Note: A follow on to my older blog, renewed in Nov of 2024
Urban—Rural, Modern—Post-Modern, European Nurturing—Revivalist All In, Communal—Personal... We could go on identifying the contrasting streams that is the Church of the Nazarene (CoTN) as it enters a re-active and perhaps reflective season in its relatively young life.
I've watched now, many years as my church strives to retain a unitary, though diverse marriage of contrasting streams. Like a mother in labor, the CoTN has woven between the tightening and releasing contractions that will produce a child; either kicking and screaming or still-born. It strikes me that the single telling sign of the current contraction is the Board of General Superintendent's declaration in March of 2023 that the "Articles of Faith" and the "Covenant of Christian Character and Conduct" form a unity of doctrinal vision, comprising what is "essential" in being Nazarene. Such a statement, rooted in questionable theology, violates the very heart of our founder's plea to unite around the essentials of belief and Christian charity, showing grace in matters of personal and social conscience.
This current shuddering wave is a 'reactive' and 'controling' response to a perceived 'faithlesness' in Nazarenes whose 'holiness' ethic flows from hearts that see justice and acceptance in social relations as our tradition's center, with arms open to all as inside God's Jesus Story; willing to work out the nature of Christian character in a dynamic of love, informed by The Spirit. Such is the communal, urban, post-modern, nurturing and expressive holiness of Nazarene's shaped within 21st century life. We will ignore their experience in Christ at our church's peril.
The 'Iconic Other' and Naz Pastoral Care
The conserving evangelical Church of Christ miserably failed to identify with, pray with and advocate for the equal rights movement led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) of Dr. Martin Luther King. Like the Abolition movement, Women Rights and abstinence movement of the previous century, its roots were Christian, restorative. It is to our shame that we did not participate in mass as did our spiritual forebears a hundred years earlier.
In contrast the political, cultural agenda of today's woke culture is rooted in a neo-marxist world view that is power centric to its core, often founded on philisophical arguments far removed from a Creational understanding of nature. DEI for example has a significant contribution to make as social science studying historic social patterns, but its use as an instrument of the psychology of social identity formation is divisive at core. Our place as a church and that of our pastors is often at tension with both the left and right political and cultural agendas.
I never saw myself as Alphabet affirming though it was my clear calling to be person affirming. Over time, face to face with my parishoners I found myself asking the same questions of same sex oriented individuals that I would hetero-sexual persons when helping them clarify their own mind/heart. It was the only ethical thing I could do; seeking to assure purity in committed love and avoidance of addictive or pornographic behaviors. To be sure, the complexities of motive and working out Jesus purpose in making each of us unique, were questions that led most of my parishoners to choose a life of abstinance. To respond in a way that excluded dialogue or ignored the underlying questions would result in attributing to nature an evil that properly belonged with the Creator. The most compelling and loving follower of Jesus in our church was a child, now a 40 year old young man who suffered with cerebal palsy. His mental age was and remains about 4-6 years of age. While his circumstance is not normative, nor intended at creation, he is nevertheless celebrated and participates actively in public worship and presence. This always seemed to me to be a more accurate corollary to the 5-10% of our congregants who were thus oriented than to assert a "perversion" inherent in the proclivity; unless lust driven hetero-sexual sex led to the kind of behavioral pattern that creates a reality apart from nature's call.
I'm 71. When a faithful and good elder—now a restored and faithful son of the Church—my heart and mind ever sided with those who were generally seen as beyond the fellowship of The Spirit and most certainlly the missional gifting of the Church if oriented to or perhaps even living within a same sex, committed relation of some years and with children. As an urban pastor for 18+ years and a worship and young persons associate before, I saw too many examples of real believers in Jesus—most in abstinence and some in committed relations—who were simply present, under my care.1 I believed, based on the polity of the time and understandings of my collegues that I should preach and teach ever within the heart of the Church but was given pastoral room to relate to the questions and ethical issues of my parishoners without prejudice and with pastoral care. 2, 3 I with joy served communion as I would to anyone seeking the 'real Presence' of Jesus as one born of God, being born of God or simply hungry for God and coming in faith.
It was clear to me that same sex orientation was deeply felt, whose root was creational—even if from a fallen world. 4 It is self-evident, in my mind, that orientation itself involved no sin at any level.
Same sex marriage was never an issue for me as the clarity of God's purposes in hetero-sexual union—love, family creation and two unlike and diverse persons becoming one as a sacramental witness to the union of the Trinity of God—seemed the spiritual purpose. In terms of human love, however, civil union and the church's blessing of the same sex relations seemed an obvious good. 5
The Call to Unity of Heart
I'm reminded of the observation made some 50 years ago by a social scientist at NNC (Northwest Naz College). He said that the CoTN, though an infant by contrast, was trying to do what only the Roman Catholic tradition has succeeded in; Growing up as a single political institution instead of a multiplicity of ethnic, cultural, national churches in a tenuos collective. This inner call to unity is an inherent good if rooted in Jesus prayer 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" (John 17: 20b, 21a NIV).
An essential communal truth seems self-evident: Love compelled by a shared experience in Jesus is powerful, unifying, an expansive release. Unity enforced by power reacting in fear is debilitating, contracting.
How Do we hold Such Contradictions in a Creative Tension?
In this season of contraction let us hope that the CoTN will come to a renewed release, giving birth to a community engaged in becoming a "blessing" to the nations in cooperation with the continuing prayer of Jesus, for all of us: “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 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—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17: 24, 22, 23 NIV). For Jesus prayer to become real in us—as in the history of the Roman Church of Jesus—God will need to raise up loving and prayerful communities like the desert fathers or missional covenants such as the Sisters, the Benedictines, Jesuits or Franciscans. Each were committed to an inclusive ideal that invites their brothers and sisters who are winning the governing moment within the church together with their sisters and brothers whose inclusion was a scandal, always at risk within the fellowship. I am humbled and amazed by these mystics of the Church who accepted corruption at the highest levels of the Church out of duty to Christ—even as they often rebelled within their various covenant communions. The truth is we are all at risk, on either end of the spectrum, unless rooted in Jesus.
The fear of our conserving members is rooted in love for Jesus and his church, as is the missional heart of those clergy in parishes and the academy whose ordination is removed, even delivered with accusations of heresy leading to excommunication; communion busters. If only God would allow us to see one another through God's respect of each/all of
us, we would then understand that our
hearts all beat with a profound love for Jesus, the Word and for the Church that ultimately confirms our calling. Our differing positions are rooted in a deep historic chasm, as wide as the Snake River Canyon just north of Twin FAlls, Idaho. On one side 'character formation' is the primary foci of holiness—emphasing the purity of life as God envisioned in each of us, integrity. On the other it is love, turning our justification in Christ into the Sanctifying logos of justice and reconciliation formed in our commuities.
Our two rivers find their genesis on what in very ancient earth history was a single continent, now two; one along the ocean front where the dock workers gather and the other on the plains of America's mid-west. In each, holiness took hold of the imagination and heart of a people looking to God.
This extended season, since surrendering my creditials for cause, has been as redeeming as it is painful. One of the graces of this journey is the Next Door Church in Renton, WA. God has surrounded me with a community whose people and pastor are picture images of the chasm's the CoTN faces, lived well. The old have somehow understood that this post-modern generation frame their ever deepening faith by doubt, informed by questions in uncertainty. The old bring to the table a confidence formed across many years together that "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God" (Romans 8: 21 NIV). Our grand-kids are the first generation born into an age where massive amounts of information are available on a phone not 5" high. Theirs is a knowledge many miles wider than I or my generation know, even today. It is, however, only an inch deep. Curiosity and questions are the source of all they believe in. When we give our grand-children the freedom—as this cross generational faith community does—to experience Christ in ways formed by the Spirit who "intercedes for us through wordless groans" (Romans 8: 26c NIV) and in the certain confidence that he (Jesus) "who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God" (Romans 8: 27 NIV), then we may say with Paul; "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8: 31-32 NIV).
What has come of that kind of inter-generational trust is a spirit willing to accept anyone God brings. It is organic. New followers are invited into the heart of an ever creative and changing worship team whose eclectic services unfold with a theology of cross generational wisdom, ever nurturing by truth, yet trusting old and young, rich and poor, persons of color or white with equal curiosity. It is the first guitar centric worship I've experienced.
Last Sunday 6 I walked in and felt the very powerful presence of an older woman singing with such artistic skill enhanced in the anointing of the Spirit. She has come home to the Church about four weeks ago and in ways that illustrate a pastoral staff that is listening well as they receive every person as either a daughter or son of Christ. Next week I may hear the country rhythms of another gifted singer and dancer, herself new to this whole thing. She doesn't yet know enough to be scolded or molded into our Scandivavian or British stuffiness. Last week I sat with a new migrant, who is here from south of the border, an assylum seeker. He knew no English and I knew no Spanish. A young woman, whom I also didn't know stayed with us translating so I could help our new friend journey through the troubled chaos that is the American political system, seeking medical help and someone who would visit his first Imigration meeting with him, fearing a possible change in his status within the last weeks.
This life-changing church is alive precisely because the Spirit is 'free' to work within, around and past our prejudices, however informed. I'm quite sure 30% of that congregation would fully embrace persons whose orientation is different than theirs and care only for the tenderness of their heart. I'm sure another 70 % care deeply that the tradition of the Church does not change, but care more deeply about each person. How do I know? Because of the nature of their worshiping and life experience; open, embracing that which my great grand-father would have loved and that which my grandson would love as well. All because their holiness, however formed, is pure and full of love.
May God help the CoTN find its way through this current and increasingly power-centric contraction with it's purging spirit and to a new release in the way of Peter at Cornelius home. We do not have to be of one mind. We do need to be of one heart.
Blessings! Terry :)
1 Note: WSCN, when I was pastor, continually had between 5-10% of parishoners with same sex orientation; some in and some out of the proverbial closet.
2 Note: In a previous time of contraction around this issue the CoTN inappropriately (I believe) missused the "Code of Christian Character" (formerly General Rules) to insert "same sex" as a special catagory inherantly forbidden and thus requiring a two-thirds vote of the General and several District Assemblies to change. That was followed by a renewal/release in the holiness of sexual intimacy in the next General Assemly that profoundly lifted the conversation of sexual intimacy and holiness; Affirming clearly the distinction between orientation and behavior.
3 Note: It never occurred to me, until the current season, that a minister in the Church of the Nazarene should not advocate in writing or appropriate contexts about the theology of anything, including our core doctrines; which are essential. Freedom and responsible and respectful dialogue was the Christian core. (I always wondered when one of my parishoners might ask me to "bless" their civil marriage, which I would have done, notifying my District Superintendant and anticipating possible discipline. Fortunately for me, that never came.)
4 Note: The inherent desire for same sex relations is often complex given the sometimes very real propensity in our culture for what Paul describes in Romans One as hetero-sexual indulgence giving license to porn rooted exploration of same sex exploration and behavior and/or the abuse of women by men, forming a profound aversion to hetero-sexual experience.
5 Note: Following the contraction of the church witnessed in the 2013 manuall prohibiting "same-sex relations" as part of the Covenant of Christian Character (Previously General Rules) I wrote a book "Same Sex Marriage: The Last Prejudice? The Last Righteous Stand? or Both?"
I no longer publish it, in part, because the appedix needs signficantly updated to reflect the positive changes in the manual that followed. In the appendix I had explored the language of the manual at that time and recommended alternate language and rituals of blessing for same sex civil unions and proposed a "sacramental understanding" of Christian marriage.
6 Note: Enjoy last weeks service at my home Church, Next Door Church at: https://youtu.be/uyybylnUnlU
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