-minded and mutual story.

At the core of these communities lies ritual; our Sunday morning brunch of bagels and coffee, every June at the cabin, always turning our ball-cap backwards in the 9th inning when our team is behind. Ritual, in it's broadest sense, is any observance or practice that connects us deeper into our communities. Through our rituals we grow, we understand, we are.

Without rituals, or without understanding the ritual others are engaging in, we are missing out on what it means to be a member, a native, of a community or tribe. Followers of Christ were provided a ritual by our Lord, Jesus Christ. On the night of his betrayal Jesus celebrated the passover feast with his disciples, and in that time he established the ritual of Holy Communion, the Eucharist. Through observing this ritual we identify ourselves not just as a disciple of Jesus, but as part of the broader community of the Christian church.

When we are at a baseball game we expect certain things to happen. The seventh inning stretch, the singing of 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame'. Baseball isn't just a spectator sport, it is a community of baseball faithful observing and participating in the rhythm and ritual of the game.

What would happen if we removed the seventh inning stretch because our fast paced society has decided that ritual takes up too much time? What if we removed the traditional songs and chants because they made no sense to a person from another community or culture? We might have men out on the field hitting a ball with a bat; but it could be argued that they are not really playing baseball as there is no observance of ritual, of the narrative rhythm of the game that makes it unique and links it to tradition. In other words by bifurcating ritual from community we destroy them, destroying the tangible meaning they share when celebrated together.

Many Evangelical churches have lost sight of this simple truth; by removing ritual we destroy what makes our gathering a community. If you had never witnessed a baseball game before you might wonder why certain things are done, why certain words are said. Likewise if you were a protestant entering a Catholic mass you might be caught off guard by the ritual of the service. In a misguided attempt to turn sabbath, the celebration of the Eucharistic community, into an accessible and evangelical medium those of us in the evangelical world have actually done those outside a church a disservice, we have watered down the Good News in favor of pluralistic and secularized interests. Rather than making the community more open, we have gotten rid of anything that makes us uniquely the followers of Christ.

No doubt that John Wesley, a founder of my tribe (as Leonard Sweet might say), was evangelical in is Sunday sermons, but he realized that the mission of the church wasn't to be found in the pulpit, but in the streets. Wesley and the methodists were condemned by the Church of England because rather than catering to the genteel and domesticated patrons of the church he would descend into the work places of those far from faith. If they could not attend the church on Sunday he would follow God's mission into the world, to where people were at. Evangelism takes place out in creation, in the day-to-day places. Sabbath and it's rituals are meant for the faithful and those seriously exploring faith. Sabbath and Eucharist are peculiar, but also compelling.

Through the systematic removal of our peculiar rituals as followers of Jesus in favor of pluralistic appeal we have not expanded the body of Christ; rather we have stretched it thin, watered it down, domesticated it so that we are palatable in the mouths of those not yet part of the Jesus tribe. We have replaced the call to Eucharist (community) with something devoid of the calling cards that make Christian worship what it should be. Through our attempt to provide a seeker-sensitive approach we have altered Sabbath beyond it's original intent. As Alan Hirsch would say we have tried to be an extractional force; attempting, like a vacuum cleaner, to pull folks out of the world and into the church. We have asked them not only to do all of the work of entering the community, once they braved the waters we have nothing compelling to share.

I am concerened that we are failing as churches because we have become the exact thing we tried so hard to avoid. Through the removal of ritual we have created a community devoid of anything inspiring, challenging, and peculiar. What attracts people to baseball, more so than the act of a bat hitting a ball, is the community of the faithful, their peculiar ways of being baseball fans. In short baseball (and sport in general) offers a far more compelling narrative to be a part of than the average evangelical church, and it is largely rooted in the evangelical church's desire to be more like the world than like the Eucharistic Jesus Tribe of the New Testament.

I am not advocating an exclusiveness; rather a uniqueness of being that incarnates the gospel. If the evangelical church is to survive it must begin the act of reclaiming it's place as a peculiar community in which ritual; scripture reading, prayer, and Eucharist are a vibrant and visible part of their narrative. It is only by embracing our peculiarities as followers of Christ that we have anything compelling to offer the world. We can't water down our wine and expect anyone to drink it, let alone come back for more.

April Fools and the Cross

2010-04-01T23:30:00.004-04:00

I have enjoyed April Fools that last few years on this blog. Last year I posted a parody of what would happen if the Concerned Nazarenes got their way and all those they had called heretics were kicked out of our denomination. Long lists of many Nazarene Pastors and leaders, many of them friends, were posted along with my own name as those who “had been excommunicated from Nazarene fellowship”. While it was of course pure fiction in the spirit of April first that we were kicked out, what wasn’t fiction was that the list of names came from Concerned Nazarene websites.

Needless to say, though we tried to laugh and not take ourselves too seriously in all this, there has been some real pain involved in places where real division has been caused by all of this. I am thankful however that there is hope, even if just a fools hope, that we can move past all things divisive in the body of Christ; especially within our particular tradition.

In recent posts, I have made an effort to change the tone of any possible disagreement we might have with those who consider themselves speaking for the “concerned”. I am thankful that the founding voice of “Concerned Nazarenes” has acknowledged that I just might be a real Christian after all. Though a small step, it is a step; and one I hope we can build on. I have made an appeal to him asking if we can work together to build on what we have in common based on our Christian beliefs we share as Nazarenes. I asked him for this on the blog and by personal email, but so far any further inquiry into this possibility has gone unanswered. Even still, I will hang on to a fools hope for reconciliation.

The Apostle Paul was no stranger to trying to discourage division in the body of Christ as he understood that through Christ’s broken body on the cross God found solidarity with humanity and reconciled what otherwise seemed utterly irreconcilable. Sin and injustice that we human beings commit against each other, and commit against the God whose image we were made in, just doesn’t seem compatible with God’s holy dreams and intentions for his creation and for us as humanity within it. Yet, God meets us in the middle of all this ugliness in order to win us back to his dream for humanity made in his image. Our own sin and injustice breaks us, and so God allowed it to break him. Our sin could not keep God away from us, as he was literally dying to be with us again. No wonder with all that God went through to reconcile us and unify us in his body, that Paul in his letter recorded in First Corinthians would be so alarmed that Christians could so easily divide over anything when there should be unity in the foundation of the cross.

Divisions over following different teachers such as the Apostle Paul or Apollos, Calvin or Wesley, MacArthur or McLaren are all pointless because at best they are “only servants, through whom we came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task”. Regardless of what any of them may have to say, “no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” And how did Paul describe and proclaim such a foundation to the Corinthians? Paul said, “we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”

Saying “Jews and Gentiles” is like saying Jews and everyone else; so in other words everyone who encounters the cross will in one way or the other stumble and trip on its foolishness. We can therefore either dismiss it as foolishness which represents one kind of stumbling or in faith wrestle with its foolishness like Jacob wrestled with God; seizing the victory but not without forever being changed by having a hip dislocated so that a once seemingly steady walk is forever reduced to stumbling along. This may sound like a foolish victory, but the gospel of the cross shows us that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.”

So for centuries followers of Jesus have wrestled in faith with, and were transformed by, the foolishness of the cross. Along the way men have tried to describe it, but even the Apostle Paul, (whose writing in the Bible is as authoritative and inspired by God as any of Scripture), admitted to the Corinthians that his vision and understanding of all this was like trying to see through a dim mirror. He knew that at best he only “knew in part”; but that one day he would “know fully, even as he is fully known”. In the meantime Paul knew that wrestling with the cross meant embodying love; as Christ himself embodied his love for us on the cross. Failure to do this means that no matter how eloquent our descriptions of theology may be we are but noisy gongs without love. This is why Paul said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified….my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.”

You see the cross is not just some abstract theological idea, but rather it speaks to the very way of the Kingdom. And this way should be most evident in the body of Christ, as Jesus gave us “a new command” saying, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." The Apostle Paul embraces this idea as he calls us to be unified in the cross. It isn’t that he doesn’t encourage us also to hold each other accountable, but he instructs us to restore a brother caught in a sin “gently” and to “carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ”. The community of Christ is about sharing in the way of the cross together. We might disagree about the best theological way to describe the foolishness of the cross that we stumble all over and wrestle with together, but more importantly through in this stumbling and wrestling we are to embody the way of the cross together as we follow Jesus in faith.

As this April Fools Day comes to a close let us be reminded of the foolishness of the cross that trumps conventional wisdom. Let us embrace this crazy foolish love that chose solidarity with us in our human condition despite our sin and injustice even when directed at God himself. The foolishness of the cross is winning by losing. Paul tells us that we were enemies of God. How did God respond? God met us on our turf and then let us win in the way that mankind most typically tries to “win” against our enemies; by trying to discredit, dominate, dehumanize, and kill. In the confrontation between man and God, man won and God lost; and he "lost" so we could be won to him; and to one another through him. In this also, the resurrection isn’t just the come from behind victory for God; it is the victory for us.

As we solemnly approach Good Friday with the hope that follows with Easter I want to bless those “Concerned Nazarenes” and seek solidarity with them even though they reject us. I want to embrace what should be solidarity in our understanding of biblical Christian orthodoxy that we share in the Nazarene Articles of Faith. I want to embrace the cross with them as God first embraced us all on the cross. I want embrace our solidarity with them in embracing that one and only foundation we have in Jesus Christ himself who said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I want to honor the cross by seeking solidarity with all those Christ died for, especially those fellow believers who have embraced the cross in return by faith and through him we can bear the fruit of God’s reconciliation together.

Tim Wirth of Concerned Nazarenes a Hair's Breadth from Emergent Nazarenes

2010-03-19T09:43:00.001-04:00

If you have been following my last few posts you would know that their has been some progress in reconciling what has been an historically adversarial relationship between Concerned Nazarenes, represented by their founder Tim Wirth, as they asserted that many Pastors, professors and leaders in our denomination were heretics and not even Christians. However, In the comments of a recent post Tim concluded that my confession of the atonement, provided I believe it-which I most certainly do, means that he would now receive me as a brother in Christ.

Tim also said that he wants to work to focus more on what he considers “false teaching” rather than focus on people. In my last post I thanked Tim for his humility and honesty and though he did reply to it, I am not sure he realized that I would like for him to stick around so we can work some things out together. I don’t think he knows that I replied back and look forward to building on his positive step of his embracing me as being a fellow Christian.

Tim said that he felt that he was “estranged” from real brothers and sisters in Jesus because he feels they “promote and endorse false teachers.” In the last post and in the comment which I am not sure he read yet, I assured him that we don’t “promote” these teachers he is concerned with any more than he might “promote” John Macarthur or John Piper”. We promote Jesus Christ just as you do. (See my complete comment in context here and here)

Tim felt the need to share with me that he is not a Calvinist, and he believes that Jesus died for everyone, though he has said before that he respects and reads books by some Calvinist because he finds them biblical. I pointed out that as Nazarenes in the Wesleyan tradition we believe the Calvinistic idea that Jesus did not die for everyone is very dangerous and unbiblical as it undermines the great work of the atonement. Of course Calvinist’s through out history thought that Armenian/Wesleyan theology is what really undermines Christian orthodoxy and so these two groups called each other heretics and accused each other of preaching the “doctrine of demons” for centuries.

Looking back on it now we could easily see these two groups as actually “estranged” brothers in Jesus. Even though they each thought the others weren't real Christians, they both put their faith in Jesus Christ regardless of the differences they had in their theology describing how it all works. But at the time (and actually with some people it still may be true today) these two different theologies were viewed as completely different paths that sit opposed each other on two different sides of a vast un-crossable gulf. As I told Tim, this is why I appreciate Wesley because he chose a more generous perspective; one that chose to see what many believed to be completely incompatible to actually be just a “hair's breadth” apart. When Wesley focused on what he had in common with Calvinist the great differences between them began to look really small (of course not all Calvinists returned the favor).

I think Tim and I also have much more in common than the things we disagree over. I actually think the same is true for all the Nazarene leaders Tim has called heretics and non-Christians in the past (a past Tim began to put behind him when he received me as a brother- thank you Tim). Tim confessed to me that he believed that “all in all there is nothing in the Article's of Faith that (he) would part fellowship over with a fellow Christian.” And so then, as people who together affirm biblical Christianity in our understanding of Sin, Atonement, Repentance, and Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption through faith, we should NOT break fellowship with each other. There is no reason to be “estranged”.

I understand that we may still have strong disagreement about many things. (I do address these a little more in the comments of last post). I just don’t think we should let our disagreement about these things divide us when it took the blood of Jesus to unite us.

Also, in the comments of my last post which Tim has not yet responded to, I proposed three things that I would like to happen as I worked with Tim towards reconciliation:

1. I asked Tim to acknowledge all those in our denomination who have a confession of faith in Jesus Christ and embrace our shared standard of biblical orthodoxy as described in our Articles of Faith as his brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Posting this on his blogs , websites, and facebook group would go along way to work toward reconciliation. It would be great if he could mention people by name that he has named in the past as those he did not embrace as fellow Christians before and let people know that he now embraces them as brothers and sisters of Jesus.

2. I asked him to consider loosening up on the use of moderating (blocking) blog comments and to cease banning certain Nazarenes from facebook activity and allow fellow Christians and Nazarenes , even if they don't agree with him to participate in some of the dialogue in these places. I told him that I would work in return to encourage people not to abuse such a welcoming spirit by being adversarial against them or their concerns. I told him that I would jump to his defense about this and work to encourage others to be respectful of them in a shared effort to create a new tone. Bottom line is that we should not lock fellow family members of God out of public conversations or marginalize them. Now that Tim understands that we are really Christians I am sure he can understand that.

3. The last thing I suggested is that we do some good work together. Let’s mutually promote the things we all can be proud of as part of a shared tradition and denomination. In the wake of catastrophes like in Haiti I suggest a joint endorsement for support for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and Nazarene Compassionate Ministries inc.

I also asked him to share his ideas about what we might be able to do together.

Now this is just a summery, for my complete reply see the comments HERE.

Tim,

You are welcome to reply here or HERE, but if you reply to this I ask that you check out my more thorough comments in the previous post first. Also, I am asking that we move toward reconciliation, not just a cease fire where we each go our own separate ways. So hang around, we have a lot to talk about.

Too many people are involved in this, it isn’t just you and I but everyone listening and engaging in these conversations all over the place. We need to lead and model reconciliation Tim and how Christians should love each other and interacted despite perhaps great disagreement. So please check back after you reply so we can continue to work through these things.

Thank you Tim

Your brother in Christ

James Diggs

Finding Common Ground: A Sincere Thank You to Tim Wirth of Concerned Nazarenes

2010-03-16T14:29:00.003-04:00

We are often too reluctant to give credit to those we may have had conflict with when it is due. I don’t want to make that mistake. In the last week or so I have been aggressive on this blog in trying to find some common ground with the handful of leaders of Concerned Nazarenes. I believe that common ground for us is our biblical foundation as expressed in our shared Articles of Faith. I have asked guys like Tim Wirth and Manny Silvia to unify with us under our share beliefs as Nazarenes. Tim Wirth responded and we had some conversation in the comments HERE and the most recent one HERE.

In our last interaction, after I shared what I believed about the Atonement, Tim said this to me, “James that was a wonderful answer and I’m glad you believe it.” I also asked him if he affirmed our Articles of Faith and he finally gave me the most direct answer yet saying, “I have a problem with the statement on scripture number 4 because I believe it is non conclusive and leaves the door open. But all in all there is nothing in the article's of faith I would part fellowship over with a fellow Christian.”

I then asked him if the fact then that we agree on these things, meant that he would consider me as a brother in Christ?

Tim replied, “Yea James if you truly believe as you stated we are brothers in the Lord, like it or not : )”. I do believe these things, and I appreciated the friendly “like it or not” followed by the smiley face because I know that it must not have been easy for Tim to confess this after years of saying that he did not consider me a brother in the Lord or even a Christian. It takes real humility to change your mind about things and I think humility is a mark of being a disciple of Jesus, along with love.

Tim also said that, “I will try to address the false teaching more than the false teachers. It’s sometimes hard to separate the two. So forgive the passion sometimes it does put me into the flesh.” I appreciate this too. I confess that I also have gotten caught up in the heat of things at times as well, so of course I can forgive Tim as I pray he also forgives me.

I mostly appreciate that Tim said he will try to focus on “the teaching” he has trouble with and not people. This is great, especially because I believe that out of a sincere zeal for Jesus he has mistakenly targeted people in our Nazarene tradition in the past whom he actually might find that he agrees with if he talked to them more; just like he recently found that he actually agreed with me enough to recognize that we are both Christians. So I want to thank Tim for shifting the focus of his concern away from those he may actually find to be united in faith with and more on the issues he has legitimate and serious concern about.

So I understand that none of this means that Tim is abandoning his concerns. As he said to me while receiving me as a brother in Christ, “That being stated I am estranged from other family members who promote and endorse false teachers.”

Tim is still very concerned about Nazarene colleges and Nazarene Pastors like myself whom he believes are promoting false teaching as we “promote” various “emergent teachers”. After reminding me of these concerns he said, “I believe the time is short here so again I would beg you to just preach Christ from His Word in scripture alone. And I’m not saying be a Calvinist or anything like that. I reject Calvinism and TULIP (certain parts of it). I believe Jesus died for all men and women on the cross.” (This Wesleyan view is even more common ground between us).

In have replied to Tim’s honest and gracious comments with my own comment trying to meet Tim in his very real concerns while remembering our new found common ground; but he has not yet replied. You can read all this conversation as it is in the comments of this post HERE, but I decided that I should re-post my comment here in its own post for two reasons. First, because I want to give Tim Wirth public credit for making a move to receive me as a fellow Christian, a brother in Christ. Second, I want to make sure Tim sees my reply so that hopefully we can keep building on the common ground of the reconciliation we share in Jesus Christ.

Here is my reply to Tim Wirth, now posted as an open letter:

Tim,
Thank you very much for both your honesty and for having enough humility to change your mind about us not being brothers in Christ. My confession and faith in Christ and what he did for us on the cross is sincere. I know that as Christ was not ashamed to call us brothers through the saving and sanctifying work on the cross, we (no matter what our differences) should not be ashamed either to embrace each other the same way. I know that our differences could make it easy for us to be estranged family members, but I think suffering through our differences with God’s help is part of what it means for us to daily pick up our cross and follow Jesus.

I do understand that you have not changed your mind about your concerns about false teaching and I in no way want to extinguish your passion for Jesus and the gospel. With that said, I feel that your stated commitment to try and “address the false teaching more than the false teachers” is a good one, but also very challenging for you. I believe that a less adversarial role with many in Nazarene leadership could help you find the balance you are looking for. I don’t personally know everyone that you have had issues with, but I know many and have good reason to believe that these men and women also affirm our Articles of Faith which embraces the biblical teaching of things like Sin, Atonement, Repentance, and Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption through faith. I want to encourage you to make peace with these leaders as you continue to be passionate about Jesus and seek to daily live in the reality of the gospel through faith.

I agree with you that “the gospel is still as powerful as it was from day one”. I even agree with you that “it doesn’t have to be changed to change post moderns.” I have never promoted changing the gospel. The gospel does not change, it changes us. I know there are all kinds “new kinds” thrown around in the conversation; frankly I think much of it is to try and sound provocative to sell more books. I hate that. But the gospel has always been provocative on its own. In fact I think when people tinker with the gospel it is to try and make it less provocative. But preaching Christ crucified has always been a “stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”. With all the many bogus claims of something “new” floating around by what some consider the emergent conversation, the only thing “new” going on in the emergent conversation which I affirm is that which the cross transforms in us as we stumble all over its foolishness. It isn’t the gospel that is changing - it is us; as it always is in every generation from pre-modern, to modern, to post modern.

Let me also say that I do not “promote” Brian McLaren or Rob Bell or anyone else, any more than you might “promote” John Macarthur or John Piper. I promote the gospel and Jesus Christ. Yes I have read and passed along many things I felt were good and that which I believed affirmed biblical Christianity from some of these authors, but doing this is not a blanket endorsement of everything they have to say. The same would be true for Macarthur, and Piper. Recommending either Piper or Bell also does not mean that I think any possible disagreement we might have with them is necessarily small. I believe some tenants of Calvinism are just as unbiblical and as dangerous (if not more so- particularly the false idea that Christ did not die for everyone) as promoting universalism where everyone is saved from hell without any need of repentance and transformation. This does not mean that I would not ever say a Christian shouldn’t read John Macarthur or John Piper or not welcome them in our church or universities. My recommendation might depend on how discerning the individual is I am recommending something to, or what educational benefit might be gained from hearing views that are not our own; even about what some may consider vital things (like who Christ died for).

I appreciate it that you object to certain parts of Calvinism and that you believe that Jesus died for all men and women on the cross. This also affirms a Wesleyan/Arminian view of free will that I can also appreciate. However, the great Charles Spurgeon might have thought you were a heretic for that believing what you do; he thought it undermined the preaching of nothing but Christ crucified. Spurgeon once said, “And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.”

For some their specific view of the cross, like Spurgeon’s in this case, is THE one and only view of the cross; though he did leave a tiny room for it to be his “own private opinion”. Nevertheless, Calvinists and Arminians have accused one another of “preaching the doctrine of demons” for centuries. This is another reason I appreciate our Wesleyan heritage: because when others considered Calvinist and Arminian views to have so little in common that they stood opposed each other on opposite sides an un-crossable gulf, Wesley took the far more generous approach and considered these things to be no more than a “hair's breadth” apart. His relationship with the staunch Calvinist George Whitefield was a great example of how we can strongly disagree with one another about such seemingly large issues and still receive one another as brothers in the Lord. Their ongoing dialogue should inspire us and encourage us.

The fact that you and I have had back and forth adversarial “conversations” for a few years now and yet only now find out that we can actually agree concerning the basics of the atonement is troublesome. We seem to be missing each other, perhaps neither of us are listening as well as we should. I just think that our Nazarene tradition offers such a solid biblical foundation that we should be able to always remember it as our context when working through whatever disagreements we might have. I don’t think you should abandon your concerns or stop passionately sharing them with us, but I would love to combine those real concerns with other real concerns that perhaps we are being divided unnecessarily when you consider our shared biblical foundation as expressed in our Articles of Faith.

My hope Tim is that we could find a new way to interact, one that welcomes strong disagreement if we have it, but remembers that in the larger context we have so much in common. I say “so much” because of the cross and the faith we share in Jesus Christ who saved us. Your receiving me as a brother is because of the reconciling work of the cross, and my prayer is that we might together live into that reconciling work even more so to the glory of God. What a great testimony that would be!!

Pray about this Tim, and let’s talk more.

Your brother in Christ,

James

Feels like I brought a Conversation to a Fist Fight

2010-03-11T08:32:00.003-05:00

We have had three recent posts surrounding the occasional reoccurring struggle to have authentic Christian conversations in the midst of a few who are seeking a noisy crusade to “purify” the church according to their own personal idea of heresy. They alone think they know what the bible really says as they take issue with countless Nazarene Pastors, Professors, and leaders who affirm the Articles of Faith of our tradition which reflects a shared understanding of biblical Christian Orthodoxy.

Now this is not an indictment on anyone with real concerns. It is however an appropriate criticism of those few who have put themselves out front of those concerns in a divisive way that lacks Christian love and integrity. It is primarily a handful of people who are attacking an entire denomination as they do their best to scare and misinform others.

Here are the latest posts:

New Statement by Board of General Superintendents
The BGS, through Naznet, has posted a new statement that may well be of interest in regards to the emergent church. This was received this from the GMC by request of Dr. Porter with the explicit statement: "Feel free to circulate these documents." I presume this was written in reply to questions and concerns around this topic. In a later email he wrote: "the BGS endorsed it as a good point of reference regarding this conversation". -Hans Deventer

Read it HERE

Article IV: an Olive Branch for Unity in the latest “Battle for the Bible”
This post invited the small group of individuals who are making the most noise in the name of concerned Nazarenes about their claim there is a tidal wave of heresy going on in the Nazarene Denomination to stop being divisive and unify under our shared Articles of Faith. Article IV concerning Scripture is of particular interest as it is misunderstood and misrepresented by those looking to move our tradition into extreme fundamentalism. This post takes a careful look at the Nazarene Article of Faith on the Holy Scripture and explores why it is biblical and how it is something we all as Nazarenes should be able to unify under.

Read the post and check out the comments following it as Tim Wirth- the founder of the “Concerned Nazarenes” websites rejects unity and rejects affirming the 16 Articles of Faith in the Church of the Nazarene as biblical.

Read it HERE

Concerned “Nazarenes”, Direct Answers, the Articles of Faith and Rob Bell’s Dust
This post examines a recent “Concerned ‘Nazarene’” post. Manny Silva of “Reformed Nazarene” and creator of the “Concerned Nazarene” facebook page wrote on his blog on March 7th a “Questionnaire For Church Leadership, Part 1”. In this post Manny wants answers for the reason that various Pastors and church institutions within the Church of the Nazarene would use authors such as Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, and Rob Bell as any kind of recourse and why our colleges like Trevecca “some Nazarene churches” use “Prayer Labyrinths”.

In his post he goes through each one and explains what he thinks is wrong with them, giving examples like saying that Rob Bell says the bible teaches us to “believe in ourselves”-as if Bell was pushing some kind humanistic self help. What is most interesting though is how Manny ends his post as he asks leaders (Pastors, DS’s GS’s Professors ect.) to answer this question as if everyone has been dodging it. Manny concludes: “Is the silence saying something?”

Find out how the “concerned Nazarenes” are behind the “silence” they hear, and read a comment from a Nazarene Pastor that Manny would not allow in response on his blog because it actually answered his question about something Rob Bell taught. This comment not only pointed out how Manny was twisting Bell’s words, but how if we listen to what Bell actually said, this particular teaching of Bell’s actually speaks to something we believe as a Wesleyan-Holiness tradition is biblical.

Read more HERE

New Statement by Board of General Superintendents

2010-03-09T12:58:00.003-05:00

The BGS, through Naznet, has posted a new statement that may well be of interest. Here is the text:

The emergent church - From the General Superintendents

We appreciate your concerns regarding the conversations surrounding “the emergent church.” The issues related to this topic are many. Some are helpful and positive; others are problematic and deeply troubling.

“The emergent church” is really somewhat of a misnomer. While there are many attributions which imply that there is a single focus or movement called “the emergent church,” in reality, the conversations range all over the map. Some people believe that there is a monolithic kind of conspiratorial entity that is seeking to undermine the church with heresy and immoral license.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who view the whole concept of an emerging church as a positive and hopeful expression of the church seeking to genuinely come to terms with ministry in a complex and rapidly-changing culture, while seeking to make Biblical truth relevant. These people depend heavily on the authority of the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to radically change lives, communities, and nations. They are often radically engaged with the brokenness in society through active, compassionate ministries that work hard to bring renewal and conversion.

Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS) and some of our universities are engaged in the conversation in order to help correct some of the aberrations that are associated with some of the “emergent” churches.

There are widely-read authors who readily identify themselves as “emergent church leaders.” While some of them are orthodox in their theology and views of Scripture, others embrace positions which we would view as far away from what is orthodox and acceptable. Yet even those authors and pastors who are not orthodox in their views of Scripture and its authority have an awareness of the need to make the church more engaged in society so as to bring about a radical change and improvement.

We do not endorse those “emergent churches” or leaders who are not orthodox in their theology. The involvement of many of our young pastors and students in the conversation is an attempt to embrace the positive dimensions while clearly articulating an orthodox interpretation of Scripture and theology.

By most definitions of what is genuinely meant by “emergent,” John Wesley more than fits the description. He was radically engaged in the social needs around him while clearly calling men and women to a radical commitment to Christ and to the fullness of the Spirit in cleansing and heart purity. That is the objective toward which Nazarenes, engaged in the conversations regarding the emergent church, are committed. It is a vital conversation, but one that also carries with it the risk of being misunderstood or being classified with positions which are not healthy or appropriate.

We hope these thoughts are helpful to you. The issues are complex, and the rhetoric is sometimes shrill and angry. We are hopeful that we can be patient with what is a phase in a conversation that is already beginning to wind down in some areas even while it is just now being engaged in by others. Hopefully, we can move beyond the mischaracterizations and embrace what is legitimate while we readily and without hesitation reject the aberrations.

We pray for you as you work with your people through this issue. We are not at all embracing anything heretical, but we want to engage in conversations with our young Nazarenes who want a vibrant church that is committed to our theology and actively engaged in ministry to the lost and broken people around us.

Jesse C. Middendorf
General Superintendent
Church of the Nazarene

------------------------------------

Received this from the GMC by request of Dr. Porter with the explicit statement: "Feel free to circulate these documents." I presume this was written in reply to questions and concerns around this topic.

In a later email he wrote: "the BGS endorsed it as a good point of reference regarding this conversation".

Last edited by Hans Deventer; 9th March 2010 at 07:50 AM (07:50).

Concerned “Nazarenes”, Direct Answers, the Articles of Faith and Rob Bell’s Dust

2010-03-09T10:27:00.004-05:00

Manny Silva of “Reformed Nazarene” and creator of the Concerned Nazarene facebook page wrote on his blog on March 7th a “Questionnaire For Church Leadership, Part 1”. In this post Manny wants answers for the reason that various Pastors and church institutions within the Church of the Nazarene would use authors such as Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, and Rob Bell as any kind of recourse and why our colleges like Trevecca “some Nazarene churches” use “Prayer Labyrinths”.

In his article He goes through each one and explains what he thinks is wrong with them, giving examples like saying that Rob Bell says the Bible teaches us to “believe in ourselves”-as if Bell was pushing some kind humanistic self help. What is most interesting though is how Manny ends his post as he asks leaders (Pastors, DS’s GS’s Professors ect.) to answer this question as if everyone has been dodging it. Manny concludes:

“Is the silence saying something?”

Tim Wirth posts a comment:

“Well Manny you will either get silence or non answers. I’ve been asked a lot lately about the Nazarene manual. Do you think false teachers like Brian Mclaren and Rob Bell agree with the Nazarene Manual? I can assure you their teachings are in conflict with the teachings of both the Bible and the Nazarene Manual.”

What Tim Wirth is referring to is of course my question posed to him this weekend in the comment section of my last post.

So I replied in the comment section of Manny's blog. At first Manny did not approve my comment because he said, “James, I would prefer if you kept your answers on the subject of the questions I asked- can you zero in on the merits of the questions; even if just one or two?”

Seeing that my comment was not allowed and what Manny said, I wrote in the comment section, “Manny you banned my comment when it answers something Tim brought up (a comment you allowed).” This comment where I objected to not letting my previous comment through was never allowed but Manny changed his mind and allowed my original comment to post.

What’s funny is that Manny tries to make it seem like he approved the comment all along. Manny writes, “Okay, James, Obviously, I have approved the comment. But I think you are straying from the specific questions here- but I’ll give Tim the opportunity to respond to this one- I’ll try to weigh in on it later as well during lunch.”

So my comment to Tim on Reformed Nazarene:

“Tim, you are still being silent and giving me non answers about the question on my blog. Brian Mclaren and Rob Bell are not Nazarenes. If you want to argue that they are not Christians that’s fine, but some might disagree. You might also argue that a Catholic might not be a real Christian, and others might disagree. Or you might argue that we should not read books that come from any of those people or invite them to speak and dialogue with them. But others may disagree, so this is a good discussion.

I think others would argue that there is an educational element to dialoguing with those from other traditions. Even if we disagree with them about major things, but that does not mean that we should categorically dismiss them, especially in areas where they might agree with us. But, I think your argument that we should not do these things is a fair one. If that is all you were saying I would have no problem with it.

The problem is that you are calling Pastors, Professors and leaders in our denomination “heretics” for following “a different Jesus not from the Bible” when they affirm our Articles of Faith which describes what we believe is a biblical understanding of Jesus.

You told me on my blog that the Nazarene Manuel “does affirm certain parts of scripture”, as if it doesn’t affirm other parts. But this is not true; it is not what our manual says. How can you speak for what we believe as Nazarenes if you don’t understand what it says?

Our manual says that we believe in “plenary inspiration” which we affirm that ALL of scripture is inspired by God which perfectly reveals God’s will concerning everything necessary for salvation. My blog, which I don’t think you actually took the time to read, explains this further. And it also explains how this biblical view is the point of scripture and how you and I should be able to be united in this, and not divided, as Christians and Nazarenes.

So the question I asked is this: Do you think the Church of the Nazarene as a whole affirms Jesus of the Bible? This question is related to our Articles of Faith, on whether you feel the doctrine we convey is biblical and presents the biblical Jesus?

You say I don’t follow the biblical Jesus, yet my affirmation of our Articles of Faith, which includes our statement on Scripture, reflects what we believe as the Church of the Nazarene is the Biblical Jesus. If you agree with these Nazarene Articles as biblical you CAN NOT SAY to me that I believe in a “different Jesus then the one from the Bible”.

So Tim (and Manny) it is up to you- You must decide for yourself if YOU are in or out. Stop right now calling Pastors, College Professors, and other leaders in our denomination unorthodox heretics when they affirm biblical orthodoxy as we understand them in our tradition. As a Nazarene you can not call people heretics when they affirm our shared Articles of Faith. If you think those you accuse are heretics, then you think our understanding of Christian orthodoxy which is described in our Articles of Faith is also unbiblical.

So please join us in affirming our Articles of Faith as they affirm the Biblical Jesus and stop trying to divide us from within.

PS- Manny- if you don’t allow comments from recognized church leaders, how can you say we are silent?”

Neither Tim nor Manny responded to this question in the comments. Manny has not responded anywhere and Tim gave (to borrow a term from him) a “non answer” in the comments of my last post here. You can check them out yourself.

So the comments go on with various supporters of Manny chiming in and no one daring to answer those questions, no one daring to zero in on the merits of the questions; even if just one or two?” Manny then later comments”:

“…. Is there no one out there who can answer my questions directly? There is too much deviation from them, and it seems that my guess is coming true: you cannot in any way justify with scripture, the support of any of these four situations. That is why I am not allowing all comments from you; this post was entered here for a reason, and if you can’t answer the questions specifically, then I’m not going to allow you to talk endlessly.”

“Is the silence saying something?”

What Manny presents is his list of “unanswerable” questions in an attempt to show that "no one can justify such obvious heresy with scripture or the teaching of the church of the Nazarene." His mentor Tim Wirth cheers him on saying he won’t get any answers because there are none. There are no Nazarene leaders from just the lowly Pastor all the way up to our General Superintendents who will answer what can not be answered-not anyone and not concerning any of it.

And so on his blog there is silence with no answers from ANY of these Nazarene Leaders.

“Is the silence saying something?”

Now this would be an interesting situation being presented- if it weren’t for the fact that the supposed "silence" in these matters is complete fabrication by them.

I know of many Nazarene Pastors and leaders who have answered these questions very directly. Dan Boone answered them for Manny on Manny's own blog. And I know of one Pastor who answered Manny's question on his own blog; though on this blog which Manny controls there is still only "silence".

You see, I posted a comment early this morning to answer one of Manny's unanswerable question. After all, he asked me "can you zero in on the merits of the questions; even if just one or two?” In the post itself he says he"invite(s) them all (all Nazarene Pastors) to share their knowledge of the scriptures in assisting us to get some solid, biblically sound answers to the questions below." Yet my comment (as a Pastor in the Church of the Nazarene) does not show up, because he wants people to think that no one can answer his question. and there is only "silence"

I posted my comment at 5:38am this morning (the comments are time stamped on the blog). And of course I waited to give Manny time to read the comments and approve them. I know he has a life and other things to do. I would have given him all day or as long as it took. But at 6:49am Manny approved another comment, one that agreed with him. He had read the comments and decided to leave mine in “awaiting moderation” limbo so he can say still say that his questions to every and any Nazarene leader are met only with" silence."

Now Manny may change his mind after I call him out on this and allow the comment or he may not. But here is what I said that Manny did not want you to see:

Manny, I think it is odd that you ask for “direct answers” to your questions. I don’t get much from you guys. Tim’s answer to my question when I asked him if the Nazarene Articles of Faith affirmed biblical Christianity was that “the manual is “subject to interpretation by the individual and therefore could be distorted.” If this isn’t sidestepping something out of fear of being nailed down I don’t know what is.

So its weird to me that I have to answer questions about statements others like Nouwen, Foster, and Bell, who aren’t even Nazarene are saying if what people write are so subject to interpretation that we have no ability to say if they are within biblical teaching or not.

Not only that, the Nazarene Articles of Faith are short direct statements with many scripture verses given, and as much language from those scriptures being used as possible. If the Concerned Nazarenes can’t say, even with a reasonable amount of interpretation, that these are biblical or not how can you demand that people answer for books and videos, which are not written so directly as Articles of Faith, are biblical or not?

“Manny, this is an honest and sincere question. It is very relevant to the conversation so please allow it to be posted.

Now in faith that you will post it, I am going to try and answer one of your questions as directly as I can. I am not saying you will agree with me, but I will honestly give it a shot.

Out of all the people and things you have mentioned in your article the only one I am most read up on to any decent degree is Rob Bell. I am not familiar with all his work, but a fair amount. I have only seen a few Nooma videos but I have seen the one you mention in your post about Peter walking on water.

From watching it I think that you have misunderstood and mischaracterize what Bell has said. When you say that ” he claims that Peter did not lose faith in Jesus, but lost faith in himself” you paint this as Bell giving a humanistic message that we need to “believe in ourselves”. This is not what Bell was saying.

The title was “Dust”, the idea being that we follow our “Rabbi” (who for us is the MASTER TEACHER Jesus) so closely from behind that we are covered in the dust which is drummed up from the ground as he walks.

Bell then gives us some historical background on how Rabbis choose their students, and how they only choose those whom they believe can follow them and are able to carry out their teaching. He tells us that if Peter and the rest are fishermen it means that they have been past over by every other teacher as being a possible worthy disciple (not worthy as deserving but in having the potential to follow in the teachers steps). So, when a Rabbi comes along and says follow me, it is a chance of a lifetime and so they do.

The context of Bell’s message was following our Rabbi which matches the context of the scripture he was speaking of as Peter was following his Teacher out on the water. The question is can Peter do what Jesus does? Can he do it the face of the waves and real trial? Can we?

I don’t think what Bell says in this context takes away from the primary need for us to have faith in our Teacher Jesus. After all the Rabbi in the story is still the Rabbi, and in this case the Master Rabbi and God himself in the flesh.

In this context when Bell says that Peter lost faith in himself he was saying that Peter lost faith in what his Teacher said he would be able to do (the things the Rabbi can do) by following him.

Now this idea is biblical as Jesus believes that with his help his disciples can actually walk in his teachings. John 14:12 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

This biblical idea also affirms something we believe is consistent with our Wesleyan tradition. The idea that we can actually do what Jesus does to any degree in this lifetime is a far more optimistic one then what our Calvinist brothers would say in their pessimistic view that we are doomed to be victims of our sinful nature to the day we die.

The question being asked between our two camps is what are we able to do as we follow Jesus? One camp says that God thinks we are hopelessly lost in our sinful ways until after we die. Our camp says that God thinks that through him we can do as he does and even greater things as we continue to follow him through the Holy Spirit.

We as Nazarenes believe that God thinks and believes that we are able to follow him as we follow Jesus. We believe that when Jesus says be “perfect” that we actually can in a very real way – through him. Calvinist do not believe that about THEMSELVES because they do not believe God believes it about them even though they put their faith in Jesus.

The question Bell is asking is this- does the Rabbi believe we can actually follow him? Our Wesleyan and holiness tradition answers a bold - yes we can!

Now Rob Bell is not a Nazarene and I am not even sure what tradition he is influenced the most by. My affirmation of these particular ideas of his as both biblical and within our understanding of biblical teaching from a Wesleyan perspective is not a blanket endorsement of all his teaching.

It is no more a blanket endorsement of his teaching then a Nazarene quoting a Calvinist teacher like John Piper. We as Wesleyans would disagree with many of his points as being biblical as we understand it, but that does not mean he can’t get anything right and isn’t worthy of being listened to at all as we test everything. 1 John 4:1

Manny I took my time and tried to answer your question as thoughtfully as I could. I hope you will allow this comment to be posted.

Thank you
James”

I gave one example concerning his accusation where he misrepresents what Rob Bell taught and showed what he actually said and how that particular teaching actually affirms something we believe as Nazarenes. He chose not to hear it (or let anyone else here it) he chose the "silence". Many other Nazarene Pastors, and Leaders have answered these other questions too, but those that lead the Concerned Nazarens chose not to hear those either.

Tim Wirth, and Manny Silva run the websites called “Concerned Nazarenes” and “Reformed Nazarenes”. On these sights they say they demand an explanation. But they don’t really want to hear one, they are not interested in being teachable, they only want to call leaders in our tradition heretics.

In the meantime while they claim to be “Nazarenes” refuse to give the same kind of straight answers they say they demand of others. They refuse to affirm the Nazarene Articles of Faith as reflecting Biblical Christianity.

They do this because they know that if they affirm our Articles as biblical then they can not call those leaders they attack in our denomination heretics when they also affirm our Articles of Faith as biblical. If they do then they are condemning what our denomination teaches as heresy and can no longer pretend to embrace our Nazarene tradition as part of the Christian story.

So Manny and Tim demand answers, even direct ones- yet when they get them they choose the silence.

We ask them for answers, even direct ones- and they choose to be silent.

Manny asks,

“Is the silence saying something?”

"He who has ears, let him hear."

Article IV: an Olive Branch for Unity in the latest “Battle for the Bible”

2010-03-06T00:03:00.012-05:00

There is a small group of individuals who are making a lot of noise lately concerning what they fear is a movement away from an authoritative view of scripture in our Nazarene tradition. In calling them “small” I am not saying that some broader concern doesn’t exist; there is some concern that extends beyond these few but mostly because of how and what they have communicated. I call them small because there are only a small handful of voices that our making the most resounding noise; the kind of noise that we are reminded to avoid in 1 Corinthians 13:1. Tim Wirth, Manny Silva and Joe Staniforth are the three loudest protesters that operate with the support of various so called “discernment ministries” from outside the Nazarene denomination as they make it their mission to attack everything these “discernment ministries” consider “heresy”.

What these individuals claim is that the church of the Nazarene has somehow moved away from a high view of scripture that embraces it as authoritative in our lives. Nothing is further from the truth, even among “emerging” Nazarenes. Let’s look at the fourth Article of faith in our manual.

IV. The Holy Scriptures

We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.
(Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

The phrase “inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation” has been a source of contention by a few noisy individuals as they misunderstand what it is saying. They seemed to have interpreted this as people saying that parts of the bible are inspired and parts are not. Our Article of faith does NOT say that, and I don’t know any Nazarene clergy who would say that either. Before this phrase our Article says, “We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures”. Plenary means “full” or “complete”. In other words we believe that every bit of all “66 books of the Old and New Testaments” are all inspired by God. So let’s put the false idea away that any Nazarenes is promoting that parts of the Bible are inspired and other parts are not by referring to this phrase in our manual. This simply isn’t true, and isn’t what anyone is saying.

Now that we have clarified what this phrase doesn’t say, let’s look at what it does say. This phrase isn’t dealing with what scripture IS; the previous statement about believing in “plenary inspiration” speaks to what we believe the bible IS. So the phrase in question doesn’t say what scripture IS, it says what scripture DOES. The word “inerrantly” here is complimenting the verb “revealing” telling us that all scripture is perfectly sufficient as it makes known God’s will for us regarding everything we need to be saved. As Nazarenes we affirm that scripture is “perfect” in a truly Wesleyan understanding of God’s “perfecting” work as Creator in his creation (and new creation). Scripture is perfect in regards to what it is for and what it does. So what do we believe that scripture perfectly does? To paraphrase our Article of faith, Scripture, being completely and fully inspired by God, perfectly reveals all things concerning God’s will for us to be reconciled to his Kingdom through Jesus Christ. That’s the point isn’t it? Scripture is more than sufficient to point us to the Way concerning God’s desire for us to be reconciled together and to live into his saving work through Jesus Christ.

Despite the criticism from a few, who are able to make their small voice louder because of technology and the internet, our view of scripture as stated in our Nazarenes manual beautifully articulates not only what scripture is, but what it does as it perfectly reveals everything “necessary to our salvation”. I would hope that we all could agree that this is the essential point concerning scripture that we can be unified in. What better thing can we be unified in than in those things that move us toward God’s redemptive plan for the world? Unfortunately, there are a few to whom redemption and unity in Christ is not the point.

Regrettably some think the point of scripture is about having the “right” answers about various topics and to show how others are wrong about those topics. They use their “understanding” of scripture to draw lines between people based on who they think is right about a particular topic and who is wrong. This is not what scripture is for. Of course scripture is useful for “teaching”, “rebuking”, and “correcting”, but not for the purpose of having all the “right answers”, but for “training in righteousness”.

2 Timothy 3:15-17: “…from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Paul tells Timothy that his knowledge of the scriptures made him “wise for SALVATION through faith in Christ Jesus” and that all scripture is useful in directing us in “righteousness” and “good works”. The point of scripture has to do with helping us live into God’s holiness and justice which God has worked, and is working, in us by our salvation through Jesus Christ.

Paul also warns Titus to be mindful about the point of it all concerning our salvation in Jesus Christ, so that in this we would devote ourselves to “doing what is good”.

Titus 3:4-8: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”

Scripture teaches that this salvation work God does for us, he also does in us, and not just for our reconciliation, but for the reconciliation of the whole world. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that God has “committed to us the WORD of reconciliation”. So according to the scripture our salvation is not just profitable for us, but as we respond and are transformed by it to do good works, these things are “excellent and profitable for everyone.” This is what Nazarenes are unified in, the biblical message of holiness; that God’s saving works in us also sanctifies us, and then works through us for the benefit of everyone.

But Paul knew as he emphasized the point of salvation to Titus that some would try to make the point of scripture and the law about other things. He warns Titus in the very next verses...

Titus 3:9-10, “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him.”

All this talk about “heresy” by some is ironic when the biggest “heresy” Paul often fought against was that which threatened to divide the body of Christ over foolish things that missed the point. In fact the King James Bible translates “divisive person” in Titus 3:10 as “heretic”. We are told to warn such people, and warn them again, and if after all that trying they still refuse to find unity with us and they still seek to be divisive then to leave them to their own divisiveness and have nothing to do with them. In verse 11 Paul calls this person, among other things, “self-condemned” because they are separated by their own choice to be divided from the reconciling work within the body of Christ.

Unfortunately, it sometimes comes to “have nothing to do with them” as the only decision we can make for the sake of unity and peace. Jesus teaches in Matthew 10, Mark 6 and Luke 9 concerning those who will not receive us and our message of salvation and reconciliation to keep moving and in doing so “shake off the dust from our feet”. If they will not receive us and reconciled with us what else can we do? If someone refuses the kind of reconciliation God calls his people to have with him and others then going in peace may be the most “peace” we can have, and going our separate ways may be the most we can be “unified” about. But even this is done in hopes of reconciliation.

To be divided and going our separate ways is not God’s desire and will for people as they interact with each other. This division is not what God wants in our relationships even when we are told it may be best to move on without someone as a last resort. It is a lot like a divorce in a marriage. God may have allowed divorce in the law as a last resort because of the hardness of hearts of those involved (Mark 10:5), but this was not God’s plan that he created us for in the beginning. Jesus came to restore us to a new beginning, one where we are saved, restored and reconciled with God and others. To live divided from others when we can help it works counter to God’s saving work in the world.

In Romans 12:18 Paul tells us, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”. This is part of being “a living sacrifice” in view of God’s mercy that Paul mentions in the beginning of the chapter. How far should we go to live at peace with others? What does God consider “possible” as far as it depends on us? Paul tells us in the next verse, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” Echoing Jesus; Sermon of the Mount where he instructs us to seek the kingdom of God by “turning the other cheek” and “going the extra mile” Paul says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That is how far we are to go to live in the kind of redemptive peace in the Kingdom of God in hopes of finding solidarity with even those who may be against us.

You see scripture teaches that Jesus lived this teaching out himself as it reflects the very nature of God. He lived out what he calls us to do when we are told, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”. This kind of peace isn’t passive or the kind that just avoids conflict, but one that confronts conflict and divisiveness in a peaceful way for the purpose of redemption, reconciliation, and salvation. The cross was about “over coming evil with good” for the sake of our redemption. As followers of Jesus we are called to pick up that cross and follow Jesus and walk as he did, for he is the Way the Truth and the Life- there is no other.

So the point of scripture is to point us to the redemption and reconciliation that we can have with God through Jesus Christ. Scripture is not the end of the line of discovering “truth”, but the means that perfectly and sufficiently points to Truth. Jesus told some of those who thought very highly of scripture, yet somehow also missed the point, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40) “Life” as Jesus defines it by his teachings and actions is one of love, sacrifice, redemption, and reconciliation. God wants to make us ONE in Him and he was willing to suffer and even sacrifice his very life to achieve solidarity with even those who were violently against him. (Romans 5:6-8)

There is a lot of divisive talk from some in the name of protecting the “truth”, but Jesus is the Truth personified, the Word made flesh for the sake of seeking solidarity with mankind, not dividing it. The sinful world around us is about divisions, but Jesus said that in him we are not of this world. The kind of truth scripture points us to is the kind that sanctifies us and makes us holy participants with God’s reconciling work. The Truth is all about salvation and being made one with God and each other.

John 17:17-23: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This also reminds me of what Jesus said to his disciples a few chapters earlier, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35)

You are missing the point of biblical truth if in claiming to protect the “truth” you live divisively against the body. This is where we come back to those few who in the name of being “concerned” are being divisive. Of course they will argue that they are not divisive, but their actions say differently. They have created their own space where other Nazarenes or any Christians who do not agree with them are not welcome. They do this in the name of “encouraging” their own with whom they agree with. But the fact that they do not consider other Nazarenes “their own” is evidence of how they are dividing and drawing lines across our denomination concerning who should be “in” and who should be “out”. They are not interested in being reconciled with others as instructed by scripture, but rather they use scripture for something it is not meant for; to divide the church.

Yes the gospel can be a dividing sword, but as such it separates us from the world as far as its corrupt systems that divide according to their own desires and refuses reconciliation to God's Kingdom. This "sword" cuts through all other allegiances to various groups, including families, which are sometimes used to draw ungodly lines of who is "in" and who is "out"; this is counter to the call for us ALL to be reconciled together to God's Kingdom and the Way of the cross. So when we refuse to be reconciled to God's kingdom in favor of a way of the world that unifies some against others, we don’t stand with the word, but against it. (Matthew 10:34-38)

Recently, a Nazarene Pastor I know was kicked out of the “Concerned Nazarene" facebook group. This is a common practice. Tim Wirth said, this person was not “banned so much because of his comments but because we know he does not support our group.” Tim said he was dividing this person out, as he has done with many others (I am also banned), because “he does not support OUR group.” Which group? Nazarenes as a whole? No, a separate and exclusive group they call “Concerned Nazarenes”. They are not interested in dialogue or conversation with any Nazarene outside the group they created for themselves. You can’t chat with them on facebook, they control and deny comments on their blogs, and conversations by email are extremely limited as they often chose not to engage in what they call “debate”. For them there is no “debate” with the lines they have drawn concerning those they have decided are out.

So they go on, publicly and viciously attacking leaders and professors and institutions in our denomination attempting to draw new dividing lines that claim these leaders are excluded from being “real Christians” when our tradition makes no such division. They allow for no discussion or debate to work these differences out. They plainly say to Nazarenes they oppose and disagrees with that they are "heretics" and should be stopped. This is counter to the confession of our Nazarene community concerning many of these individuals they attack, for they target those who have been affirmed by our community as ordained Elders and encouraged to lead in a way that offers far more accountability than what is seen in the accusations of these divisive few.

If someone they attack wishes to tell their side of the story, or if some other Nazarene wishes to defend those they accuse, they are not interested in hearing it and they tell them to go some place else, write about it on their own blog. So, I write this on our blog, in hopes that the Concerned Nazarenes will read it here because they have provided me no place else to say what I have to say to them…

Let us unite under our shared Article of faith concerning scripture.

Dear Concerned Nazarenes,

After you banned yet another Nazarene from participating on your facebook page, a friend said in frustration on NazNet concerning you, “I feel justified in asking them to leave our group, that is, The Church of the Nazarene. They do not agree with the stated doctrine of the church concerning scripture. They should not be allowed membership. There are plenty of other churches with which they would agree. They need to leave.”

This was my reply:

Yea, I have seen Tim say on their facebook group and their blogs that there are other places to go if people want to express a different opinion as a way to justify kicking people out. So I can see why you would feel that way about them- I have often felt that way too.

On the other hand, their view of scripture does not actually run counter to ours as much as it runs beyond it. They do believe that scripture comes from plenary inspiration (meaning all of it is inspired) and it inerrantly reveals all things necessarily for salvation. They just believe that it also inerrantly reveals all things concerning history, science, and everything and anything else.

I think there is room under our tent for people who want to take it this far- the problem is that they need to respect the broader common shared confession of everyone else (which is our salvation- the point of scripture anyway).

There is no reason that we can not find unity under our Article of Faith concerning scripture and in the meantime receive and embrace our differing opinions in Christian love and Charity.

Our statement absolutely affirms scripture's complete inspiration and sufficiency for salvation; which includes reconciliation to God and each other. It is time to find ways to live in that reconciliation if we really believe scripture is sufficient in pointing us to the Way.

If we can't live into the reality of this shared message of God's salvation then I am not sure what the point is in arguing about anything else.

I don’t know how many times you have been asked to give up this divisiveness, but I ask you again in the spirit of Luke 13:8 hoping that given time we together can bear the fruit of reconciliation.

As I mentioned on NazNet and as I described it here, I am sure you can agree with our Article of Faith concerning the Holy Scriptures. Nothing in our big tent as Nazarenes prevents you from believing that scripture is “more” than what is stated. Though I would argue what more is there than the love and salvation of our God?

Philippians 3:8-11, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the LAW, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Come inside the tent with us, there is room. Also, please do not try to cut our tent in half. If you want to make a case against “evolution”, or “prayer labyrinths”, “open theism” or whatever, than do it- but do it as brothers and sisters who share in the free gift of God’s saving work to which we all believe scripture perfectly testifies of.

Many of the things you disagree about, you can find others in our Nazarene tradition who may also disagree. So we are not asking you to give up your concerns about any of these things, just don’t participate in heresy (division) in the name of being against “heresy”. Let all who are concerned about the division these things are causing among us be “Concerned Nazarenes” together. Loose the chains and mechanisms that you are promoting and have already designed to keep certain Nazarenes separated from you and let’s work together as we follow THE Nazarene. Stop promoting a spirit within the Nazarene tradition of “us” verses “them”- let us be US together as we all embrace the reconciling work of God as perfectly revealed through scripture.

The Hermeneutics of Elton John

2010-02-22T17:49:00.004-05:00

There seems to be some hub-bub going on about Elton John's comment that he believes Jesus was a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man." Some are even calling it blasphemous. I think we are, to borrow from McLaren/Campolo, embarking on an adventure in missing the point when we so easily condemn Elton's statement. What some are labeling an 'attention grab' I guess I just see as a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

It is really quite easy to get all up in arms because someone thinks Jesus may have been gay. But there are a few things to think of here:

Being gay does not equate to sinfulness in and of itself. Gay is used as a pejorative term in many Christian circles in a way which couples orientation and practice in a destructive way. I say it is destructive in that it connotes a special level of disdain and degradation for those that have engaged in homosexual acts. If they were to do the same acts with the opposite sex, while still sin (outside of marriage), they do not receive any extra condemnation from 'Christian' society. As Christians we do not point a finger and speak under our breath, "you know that guy is a heterosexual right?" There are many and varied reason why a persons orientation may differ from heterosexual that have nothing to do with the choice of the individual.

It is statistical truth however that most people are heterosexual. Heterosexuality also has the weight of being the only way in which humans can 'go forth and multiply'. Those in mind it would seem that nature in general would point us towards a heterosexual pre-disposition in the majority of cases and we have no evidence that Jesus was otherwise. It makes anthropological sense then that Jesus was indeed heterosexual. Of the temptations Jesus faced the Bible does not speak to any matters of lust or sexual indecency that Jesus may have faced directly, although we do have assurance that he was tested in all the ways that we are as humans, the Bible simply just doesn't say 'how' he was tempted. The Hellenistic/pagan culture of that era, especially in the areas outlying the reach of Judaism, were libertine in nature and sexual temptations were not limited to heterosexual ones.

The main issues I take task with in Elton's assertion is not one of sexual correctness, but one of hermeneutic focus. How does he interpret the story of Jesus to make the assumption that he was gay? Elton has fallen prey to the interpretive error of egocentrism. In How to Read the Bible for All it's Worth Fee and Stuart make this observation:

"That is, most of us assume as we read that we also understand what we read. We also tend to think that our understanding is the same thing as the Holy Spirit's or human author's intent. However, we invariably bring to the text all that we are, with all of our experiences, culture, and prior understandings of words and ideas. Sometimes what we bring to the text, unintentionally to be sure, leads us astray, or else causes us to read all kinds of foreign ideas into the text."

It seems logical that Elton is simply bringing into his understanding of Christ an uneducated and perhaps egocentric world-view in which his interpretation is correct. This is no different than the many challenges we face in the church today whether it is unholy patriotism, prosperity gospel, name it and claim it, fierce judgmentalism, or churches that pray for the death of our president.

Everyone has a pet sin that they love to call out, I like calling out laziness in others because I struggle with it myself at times. It's really easy for me to read my pre-judgments into scripture.

What Elton faces is the same thing we all face in interpreting scripture, are we going to let the text inform our life and practice and let the text be the text, or are we going to continually ram the text into our mold of choice to fit our comfort level? I really wish parts of the Old-Testament weren't in there at times, all the violence is quite frankly a bit embarrassing, but I have to let the text be the text and learn from it and let it shape me. Not the other way around.

Lent, Pop Music, Facebook and Haiti

2010-02-15T13:19:00.014-05:00

As the season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday I can not get Haiti off my mind. Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality, that the reality of death is part of our shared humanity, and in light of this calls us to repentance. The word “repentance” has unfortunately become largely compartmentalized in our culture as somehow being primarily about turning away from ones personal sins. However such compartmentalization and individual focus of turning away from “personal sins” often takes away from the depth of the call to turn toward and follow the Way of Jesus. The Way of Jesus is not just about personal redemption, but the redemption of the humanity we share.

As many of us take the mark of the cross made with the ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration on our foreheads, we will be reflecting on the very essence of the gospel message. The good news is that “God is with us”; through Jesus Christ he is “with us” by sharing in our mortal and human condition. The reality of human suffering, human injustice, and even our inevitable death was not enough to keep God from finding solidarity with human beings by becoming one himself. In this the cross becomes an extension of God’s incarnational work through Christ. As human beings, God meets us in our suffering, our sinfulness, and our very mortality, climaxing in one final statement of solidarity with us on the cross.

Jesus told his disciples that if anyone wanted to come after him they would have to pick up their cross and follow. The Way of the cross is not one of personal piety. As John Wesley once wrote, “Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers.” The Way of the cross is one that seeks solidarity with mankind the way God sought for it through Jesus Christ; thus also restoring us to solidarity with God. The gospel is therefore never about “me”, but always about “us”.

God so loved the world that he gave his Son. These words from John’s gospel are often used to summarize the gospel message. And who is the world? One very on target answer to that question sounds like the title of 1985’s collaborative single “We are the World”, which raised both awareness and money for relief of famine and disease in Africa. Now 25 years later the song has been remade by contemporary music stars in effort to help Haiti.

Listening to this song again while thinking about the Lenten season starting with Ash Wednesday, I could not help but be struck with a particular line in the chorus. The line, “There's a choice we're making, We're saving our own lives”, seems to capture the appropriate transition that Godly repentance should take us in. What begins as a choice made by collective individuals, ends with an understanding that our own salvation is deeply connected to the salvation of our neighbor. When we see the plight of others, and hear their cry, the illusion that there is a difference between "us" and "them" begins to disappear as we embrace the kind of Way and love that God embraced through Christ. Godly repentance, the kind that that calls us to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, enables us to see the needs of others as our own. It matters not how well we ourselves are doing when others are going without, for what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:31-38, Matthew 16:21-27, Luke 9: 23-24)

This is how much God loved the world and the humanity he created, he found solidarity with it by seeing and embracing the needs and suffering of our human condition as his own. This is why love for God can never be separated from the love of our neighbor; for as much as we do unto even the least of these we do unto God.

For those of us participating in the liturgical drama of Ash Wednesday, the symbolism should be a reminder of the reality of our shared mortality as human beings. This should help us see beyond ourselves to those who may be feeling the weight of our mortality the most; where human suffering is magnified by things like poverty, injustice and the seemingly random harshness the world can pile on to its unsuspecting inhabitants. I can’t help but to think of the Haitians in the wake of their devastating earthquake last month. Already an impoverished country they now add to their hardship an estimated three million people who were affected by the quake, 230,000 people had been identified as dead so far, an estimated 300,000 people were injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 people are now homeless. While the people of Haiti are not the only ones suffering in the world, you can make an argument that they certainly should be included in “the least of these” that we are called to do unto as we would do unto God himself.

It is the tradition of many to “give up something” for Lent in the spirit of fasting. I have heard many people speak of this in terms of giving up some sort of personal vice in hopes that it will bring them closer to God. I would like to encourage us to also focus on “giving up something” for Lent as a way to identify with those who are without and are in need. I think in this we begin to embody a better theology, one that does not compartmentalize our love of God from our love of our neighbor. Going even further in a quest to identify with others, and find solidarity with even the “least of these” as Christ did and calls us to, let us also find a way to turn our “fasting” into resources for meeting the needs of others. As “going with out” helps us identify with those in need, let us truly start to see their needs as our own by dedicating the resources we save from our “fast” into resources to save others. May this Lenten season remind us that in repentance “There's a choice we're making, We're saving our own lives” as we come to understand that WE (all of us in this together) are the world for whom God gave his Son.

I think there are many ways we can give something up for Lent and turn our sacrifice into ways to meet some of the great needs Haiti faces. I would love to hear about some of the creative things you might be doing. I also want to invite you to join the Facebook group “Giving up something for Lent to help Haiti”.

By joining this group you are committing to give up something that you regularly practice and requires monetary resources. Then you are to give those resources you save to Haiti relief. You can be as creative as you want and can give to Haiti through any charity you choose. The point is to identify with those in need by going without, and then also turn our “sacrifice” into a means to help others in need.

You might give up eating out, drinking soda or coffee, or giving up cable for 40 days, (you may have other creative ideas and we would love to hear them). Then you dedicate those resources you save to a charity that is committed to helping Haiti.

Share what you are doing and at the end of the Lenten season let’s share the results. In the meantime let’s continue to pray for Haiti and one another while we put aside resources daily that we can save through the practice of self denial during Lent.

The Exiled King - Isaiah 62

2010-01-26T22:49:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a great King, who was just and fair and humble. The motto of his Kingdom was: LOVE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. He taught his people how to live well. The King helped his people to love each other and to help each other. He taught them that everyone is connected, that one person’s success is a victory for all of us, and that another person’s suffering is a wound in all our hearts. He taught people to live with kindness and mercy – helping the weak, befriending the lonely, hugging the children, celebrating with joy, and encouraging the good in all to flourish and grow. His Kingdom grew, and his people prospered.

However, as is often the case, some powerful people wanted more power. They didn’t like this love and justice philosophy. They believed in the survival of the fittest. They believed that everyone gets what they deserve. The strong should get stronger, and the weak … Well, who cares about them anyway.

This group of power-hunger Powerfuls led a coup d’etat. In a quiet revolt, they sent the King into exile and imposed a new government. Their motto was: FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS FOR ALL. They filled the streets with their propaganda: “Let us throw off those ancient social norms. Let us rid ourselves of the shackles of concern for others. Live free. Pursue happiness above all else. If you want it, do it. If you like it, buy it. If you can’t afford it, work for it and work some more. Anyone can have anything they want if they only work hard enough or smart enough.

Most people gladly accepted this new government and their message about life. It is not easy always being concerned about others. Often that means putting aside what we want – at least for a while. This new way of life was much easier. It was such a relief simply to be concerned about yourself. There was a time of celebrating and revelry in the streets. Wine and women moved freely.

But carnival cannot last forever – especially not a carnival set on the philosophy of survival of the fittest. Some people are simply not as strong. They are pushed out of the way with reckless disregard for where they land. Some people want to hold on to the bottle instead of passing it around. Some people want to collect all the bottles for themselves. A powerful fist or a thieving hand is glad to get the bottles moving again.

After the carnival fades, life continues with the same philosophy under more civilized circumstances. Carefree abandon in the streets transitions to legalized divorce in the courtrooms with alimony and child support payments. Fist fights transition to office manipulation with gossip and crafty maneuvers. Wild drunken revelry transitions to a trip to travel agent who can help us escape all our troubles for a weekend on the beach. Brute force transitions to the all-out pursuit of knowledge. Education = power = wealth = happiness. Everything is more civilized, but it is still the lawless party in the streets.

On the national scale, the Powerfuls begin diverting the government’s resources to benefit the businesses of the Powerfuls. The government seems to have two primary jobs: to make the rich richer and to keep everyone else under control. Oil and gas and mining become the industries of choice. Social programs, assistance to the needy, and common infrastructure are pushed lower and lower on the priority list.

The glossy image of the government’s propaganda begins to fade and crack. FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS FOR ALL has really become “freedom for some and happiness just out of reach for everyone.”

To continue reading this post, click here.

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Emerging Church Obituary

2010-01-09T13:38:00.000-05:00

This is really funny. What do you think?

GOD (a poem)

2009-12-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

Like sand slipping through our fingers
or little grains stuck for days in our hair.
Like a cold mist we can't see up close
yet clouds our glasses as soon as we walk in the door.
Like a sunrise that won't fit in the frame
and is kind enough to follow us home.
Like diving into a crystal blue lake
then taking a drink for the hike.
Like that poignant moment we just can't explain
but still makes us smile and cry.
Like whale watching on the Alaskan coast
and the Alaskan snow globe collecting dust.
Like time that always gets away from us
but is with us every minute of every day.

(Josh Broward, 12.28.2009)

Giving Thanks

2009-11-25T22:59:00.003-05:00

A Song of King David: (1st Chronicles, Chapter 16)

8 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
9 Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
10 Exult in his holy name;
rejoice, you who worship the Lord .
11 Search for the Lord and for his strength;
continually seek him.
12 Remember the wonders he has performed,
his miracles, and the rulings he has given,
13 you children of his servant Israel,
you descendants of Jacob, his chosen ones.

What do you give thanks to God for today? Leave a brief prayer in the comments if you like.

Repenting of My Suit

2009-11-15T20:44:00.004-05:00

I wrote this for The House Studio's Change Minds project. It might help answer some of the comments which have been posted in months past.
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My Dad fed me Dress for Success with my morning cereal. Barely out of pee-wee football, I could tell when someone was underdressed for an event.

Just when I was beginning to get pimples, I was also mastering which ties were classics and acceptable (diagonal stripes, dots, and paisleys), which were fashionable but unwise (plaids, abstract shapes, and stripes in any direction other than diagonal), and which were downright poor taste (pictures of any kind).

By Driver’s Ed, I could tell the difference between a 100% cotton shirt and “synthetics,” and I could tie my own tie at the right length.

In university, when I began to preach, I was a model “disciple” of my father’s rabbinical teaching of John Malloy’s Dress for Success philosophy. When I carried my Bible to the pulpit, I was never lacking my conservative tie, perfect suit, over-the-calf black socks, and wingtips.

After graduating from seminary, I landed in Cheonan, South Korea, as the bivocational pastor of a small international church on the campus of Korea Nazarene University. In addition to pastoring this family-sized church of 50, I taught conversational English at KNU.

Korea is deeply conservative in professional men’s dress. Suits are the expected norm for most office workers and for every leader. Pastors, above all, are expected to dress formally.

Throughout my first several years here, I donned a suit and tie with almost daily regularity. I repeated to myself some of my Dad’s maxims: You only get one chance to make a first impression. What you wear determines whether people will trust what you say. It may not be fair, but this is how it is. You can work with reality or break yourself against it.

But slowly, I began to chafe under the formality. Why am I doing this? What are we trying to say with these suits and ties? Why do we put on a coat in the middle of the summer?

I read Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees and saw startling parallels between their “extra long tassels” and my own neckties. The only purpose of a necktie (year round) and a suit coat (in warm weather) is to give the impression of a certain level of power and importance. The exact purpose of these clothes is to separate the powerful and important people from those without power or social significance. I couldn’t help judging myself and my peers as hypocrites who were trying to show off our status of power.

I also began to question the immense cost of this formal attire. Although I got most of my clothes on the cheap, I knew that many of my peers and our leaders spend thousands of dollars a year on these symbols of power. A sense of injustice grew in me. I was participating in a system of waste, excess, and self-promotion, which sucks millions of dollars from some of our most generous pockets.

I was particularly haunted by an experience from my university years. I invited my working-class cousins to go to church with me. After several requests, they reluctantly joined me in attending a conservative megachurch in an upper-middle class neighborhood. They felt woefully out of place in their T-shirts and blue jeans among suits and fancy dresses. The experience was such a disaster, that I didn’t even discuss church or God with them for a very long time. Years later, when I was attending a more relaxed church, I thought they might have a better chance of fitting in enough to actually hear the message. However, they rebuffed my offer with the claim that they had nothing to wear. They only consented to join me when I promised to wear blue-jeans as well.

I read biographies of Mother Theresa and was struck by her intentional decision to don the simple cotton clothing of the poor in her city. For a time, I seriously considered forming an “order neveaux” that chose to wear only blue shirts and khakis, as a form of public dissent against both the formal and high-fashion cultures.

I prayed. I read. I sought advice from others. My parents were predictably against the idea. My wife wisely stood on the sidelines and let me process all my conflicting thoughts and desires and fears. On more than one occasion I stood in front of my closet with the resolution to throw out every suit and tie I owned.

When our church decided to make several changes at once, changing our location and meeting time all in one move, I decided to add a wardrobe change for myself. When I walked into the new place, I left the suit and tie behind.

For another year or so, I continued to wear suits into my English classrooms at KNU. I reasoned that while I am in an official university role, I should go along with the formal Korean culture. So it was suits on class days and semi-casual wear on church days.

However, I began to feel dichotomous – like I was presenting two selves to the world. Also, my decision not to wear suits to church still did not resolve my participation in the “suit-system” during the week. I still felt like I was participating in a social system built on hypocrisy and contributing to global injustice.

About 4 years after taking my first pastorate and committing to the daily “uniform” of pastors and professors, I purged my closet of all but two suits and a handful of ties. My wife finally voiced her opinion and talked me into wearing suits for weddings and funerals. I am still not sure how this jives with my desire to be consistent at all times. For now, I agree with her advice that some special occasions seem to call for special clothing, and further that I should avoid giving offense if at all possible.

I may not be finished making adjustments in my clothing ethics, but for me, this process of intentional dress is a key component in my discipleship of Jesus. I want everything I do to help me follow him more, to be closer to his example. I want to be as simple and honest as I can manage. At the same time, I want to create as few barriers between myself as others as possible.

I don’t want to impose my clothing ethic on others, and I don’t want to judge all suit-wearers as Pharisaical hypocrites. But I do believe that questioning our motives and even our cultures is a healthy practice for all of us – especially those of us who long to follow our countercultural Messiah.

LOST Meets the Missional Church

2009-11-05T10:09:00.000-05:00

David Fitch has a great post on the idea of how moving from an attractional church to a missional church. He suggests that one of the most difficult aspects is that when we shift from bringing others in to our church we give up the power inherent in doing so. We maintain power over outsiders by controlling the environment we engage them in, by knowing the language, and by having a set of customs and behaviors that define the environment which are foreign to our visitors. All of this keeps us in a position of power and keeps everyone outside of our community as an "other". I couldn't read his post without thinking of the Others on Lost. But that is actually a helpful analogy.

On Lost there has been a major change over the seasons as the Others have moved from being a faceless enemy to people whose stories we know. Some of the Others have even become part of the group, and while many of them remained enemies, the lines between the survivors of the plane crash and those already on the island have blurred considerably. Even the worst of them, Ben, moves from hero to villain to sympathetic figure back to psycho path. It is a big shift moving from thinking about the Others to thinking about real people.

How can we be effective in meeting the needs and effectively sharing the Gospel with people who are simply the Others? So many churches and pastors (myself included) fall into the trap of talking about the lost or the broken or the people outside of our doors without ever attaching faces to this identity. Effective kingdom living doesn't take place while we hold a faceless identity out there that we are trying to reach. It happens when we are engaging with those around us in such a way as to know who it is specifically we are trying to love.

Laying down the power in evangelism is difficult, but necessary. Increasingly those outside of our doors will feel less and less compelled to ever enter our doors. If we don't abandon the power in our relationship with those we are trying to reach we will simply stop reaching them.

This shouldn't really be a surprise for us should it? After all isn't the point of the incarnation that Jesus gave up the power in order for us to relate to and understand his good news? It is just hard for us to emulate that kind of incarnational love because holding the power is just too comfortable.

Theology of Sexuality

2009-10-30T00:19:00.002-04:00

Our church is starting a 4 week series on sex: theology of sexuality, marriage and singleness, homosexuality, and pornography. It was surprising to me that one month was not enough time to talk about sex. We had to squeeze marriage and singleness together, and we are barely going to touch on strategies for succeeding in times of temptation. Each week, I'll be posting the sermons on my blog. I'll post the beginning of the first one here. If folks seem to be interested, I can post the others as well.

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Sometimes people ask me why we are doing a sermon series on sex. One of my pastor friends was completely shocked when I told him. It’s dangerous and difficult to talk about sex so publicly. People might get offended. I might say something wrong. This is a hard topic to talk about, so why are we doing it.

Well, sexuality is an essential part of our humanity. We might avoid talking about our sexuality, but we can’t avoid our sexuality. It is always with us because it is part of our humanness.

Also, sex has deep spiritual and theological implications. We’ll talk about that more today.

And, we’re talking about sex simply because it is dangerous and difficult to talk about. We shouldn’t take the easy way out. We should run into the most difficult, most dangerous topics and address them directly. We should live in the storm of life because it doesn’t stop storming just because we talk about nice things.

To be honest, it was kind of hard to get this series started. I couldn’t find any jokes that wouldn’t get me fired. I didn’t even try to find any videos that were … appropriate. And Sarah made me promise not tell any personal stories.

The way some Christians talk about sex, one wonders how Christians ever have children. Sometimes, Christians have said some pretty bad things about sex. So we’ll start by talking about some of the negative views on sex that Christians have held or taught down through the ages. ...

To continue reading this post, click here.

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Deep Church: Reflection #1 - Emergents Like to Protest

2009-10-14T11:35:00.003-04:00

Today I started a series on my blog looking at Jim Belcher's new book Deep Church which offers a third way down the divide of the emerging and traditional church debates. Sorry I haven't posted here in a while, but I thought this might be relevant to our conversations.

Are those in the emergent church simply true Protestants, protesting against failures in the church and seeking to rebuild and reboot the traditional church?

That is the first question that Jim Belcher looks at in his efforts to define the emerging church. Belcher tries to nail down some specific areas of protest that have defined the emerging church movement. Many of the emerging churches critics have focused on protests and changes related to epistemology (the study of how we know truth) and hermeneutics (the theory of how we interpret scripture). But Belcher gives 7 areas he finds consistent voices of protest within emergent circles.Here are the protests he identifies with a very brief and limited clarifying comment below each.

1) Captivity to Enlightenment Rationalism

This boils down to a belief that the church has been imprisoned by rationalist philosophies that essential removes revelation from the way we know truth. This has found itself rooted in how we try to defend the church, defend scripture, and explain our faith.

2) A narrow view of salvation

Essentially emergents believe that the church has focused too much on justification and not enough on sanctification. There has been an over emphasis on becoming a Christian and not enough on living like a Christian.

3) Belief before belonging

This is a criticism of a traditional practice requiring people to have right doctrine before they are accepted into the body of the church. Doctrine is the gatekeeper for community.

4) Uncontextualized Worship

Worship has been too far removed from the culture of the people who are worshiping and instead it is preserving a culture of a different day and age that is increasingly irrelevant. This is a critique of using worship music, prayers, and liturgy that was all birthed from a one time relevant cultural place, but that time has long since passed.

5) Ineffective Preaching

The pastor as the fount of all knowledge has reduced spiritual formation to head knowledge and has removed people from lending their voice and their experience to the proclamation of scripture

6) Weak ecclesiology

Ecclesiology is the study of how church is structured and how church functions. Traditional church top down structures and unadapting methodology has effected its missional effectiveness.

7) Tribalism

The traditional church has has shied away from its responsibility to go out and to engage the world and to truly bring the Gospel to the world. This engagement with culture has resulted in the church being known more for what it is against that what it is for. We have lost the ability to be countercultural and to create better culture.

So this is where our conversation will begin with Deep Church. Are these fair assessments of the Emerging Church? Are these fair critiques of the Traditional Church? Does any of them resonate with your own protesters heart?

A supportive article form Holiness Today!

2009-09-29T17:58:00.001-04:00

In case y'all don't read your Holiness Today from cover to cover you might like to know that the editor wrote this supportive (if a bit cryptic) article. Its worth a read. Forgive me if this is old nes for everyone, it was on the bottom of the pile on my desk.

Ps. for anyone who reads my blog it has moved here.

Grace,
jason

A Chance for Publication

2009-09-14T10:17:00.002-04:00

For all of the avid writers out there, the House Studio is currently accepting essay submissions for an upcoming book on changed minds:

While the titling debate for the next Kingdom Experiment rages on, we thought we'd give you yet another glimpse at what's coming. We are nearing the homestretch on a book whose working title is Changed Minds. The concept behind this book is to hear from Christians about significant positions on which they have reversed their opinions over the years. The point is two-fold: to help us remain open-minded in our continual search for God's truth in our world, and to put ourselves in a position to see how those with whom we may disagree have come to their conclusions reasonably and thoughtfully.

If you have some free time, give it a shot.

Love Wins

2009-08-31T22:27:00.000-04:00

These videos are a description of Love Wins, a ministry to people at strip clubs, led by some of my friends at Trinity Family Church of the Nazarene in Gardner, Kansas, USA. Check them out.

Also, check out the Love Wins posts on Donnie Miller's blog. He's the pastor.

People Who Are Changing the World

2009-08-25T03:40:00.001-04:00

Professor who is engineering low-tech solutions to big problems for people living in poverty.

Inventor who created a low cost, portable, highly efficient water-filter.

I just sent out an email to a few of our church leaders exploring the possibility of including videos like these (lots more are available at www.ted.com and from other organizations) as monthly HOPE segments in our church. Sometimes, the problems of our world are so big that they are overwhelming. We lose hope that we can actually cause change. Maybe videos like this can help us regain hope - and with hope action.

Missional Communities Conference

2009-08-21T10:08:00.002-04:00

Recognizing this follows David Brush's critique I thought I would at least offer this as an alternative perspective.

NTS & the NTS Center for Lifelong Learning are pleased to host the following continuing education event:

MISSIONAL COMMUNITIES IN A CHANGING CULTURE: OCTOBER 22-23, 2009 (Pre-Conference Session: October 21) http://www.nts.edu/missional-communities

Perhaps not all institutions are so iconoclast.

Towards a Missional Church

2009-08-20T11:46:00.004-04:00

A recent post on the Christianity Today website covered the news that two Neo-Reformed mega-churches pastored by John Piper and Mark Driscoll would each be starting their own degree-granting and I am guessing accredited seminaries. Many have decried this from the standpoint that they believe any seminary built up under the auspices of an iconic figure, like either of these men are in their circles, is bound to produce ministers and theologians that are indoctrinated and dogmatic in regards to a particular theological system.

I would argue though that this trap has long affected schools and seminaries that are rigidly aligned within the hierarchy of any religious institution. It is a safe bet that you will not have many undergrad theology classes in the Nazarene spectrum dealing heavily with something like a doctrine of election for instance. We do not have to be attending Liberty or Oral Roberts to find ourselves being taught with a particular theological framework and assumptions in play.

I believe it was last year that there was much turmoil at Olivet as one of the professors was rebuffed for his stance of theological-evolution. There are are many ways in which a school that is aligned with a particular religious institution can be influenced by their affiliated denominations, it doesn't require a single iconic individual. I also do not mean to single out Nazarene institutions with this particular post, as this exists across the private religious school spectrum, however the Nazarene schools are the one with which I am most familiar.

The issue I take with denominational (or church based) institutions is that they are pressured to take ecumenical and broad-based theological constructs and then recast and stamp them with their own particularity. There has been a recent push within the Nazarene church to identify ourselves as Missional. The concern I have with the Nazarene interpretation and usage of missional is that it is closely aligned with eduction in our Nazarene higher educational system. It is an ecumenical error to use the term missional in a particularistic and self-advantageous context. It is also important that if the church is serious about being missional that we move beyond the limitations of our current educational paradigm.

Rick Meigs describes missional:

A helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the "come to us" invitations with a "go to them" life. A life where "the way of Jesus" informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower."

In many ways missionality is a direct attempt to bring back together the realms of ortho-doxy and ortho-praxy under the same ecclesial tent. It is a shift in critical theological thinking that begins to place missiology in a paramount context to ecclesiology. In order for an institution of learning to truly be missional it must be intentional in it's incarnational presence as the body of Christ.

If missionality is to be taken seriously in our educational contexts it must be approached ecumenically and can not smack of the particularization that is inherent in denominational thinking. Missional can not and must not be reduced to a selling point for future students, rather it must be a fundamental element and core in the educational effort and graduation requirements. Missions and missional theology must be taught and required for every single degree if we are going to claim missional as a trait. It must be pervasive and and dive deeper than one or two courses out of 30. What the western church needs more than anything is thoroughly missiologically trained students, students that are not just competent in exegesis, homiletics, history and doctrine.

The second problem I have with this alignment of missional with our educational systems is that I am frankly not sure our higher educational schools are up to the paradigm shift's challenge. There is a tie to historical tradition and modernistic assumptions on the importance of a particular pedagogical method of training. There needs to be room for parish-based forms of education (somewhat ironic to my point I know) that are rooted in incarnational ministry and experience. With the technological means of today the years of needing to convene in a single geographical location to interact with peers, scholars and professors is dying and outmoded. While I understand the need for a handful of academic-track students to maintain residence that is not what the vast majority of our future ministers require or even need.

Imagine, if you will, the ability of students to live together in small cohorts of 15 or 20 in a given city or area of the world and to engage as a cohort together in missional living and education. Each group working through the same coursework and authors together in order to build community and trust. Each student is required to give a portion of their time to being present in their communities and local church bodies. What impact could this have on the missionality of our denomination?

I do not believe the method of education I propose is the best or only, but simply the one I believe would begin to transform the Nazarene church into a truly missional body of believers that is ready and equipped to engage a globalized and multi-cultural reality with a knowledge not only of history and study but of engagement and incarnation.

Three Challenges and Catalysts in Discipleship

2009-07-25T00:06:00.003-04:00

Recently a fellow named Bud Caddell came up with a Venn diagram entitled “how to be happy in business.” It reminded me of a similar diagram from the class notes for my 'Biblical Foundations for Missions' class. As such I wanted to replicate and mash both concepts into a single form that would help me think and hopefully spur some discussion. I would consider what I have below a work-in-progress and would appreciate any feedback or discussion it generates.

If you are unfamiliar with this general setup, each circle represents an entry point by which we as humans enter under the tutelage of Christ. Hopefully as we progress in that process we are drawn into the center of all three disciplines, however that is not always the case. The conundrum we often face is how do continue the process of discipling in our new cultural contexts. I would argue that largely the core concepts remain the same, however the praxis of discipling often calls for new and varied tools of expression and instruction. Regardless of our cultural contexts the three struggles we most likely face in the discipling process are ones of vulnerability, accountability, and exploratory spaces. The primary catalysts for working through these struggles are cultivation, embracement, and encouragement.

Let me know your thoughts.

Reflections on the 2009 General Assembly

2009-07-03T00:44:00.002-04:00

I had the great privilege to attend the 2009 General Assembly (simply as a visitor). I never really got all the fuss about General Assemblies before, but I absolutely loved this. I hope that I will be able to attend for more time next time around, especially for the many seminars and forums which are held during the pre-Assembly conventions.
I made three posts during the week sharing some of my reflections on the week. Instead of reposting them here, I'll just include the links with brief descriptions.
Impressed with NTS: NTS earned a large grant to revision and reorganize itself as a missional seminary serving a missional church. Very exciting stuff!
Impressed with NPH: NPH provided the seed money to start a small new publishing company called The House Studios. House hasn't labeled themselves this, but I think they are emergent/missional.
Impressed with our Leaders: We elected two international representatives to high offices and took significant steps on many major issues.

I hope you'll take the time to follow the links and to share your feedback in either place. It might be helpful to post general comments here and comments relating to the specific posts connected with those posts.

(By the way, the "Concerned Nazarenes" did make a showing at General Assembly. They gave out some fliers lambasting various leaders and movements, but as far as I could tell, they made a few waves but didn't have much influence.)
(Another short aside: I'm not sure what to make of all the pomp, circumstance, technology, hoopla, efficiency, and showmanship involved in a huge event like this. Several times during the worship services I just felt put off by it all. I'm not sure I could suggest a better solution for such a large gathering. In fact, I felt a mixture of respect for the art involved in crafting some of the digital backgrounds and doubt about the value and faithfulness of it all. My heart felt genuinely warmed when I saw my former D.S. wearing a simple polo shirt instead of the obligatory coat and tie. No kidding - it warmed my heart to see him resist the culture on that point.)

for the church to be the church there needs to be no church

2009-06-27T19:02:00.004-04:00

Hey folks, I have been following this site for a while and asked James if I could contribute. I am a Nazarene church planter in College Park, MD and I have been involved in the Emergent conversation since seminary. I wanted to share a post from my own blog (Ethan's Feet) that I wrote in response to some things that i have been reading from author Peter Rollins. I am curious to hear yawls thoughts on it:

Lately I have been falling more and more for Irish theologian Pete Rollins. To get a flavor for Pete (though you should really check out his books) read this interview in Christian Century. I find his thoughts to be totally compelling, particularly his thoughts on "community" as laid out in that interview. Community is a buzz word in the emerging church as important as post-modern or anything else. Lately, though, I have been feeling like the idea of community can become as much an idol we worship and/or a millstone around our neck as any old church building or stubborn board of directors.

In fact, if I could sum up all that my brain has imagined from reading Pete I would sum it up in the following phrase: for the church(A) to be the church(B) there needs to be no church(C).

What I mean is that for the people of God (church, definition A) to start behaving like the distinct community of the Kingdom of God (church definition B) then maybe there needs to be nowhere that they can go where someone else or some institution (church, definition C) will do it/be it for them.

Now I am not saying that we don't have a church/institution "C" (that would be career suicide!) but rather that the primary job of the church/institution is to refuse to be for the church/people "A" the church/KOG "B".

You come to church seeking community? Reach out and love somebody. You come to church seeking praise? Stand up and praise God in front of everybody. You come to church seeking truth? Ask somebody a question. You come to church to serve the poor? Go out and make friends with someone whose poor and brig 'em to church!

I'm not saying... I'm just saying.

(re-posted from "Ethans Feet")

Something Worth Dying For?

2009-06-15T22:03:00.002-04:00

Warning, this video is not for the faint of heart....

(HT: The Daily Dish)

Today there are countless Iranians protesting, and some dying for the right to have their voice counted in free and fair elections. I am not of any illusionary belief that democracy is a God ordained institution, however it is by far the best thing humans have ever come up with for self-governance and it sure beats the theocratic fascism that Iran's conservative Muslim leaders are now fully revealed to be in favor of.

I have friends that have served bravely in the military and they are willing to die for their country and fellow citizens; even to die for another country and her citizens. The earliest Christians and the underground church today are persecuted and martyred for their faith. But is it really worth dying for?

The question of death and life and viewing some measure of worth as being associated with it is an interesting phenomena. Is your earthly existence less valuable than your right to vote? Is your hand being intact worth some tangible amount which once is met you agree to have it lobbed off? Is there anyway a well fed white mid-westerner whose most dangerous experience was a brush with a 5th grader on the tetherball court after recess can identify with and say that they would indeed die for anything?

The things worth dying for are often identified as existing 'outside' of ourselves, they are bigger than our own footprint. Will we die to save the life of another? Will we throw ourselves on the grenade tossed before our friends? Will we stand in front of the tanks and bullets thrown at us by extremist governments with terroristic visions of domination?

Do we have a faith in a God that sent a son that had something valuable to do, something worth being killed for? Is the hope of reconciliation of God and his creation worth dying for? I ask these questions because I don't think most Christians serve that God. They have faith in the God of the Sunday morning concert, the God of the felt needs, the God of the 'feed me' consumption of targeted Christonomic Americanism. That is surely not something worth dying for, because there is nothing 'outside' of ourselves to die for. That is a Christian faith that is personalized, and internalized. It is filtered, packaged, and made 'just for you' so that you can feel as though you are somehow being Christian by listening to it, reading it, or watching it. That is the ingrown and inbred faith of 'Christian Yellowbooks' and only letting your kids play with other Christian kids. It is a faith that is stained with red, white, and blue. It is a farce, a false religion, a heretic gospel, and I won't die for it.

So what will I die for? I will die for a Christ that is fully God and fully man, that was really born of a virgin, that was really a historical person, that really died on a cross, and really raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty! I will die for nothing less. I will die for a faith that causes me to embrace a radical and trinitarian love that is eternally focused on the well-being of others at the expense of my flesh. I will die for a faith that transcends consumerism. I will die for a faith in which all I am and all I do is but worthless unless it is bathed in the shadow of the cross. I will die for a faith with teeth, that stands up for it's beliefs in the face of syncretism and pluralistic pandering to a culture bent on diluting everything to a pale grey. And in paradox I will only die for a faith that is so radical in it's love for the other that we will be accused of being drunkards and harlots, sinners and tax collectors. In short I will die for nothing less than the Kingdom of God come to earth through the incarnated hands of Jesus Christ.

Do you have something worth dying for? If you don't then what are you living for?

Did You Know?

2009-06-10T22:19:00.000-04:00

I'm sure many of you have seen this video "Did you know," that explores the overwhelming scale of globalization and technology. It's mind boggling to envision the exponential change that society is currently undergoing. I often hear from folks my parents age that things haven't really changed that much. Some live in a kind of cocooned reality where they are able to deny the galloping rate of change, but the church needs to grapple with questions like this clip presents.

I'm unconvinced and uninterested in the church attempting to match the global/technological scaling we see unfolding. Instead we must go deeper. We must become a community enveloped by the mystery of a God who takes on flesh.

Perhaps the faith will look more like art than science--less explained than experienced--more urban that rural-more Asian than urban, and thus again more Eastern than Western. Will it be found amidst the silence--in highly localized, connected globally to other localized nodes through pilgrimage. Perhaps it will resist hierarchies that cannot be translated across culture, geography, and technology--embracing structures able to cradle both unity and diversity.

When I think of these things, I worry that our localized contention for space and voice within our tradition is trivial at best.

Oh Sons and Daughters of Issachar, what do you discern?

More than Discussion

2009-06-09T06:05:00.011-04:00

I haven't posted in quite a while. I still read all the posts and some of the discussions in the comments, but in many ways, I'm just done with discussion. There are other good reasons too. Life is full, life is good.

One thing I've found with the emerging conversations is that they are indeed mostly conversations. Those who are in part or wholly postmodern are great at it. But I must confess that I miss the result-making aspect of modernity. I don't want to return to those structures and think we can't, but I do miss implementation. I long for dreamy seeds to turn into growing seedlings & saplings, and eventually, healthy & flourishing trees.

What I'm saying is that those inspired by the emerging conversation are mostly...well...just inspired. Inspiration is one thing, living is another. I know lots of people who are inspired by a good idea; few, if any, willing to risk it by living it. Indeed...the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

But some things are happening. I was actually encouraged by attending New England District Assembly a few weeks ago. Sure, there were multiple times when I wondered, "Why are we doing this?" But it was encouraging to see and talk to some pastors who are breaking the chains of growth models, willing to be "embarrassed" by the archaic systems of statistical measurement in order to actually grow by the fruit-measurements of scripture.

I want to tell you about two of them in hopes that it's encouragement to other pastors and churches out there.

Lifebridge Church of the Nazarene is in Manchester, NH, a city that's growing in many ways, including within the populations of the homeless and immigrants. If you look in the NED booklet from assembly, you'll see something like 8 or 12 as the weekly "worship attendance" for LifeBridge. About six of those every week are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. LifeBridge is the mother church of the Helping Hands Outreach Center, a 24-7 "church" that ministers to and with men recovering from addiction, jail time, and other disenfranchising elements of society. It's tough to know it from a one-page statistical summary, but LifeBridge CotN is doing the work of the Kingdom every day of the week by ministering to the lives of dozens of men, most of whom will not be in Sunday morning worship, but all of whom are being presented the gospel as Jesus spoke of it.

The second is Cornerstone Community Church in Spencer, MA. I met the pastor, Ted MacNeil for the first time at assembly. I was tuned into the church via his humorous video report, a parody of the FOX show, House. You can view it below, but skip to 5:37 to see it.

I remember one of the first aspects of the emergent conversation that drew me in was that I found that the Spirit of God was moving in the same ways in different people in different places. The conversation became a place for me to know that these thoughts I was having were not misplaced, out of the ordinary, or even completely unorthodox. But now I'm looking for stories and places where it's more than a conversation.

Anyone else? Stories to share...?

God Is an Atheist

2009-06-07T05:22:00.002-04:00

I am an atheist. Don't look so shocked! You are an atheist, too. So is God. We are all atheists.
If you don't believe in God, you are an atheist. If you do believe in God, you are atheist.
Huh?
The early Christians were called atheists because they rejected the gods of Rome. They had the audacity to say that Rome's long-honored gods were false and that there was only one true God. So people called them atheists – people who don't believe in the gods.
Good Christians are still atheists in this sense today. Stan Martin was a professor here several years ago. He was fond of saying, “So you're an atheist … OK, tell me about the God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in him either.”

Let's read our Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 44:6-20.

J.B. Phillips wrote a little book called, Your God Is Too Small, and in it he argues that the greatest barrier to faith is poor, weak, small, piddly images of God.1 So often, we believe these bad images of God, and they really mess us up. Let me tell you about the Gods I don't believe in – at least I don't believe them most of the time.

God is not the whammy hammer. ...

To continue reading this post, click here.

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What does it mean to be Pro-life today?

2009-06-02T16:17:00.002-04:00

The horrific shooting of an abortion doctor in Kansas by an antiabortion zealot is forcing us to take a look at the current state of the Pro-Life movement in our country. Both sides can look at this awful incident and wonder about all that leads to such destructive behavior.

For those who are on the Pro-Life side of the conversation it seems that we need to take a look at where we are. In many ways these are hard days for the Pro-Life movement. First, President Obama, while working towards civility and understanding from the both sides of the abortion debate is clearly working from a more left wing agenda on the issue. Some of his first actions as president were to repeal executive orders from President Bush aimed at protecting unborn life. Secondly, with the appointment of one Supreme Court Justice soon and possibly several more in the coming years, the court may be making a shift that will not help the Pro-Life cause.

So how should pro-lifers proceed through these difficult days? I think that first and foremost there needs to be some readjustment on our perspective on what it means to be pro-life. Believing in the sanctity of all human life, born or unborn, is not simply an issue in regards to abortion. It is a major component, but life is life wherever it exists. I have stated numerous times in sermons and through my writing that the church needs to focues on the unborn and the already born alike. Poverty, AIDs, and genocide are affecting more children each year than abortion. So let’s just make sure we are focusing on all sanctity of life issues that God is calling us to make a difference in.

With the changing landscape there needs to be a shift in how we are trying to accomplish the ultimate goal of lowering the number of abortions as much as possible in our country and in our world. I do not believe that Roe V. Wade will ever be overturned in our country. If it was in some way altered, it would most likely become an issue that was sent back to the states to rule on. The majority of states will most likely still legalize it. Even that happening is a huge longshot.

But, regardless of the legality of abortion, we should be working to eliminate abortions. Taking the choice from women doesn’t actually address the issue that leads most women to abortion anyways. Eliminating poverty, providing support for single moms, helping to rebuild the family, providing sex education, talking about abistenence, and helping those who need them get the means to prevent pregnancy will make a huge impact on the number of abortions in our country. To find models for this we need to look outside of our countries to ministries that operate in countries were abortions and orphans are so prevalent. Ministries in these countries are trying to change the culture around women and children to help give them life. There are no hopes of eliminating abortion in these countries so people have had to find other ways to help prevent them. These are the models we should be looking towards in our future to provide better preservation for all life.

Personally I am excited to begin partnering with a new organization called Doma that my friend Julie Clark has started. Doma is doing a lot of this kind of work in the Ukraine, Russia, and throughout Africa. Models like theirs are the kind of models we need to adopt here in the US as well. There are so many passionate and committed people who want believe in the sanctity of all life. My prayer is that we will increasingly find more effective and even more Christ honoring ways to pool our efforts and make a difference in the lives of those who have no voice for themselves.

Happy Birthday to the Church!!!!!

2009-05-31T07:03:00.004-04:00

It started with the lighting of twelve candles, but rather than blowing them out, about three thousand more were added that first day. Since then the fire has kept spreading, and may it never go out!!

I want to wish the Body of Christ a Happy Birthday as we celebrate Pentecost.

She is So Beautiful

2009-05-26T12:38:00.002-04:00

One of the images used to describe the Lord's people is the 'bride of Christ'. In wedding ceremonies the bride is often beautified with dress and jewelry, her hair is done and makeup is applied. She is radiant as she walks down the aisle and her grace is evident. She is attractive in her beauty and in her character, her purity. She is so beautiful.

Does that really sound like the church?

Of course we all know that the 30 minutes a bride stands before a group of individuals is not her every day persona. She is an office worker, a teacher, a doctor, a student, a lawyer, a homemaker. She has her good days and her bad days, her moments of exhiliration and her stretches of drought and normalcy. Throughout all of this though her husband remains committed, he did not just marry the gilded and adorned beauty that walked down the aisle to meet him. No he married her largely for her consistent character and faitfulness to their marriage vow.

One thing I have come to notice over the years is that married couples who are passionate about each other are beautiful. In their age and their years they acquire a beauty as they fall ever deeper in love with the other. It is a beauty that spills out into the laps of those that are near them, they inspire others towards connectedness in their relationships and a deep intimacy. This is a love not easily feigned nor imitated, because it is a love that knows beauty is more than cosmetic, it is it's own language of knowing the other.

The church is not perfect, we are after all human. However as we continue to fall in love with our spouse, with our lover and creator our love can become a beautiful thing. We do our love with Christ a dis-service when we describe it solely in the realm of the platonic or brotherly. The relationship of God's people (our own relationship) with Christ is to be passionate, romantic, intimate and deeply connected. Perhaps if we really embraced this truth the church could begin to really be the church.

I would argue that largely the church today is concerned with cosmetic beauty, and as a result we end up looking worn and trashy. The world is to look at the church, to smell the perfume of our relationship with Christ, and to be attracted to that covenant. They are to see a transforming power at work in the world, but instead they only see human political parties and hypocritical nationalists. Through our actions we have not shown that God can change the hearts of men, we have instead shown that God likes to boycott Target and water board Muslims. We do our groom a disservice when we pursue after influence among the powers of the world, when after all we are already betrothed to the Lord of All, the Lamb of God.

She is so beautiful, and the beauty is held in the intimant closeness of Christ. We must not look elsewhere for our affirmation and power or we will surely become an adulteress.

The New ‘Nones’ Aren’t Athiest–Just Unaffiliated

2009-05-11T14:55:00.005-04:00

Historically, the number of individuals who say they have no religious affiliation in America ranges between 5-10%, but a new poll conducted by Robert Putnam (of Bowling Alone fame) and the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life shows the “nones” is skyrocketing to 30-40% among Generation X and Y. At first glance this would seem like a disturbing trend, at least for those who care about the church and evangelism, but Putnam believes the opposite may be true. The declining trend in religious affiliation could in fact provide an opportunity for a revival of faith in America. In other words, as the Religious Right declines and American civil religion dies, there is room for something new to arise out of the ashes.

According to ABC News, Putnam makes clear that the majority of the “nones” are not atheist. In fact, he says, “Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church.” He continues, “They have the same attitudes and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues.” Young people are rejecting the overly politicized religion of their childhood and what they see as an increasingly corrupt institutional church — not God. Putnam sees an opportunity for the church. “Jesus said, ‘Be fishers of men,’ and there’s this pool with a lot of fish in it and no fishermen right now.”

It is becoming increasingly clear that young people are tired of a religion that stays silent on the great issues of our day, issues such as the environment, poverty, and education, but they are energized by a faith that leads to social action. Last week at Sojourners’ Mobilization to End Poverty, a young man approached a staff member to tell a familiar story. He grew up in a conservative church, left the faith because he could not believe in the God of his childhood, and then, one night, he heard Jim Wallis speak. Jim shared the gospel of a God who cares for the poor and the marginalized of the world and of a God who calls us to do the same. That night, he returned to Christ.

In social settings, I am often asked to explain where I work. At first, when they hear I work for a religious organization they start looking for someone else to talk with, but as I continue to explain our work you can see the spark in their eye and they’ll almost always reply, “Tell me more. I’m not a person of faith/I left the faith, but I like the sound of this.”

However, I see time and time again that young people are not interested in a watered-down faith that simply does good work or a faith that replaces the Religious Right with the Religious Left. Young people are attracted to an authentic faith in Jesus, grounded in scripture that leads to social action. A friend of Sojourners tells the story of growing up in a home that taught social justice, but not knowing why she should get out of bed for church. Then, during the midst of a struggle for racial justice in a small Texas town, a group of activists — who had been ostracized from local churches for shaking up the social order — began to sing, pray, and read scripture together. It was the worshipping community, she says, that gave them the strength to continue. She had a reason to get out of bed on Sunday. In my opinion, the church must learn to weave together social action, evangelism, a commitment to scripture, and a worshipping community if it is going to attract the growing number of “nones.” In the midst of what appears to be depressing news for religious folk, I am hopeful that something new is possible.

I think the Church of the Nazarene could easily benefit from this changing trends, because the church has a history of making space for religious entrepreneurs. But, the entrepreneurs success is dependent upon the broader churches support and investment.

(portions of this post are also at at God's Politics)

Kevin Lum is the national church and outreach coordinator at Sojourners. He also blogs at God's Politics and KevinLum.com.

The Changing Demographics of Religion

2009-05-06T12:34:00.005-04:00

You may have already seen this video about the spread of Islam around the globe, but if not watch it then consider how we should respond.

This video certainly doesn't surprise me. I couldn't have told you these numbers, but the pattern of cultural migration and transformation are consistent throughout history. If you look at the immigration rates of Hispanics and Latinos into the US they are very similar to the Muslim numbers in Europe. Within a generation the US will be one of the largest Hispanic nations in the world. Immigration and higher birth rates have fed a massively growing population in our country.

What we are seeing right now with Muslims in many ways mirrors what we saw in the first 400 years of the church. When Constantine and those who followed him first tolerated and then legalized Christianity many people believe he was simply seeing the signs of the times. The early church simply out populated the rest of the Roman Empire because of their healthier lifestyles, conversion rates, and respect for life.

Now we are seeing Muslims do the same thing throughout Western Civilization.

How much should this concern us as Christians?

Islam is moving into countries where the Church has for the most part already collapsed. It doesn't really matter if it is secularism, humanism or Islam, these areas are desperate for a renewal of the church. So in some regards this isn't any new concern for us. Whether people are secular, post-Christian, or Muslim, they still need Christ.

We also need to become more informed regarding Islam. If you look at the growing, now 9 million strong population of Muslims in this country you find that the culture and faith they practice is radically different than the fundamentalist regimes that have promoted and encouraged terrorism. Within Western countries you are also seeing the same things happening to Muslim culture that happened with Christianity. As generations become settled, absorb the dominant culture, make money, seek education, and are ingrained into the society secularism, love of money, and all the same trappings that we are fighting in the church become battles as well. Do you really think that Muslims won't fall to the same temptations to compromise their faith that the church has?

Not that there aren't fundamentalists in this country, but for the most part Muslims in this country are of a much more peaceful brand of Islam. Let's not go over board with our characterizations of Muslims. Muslims aren't scary. They are people, created by God in his image, and Jesus died for them. That is how we must view them.

Further, if you look at the growth of the church around the world, in Africa and Asia especially, it is not as if the church is in decline globally. It is in serious decline in Western Countries but exploding in others.

Should these numbers scare us? No, unequivocally no! Why? Well I read the ending of the book, and in the end, the Kingdom of God is victorious. The spread of Islam provides great challenges to the church, but our God is far bigger than these challenges. The church isn't going anywhere. So as the world changes around us let's be the ones to think proactively and positively about how we as the church will meet the challenge of the global spread of Islam. Let's not be scared, or try to slap a label on a massive and incredibly diverse population of people spread throughout the globe. God is in command, and nothing will defeat the spread of His Kingdom.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

Emergent-Hyphenated-Nazarenes

2009-04-30T13:05:00.007-04:00

One of the things that have found interesting about the emergent conversation is all the “hyphenated” parallel conversations. By “hyphenated” I mean those who both identify with the emergent conversation while still identifying with the story of their own traditions. These groups tend to take on names like presbymergents, Angli-mergents, Metho-mergents, Luther-mergents ect. I guess when I named the blog over three years ago we should have been Naz-mergent, but the idea is the same.

Phyllis Tickle the author of The Great Emergence said on a blog late last year, “They (hyphenateds) fascinate me more even than do completely emergent congregations, because they seem to me to be engaged in the more difficult task of bringing to the party the best of two worlds, the ancient and the future. They are hyphenated, in other words, because they seek to meld the DNA and passion and post-modern theology of a new form of Christianity with the existing body and operative history of an established tradition.”

Here are some hyphenated groups that can likely identify with the tensions we are navigating as Emergent Nazarenes.

Methomergent (Methodist)
Baptimergent (Baptist)
Presbymergent (Presbyterian)
Luthermergent (Lutheran)
Anglimergent (Anglican/Episcopal)
Convergent (Quaker)
AGmergent (Assemblies of God/ Pentecostal)

I occasionally go to the DC Emergent Cohort, and one of the great pleasures of this is that I get to meet and interact with people in other Christian traditions who also are trying to navigate this hyphenated existence. I love the ecumenical feel of these groups as it reminds us all that we are all branches connected to the same tree; perhaps I should say the same Vine. Yet, we also all very much identify with the particular stories of our various traditions and do not want to abandon them.

I find it very interesting how this conversation has gravitated to us hyphenateds. I think some of the early disillusionment with the institutional church, which was a contributing factor to the emergent conversation early on, drove many to nondenominational circles. Yet the conversation itself caused many to pause, to look back at church history as we are trying to move forward enough to recognize that further division simply is not the answer. Brian McLaren refers to this in his book A Generous Orthodoxy as being “post-protestant.” At some point we have to just stop the protest that leads to endless divisions. Such division certainly is not consistent with call for unity in the Body of Christ we find in scripture.

Besides, hyphenateds tend to really resonate with the story of their particular tradition, while at the same time seeing it as just part of the broader Christian story that all followers of Jesus have taken part in through out history.

Emergent Nazarenes are Nazarenes

As Nazarenes we resonate with being a church that named itself “Nazarene” because they wanted to be a “church for the despised”; after all "can anything good come out of Nazareth?

We resonate with the Church of the Nazarene’s message of holiness, which is optimistic rather than pessimistic about our Salvation and embraces the transformational power of the gospel. We can trace some of our roots here to some shared roots with Pentecostalism which shouted from the rooftops concerning the power the Holy Spirit in our lives. This message took off also in the American holiness movement within our tradition that spoke of being able to live in God’s transformational power TODAY.

Related to this, we resonate with the history of the Church of the Nazarene as it embraced not only the individual transformational power of holiness, but also the social dimensions of holiness. Our denomination was built on taking on social issues like helping the poor and working to bless the communities we lived in by doing things like taking a stand against alcoholism. This is true Wesleyan theology in action that frames holiness in the context of love and understands John Wesley’s statement, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

As Nazarenes we resonate with our big tent mentality. We appreciate the mentality of our community that has long lived with the tensions of “American holiness” views and “Wesleyan holiness” ones. We appreciate our willingness to find solidarity with even our Calvinist leaning friends who were perhaps attracted to our more hopeful and optimistic view of holiness and decided they wanted to hang out with us under our tent; perhaps these where some of the first “hyphanated” folks. We also embrace all our efforts to become truly an international church community, no matter how rocky and imperfectly we have navigated those efforts so far. We appreciate that as Nazarenes we strive to be a welcoming community.

So we emergent-Nazarenes may identify ourselves with the emergent conversation and even desire to be agents of change and growth as we transition into a growing post-modern word, but we also hold fast to our roots and the particulars of our Nazarene story. We humbly move forward trying to take the wisdom of the past found in our tradition and apply it in new ways in our changing world. We are emerging from and with our tradition, understanding that all change, growth, and transformation is a hard journey. But we are confident that Christ is present with us all on this journey and he leads and empowers all transformation which makes us more like him.

Peace,

James Diggs

What Is the Function of this Blog?

2009-04-26T22:02:00.002-04:00

If I understand the history correctly, this blog is 2-3 years old. Many of us have found this site encouraging and challenging, and it new people are also engaging positively.
However, as a regular reader/contributor, there seem to be two recurring problems.
1) Angry comments from people who are upset about all things emergent (and sometimes angry rebuttals)
2) Off topic comments (sometimes "friendly," sometimes combative). By "off topic," I mean comments that have very little to do with the post at hand. These comments often create major side streams of discussion, which are usually apologetic in nature. I understand that live conversations often flow that way, however, in large group discussions a good mediator will steer the discussion back to the topic at hand.

This raises two questions for me.
1) What is the function of this blog? (What are we hoping for here?)
We have the "About Us" description in the sidebar: Emergent Nazarenes are Christians who both identify with the Emergent Church movement while being a part of the Church of the Nazarene . Our purpose is to connect as Nazarenes with the larger conversations of the emergent movement, the Kingdom of God and the world.
However, this doesn't necessarily give a clear answer as to the function of the blog. Personally, I would like to do more discussing with other emergent folks and less defending of emergent stuff to people who are hostile to emergent thinking. I understand the benefit of the later, but along with Dave and possibly James, I am growing weary of defending ourselves and responding to hostile comments. Also, I think such comment streams might detract from our overall goal.
I hesitate here because I don't want us to be exclusive, but I proceed because I don't want us to stop talking because the hostile comments and debates are wearing us out.

2) Do we need some "rules of engagement"? For example, do we want to create a short set of guidelines for our conversations. This might help to curtail some of the problems mentioned above, and it might help to guide us all into more productive and helpful discussion. We might simply include a line at the top or on the sidebar: "Read THIS before commenting." Then we could link it to the discussion guidelines.

Please share your thoughts.

Busted!

2009-04-18T16:44:00.001-04:00

Statue of Liberty

2009-04-15T22:41:00.002-04:00

Not like the vaulted cathedrals,
Not like the pews with names and reservations,
Not like the hair-sprayed televangelists,
Not like the nice churches who say nice things to nice people,
Here at our doors shall stand a sign: All are welcome!
Open hearts, aflame with the burning love of God,
Open, open, open, to all who come.

Keep, o normal churches,
your nice people,
your beautiful people,
your people who have their shit together and put on pretty faces.

Give us your freaks and your punks,
your hippies and granolas,
your Goths and your bikers.
Give us your homeless and your unemployed,
your job-hoppers and bed-hoppers,
your addicts and your hard drinkers.
Give us your hookers and your strippers,
your gamblers and smokers,
your dippers and your chewers.
Give us your church-haters and your liberals,
your atheists and agnostics,
your fundamentalists and your prudes.
Give us your gays and your lesbians,
your transvestites and transsexuals,
your offenders and your victims.
Give us your polluters and your tree-huggers,
your executives and lawyers,
your tax-evaders and your tax-collectors.
Give us your doubters and your name-it-and-claim-its,
your hypocrites and holier-than-thous,
your skeptics and your relativists.
Give us your seekers and your strugglers,
your lovers and haters,
your saints and your sinners.

Send us all of these, for they are like us.
We lift high the cross of Christ,
Brother of exiles, Friend of sinners.
His nail-pierced hands shout world-wide welcome
For all who long to breathe free,
For all who long to find home,
For all who didn't measure up,
For all who need a new start,
For all who want a new world.

We lift high the cross of Christ,
So that we will all be transformed together.

April 15, 2009 (author's copyright by Josh Broward)

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This poem was obviously based on Emma Lazarus's famous poem, “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on the interior of the Statue of Liberty.
----
My poem should not be interpreted to mean that all of the actions implied in the "send us" section are OK and morally acceptable. Rather, the interpretation should be that all of us are welcome in our brokenness to gather around the cross of Christ (the Statue of Liberty) where we will all be made free, healed, loved, and transformed. A community that welcomes like this is a means of God's healing grace for everyone concerned.
----
In two weeks, I am preaching on Acts 3 (the healing of the crippled beggar and his subsequent inclusion into the temple worship - almost certainly his first time to enter the temple in his 40 year life). I am thinking of having one of our church members read this poem during the service.
Any feedback?
I know it's edgy, but the edge is kind of the point. My wife thinks using the curse word will take away from the message, but as poetry, I think it contributes to the message that all are welcome.
I look forward to hearing some of your opinions. Also, if this is not an appropriate forum for something like this, please feel free to rebuke me thoroughly!

Saved by Grace, Judged by Works???

2009-04-12T22:01:00.001-04:00

On my trip to Manila, I finished Brian McClaren's A New Kind of Christian trilogy, with the last book being The Last Word and the Word After That. I liked this book best of all. (However, the first book, A New Kind of Christian, was the book that first helped me get somewhat of a grasp on postmodernism and how huge this shift is.)
In this book McClaren has three basic points. I'll try to summarize them briefly and then talk about the most controversial one.
1. Most of the conversation in the book is about hell. How can a good and loving God send finite creatures to enternal, conscious torment? McClaren doesn't give an outright answer. Instead, he is content to shoot down the traditional answer(s) and to suggest possible alternatives. It seems as though he advocates, overall, a position of humble agnosticism tempered by grace. Basically, we don't really know because the Bible isn't entirely clear, and in the end we have to trust in God's mercy and grace as well as in his justice.
2. As the main character embarks on this study of hell-ology, he discovers that learning and knowing happen best in community. McClaren advocates again and again the importance of a community that we "know with." In many respects the people at www.emergentnazarenes.blogspot.com serve as some of the people I "know with."
3. We are saved by grace and judged by works. Since this is (by far) his most controversial statement, let me quote a section from the voice of one of his mentoring characters:
So I'm not denying salvation by grace, no, no, not at all. It's all by grace. I'm just advocating judgment by works ...
Salvation by grace, judgement by works. There's nothing in the Bible clearer than those two realities. Of course, you have to define salvation in Jesus' way, not just modern Western Chrsitianty's [way]. ...
You thought that if you are saved, you are not judged, right? Yep, I used to think that too. I didn't realize that being judged isn't the same as being condemned and that being saved means a lot more than not being judged. For a lot of lok, salvation still means little more than escaping from the legal consequences of having original sin on your passport. For them, until you have your passport changed, which is what being saved means, you can't get through customs in heaven and you're stuck going to hell. But remember - conventional Western Christianity is the religion of the empire. It developed at a time when the church and the empire were joined at the hip, if not the heart. A lot of us didn't get too good of a deal from Imperial Christianity. [The character speaking here is a black pastor.] I guess you could say some of us have seceded from Imperial Christianity, the theology of the empire. When you secede from the theology of the empire, your understandings of salvation and judgment can change for the better. ...
Try reading through your New Testament and looking for the word judged or judgement. You'll see it as clear as day: we're judged by our works. But that's not in contradiction to being saved by grace - if you define salvation in a broader way.

This line of reasoning strikes me as intuitively true. The Bible says again that we will be judged according to the deeds we did in our bodies whether good or bad. We just read that yesterday from 2 Corinthians 5. I've had a hard time reconciling Jesus' parables which mostly imply judgment by works with Paul's discussions of being "saved by grace" and even with Paul's comments of being judged by works.
I'm still pretty sure I don't get all of this. It's hard for me as a Protestant, having grown up with the manifesto of "saved by grace through faith and not by works," to wrap my head around a different idea of salvation and judgment and works and grace. (Maybe this is part of what people refer to when they say "post-Protestant.")
However, this seems true to me, and it seems like it is a missing puzzle piece to make sense of the various pieces of the New Testament which have always seemed in tension to me. I'm still trying to figure this out, but I wanted to share with you an idea that is shaking up my theological world, possibly shaking me into a more Biblical theology. I look forward to your comments.

General Assembly

2009-04-11T06:21:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about General Assembly for a while and wondering if our (little?) group would be planning any kind of get togethers or conversations or forums. I think the NazNet people had a get together last time around.
Do we dare? Do we dare even over the pint of ale so often suggested?
I think several kinds of meetings could be beneficial and/or painful and/or dangerous. Here are some possibilities I'd like to open for dialog.
1. A contributors meeting. I know many of us may not be going, but my family happens to be Nazarene enough that this will serve as a bit of a family reunion/vacation. Nonetheless, it would be great for any of us who will be in Orlando to sit down for some face-to-face conversations.
2. A meeting for emergent-leaning people. I think there are lots more emergent-type folks out there who are not involved in this blog (for many simply because they are unaware of it). Anyhow, a wider conversation about emergent issues among people who are generally on the same page (or at least in the same chapter), could be very fruitful and helpful. (Somehow it would be nice to limit this meeting to people who want to talk seriously about issues from an emergent perspective, so that the meeting doesn't break down into arguments about things most of us would consider peripheral to the issues we would really like to be talking about.)
3. An open meeting for dialog with critics. This meeting could potentially be the most dangerous of all. If we host this meeting, I think we could expect a great deal of heated criticism and maybe anger. Basically lots of people are really scared that the Church of the Nazarene (along with the Church in general) is slipping into heresy (as evidenced by the set of posts below from the beginning of this month). Some basic questions about this type of meeting:

How could we get the word out? (This question also goes for meeting #2 above.)
How could we mediate the discussion? (For example, we might want to invite a compassionate critic, who would be well respected among very conservative circles, to be a joint mediator with an emergent person.)
How could we facilitate lots of discussion without digressing into long arguments that could last for hours or days? (One of the images that keeps settling in my mind - or unsettling my mind - is a group of emergent people surrounded by a group of fundamentalist people who are shouting at them. How could we lay a ground work for discussion that would make this kind of scenario less likely? How could we facilitate a discussion that would be at least moderately satisfying for all participants? For example, maybe a combination would be best: a) small group discussions - with facilitators, b) large group question and answer time, c) maybe even some short lecture time presenting the "case" for each side.)
How would we go about planning and getting approval for a meeting like this?
Is that "petition" cited in the April Fools post for real? Are people really petitioning to get an official statement on the "emerging church" from this general assembly?

I invite your comments and discussion. And for any who will be in Orlando in a few months, I hope we'll have the opportunity to meet face to face.

Good Friday Verses

2009-04-10T10:35:00.002-04:00

Darkness came, evil enveloping the light of the world

No one wanted to take the blame or the credit

You crucify him, no you do it, they yelled back and forth