It is pretty well agreed upon within our denomination that The Church of the Nazarene has lost its sense of identity.
As evidenced by Articles of Faith and the testimony of the founding fathers of our denomination, we are first and foremost a Christian Church, with the SECONDARY distinctive of offering a unique emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in entirely sanctifying believers.(1) Yet, as evidenced by the practices and theology (or lack of) of most local congregations we are simply, in the words of Rob Staples, "a generic evangelical" Church.
Many would argue that our identity crisis stems from our loss of the American Holiness understanding of entire sanctification as an instantaneous work wrought by the Holy Spirit subsequent to justification. Richard Taylor would be one of these. Others would say that our identity crisis comes from our lax ethical interpretations of what the life of an entirely sanctified believer should look like. My mother would be one of these.
However, I feel that our identity crisis comes from a deeper place, as evidenced by the fact that we cannot even agree on what is causing said crisis.
Mark Quanstrom does a great job of tracing the growth of divergent views on our "distinctive doctrine" in "A Century of Holiness Theology." I highly recommend this book, but I do not feel, as he seems to, that our biggest problem is our inability to agree unilaterally on how to understand and communicate the doctrine of entire sanctification. Neither do I think that what we need is an agreed upon set of rules that will form us into a unified body. I feel our greatest problem, that feeds our inability to agree on sanctification, is that we have gradually, as we tried to carve our place within the denominational marketplace, separated ourselves from the trunk (the catholic church) that gives life to our individual, distinctive branch (the Nazarene denomination).
To reclaim an identity that is not best described as a bland, generic, fundamentalist evangelicalism, we must first rediscover the depth of our Christian heritage. This goes back much further than Phineas F. Bresee, Phoebe Palmer, John Wesley and, yes, even Martin Luther. To truly see who we are in Christ as members of his Body, we have to see that who we are is bigger than a misguided response to theological and ethical liberalism, bigger than our pet economic theory, bigger than the Nation-State in which we live, bigger than a reaction to the abuses of power that the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of(2). We need to see that we are not the end, the climax of God's work on earth. We are instead the product of the faith of our fathers and mothers, and instead of jettisoning them to achieve our own short sighted goals we need to see our place as contributing to the long-term life of the church.
Yet, even this is not enough, is not an end in itself. Doing this will only be beneficial if it takes us from the trunk to our true root: love as understood by the life and actions of God. It is the love of God that led God to work in history through his Son to restore mankind to himself. It is this love that gave the Holy Spirit to continue this work in and through the lives of the disciples. This love is the same love that caused each generation of believers to shape new believers, and therefore to pass the Gospel on to us. It is this love that allowed us to become members of the church today. It is this love that sanctifies us as we participate in it, making it our own as we love God and neighbor.
And it is this same love that must be at the very core of our identity. Not a time line of sanctification. Not a list unacceptable entertainment and adornment. Without this love we are left to our own devices, which will lead us to nothing but nihilistic amnesia.
(1) Yes, this is a particular interpretation of the Articles of Faith, but it is also the way of interpreting that I later argue for as being critical to recovering a unified sense of identity.
As evidenced by Articles of Faith and the testimony of the founding fathers of our denomination, we are first and foremost a Christian Church, with the SECONDARY distinctive of offering a unique emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in entirely sanctifying believers.(1) Yet, as evidenced by the practices and theology (or lack of) of most local congregations we are simply, in the words of Rob Staples, "a generic evangelical" Church.
Many would argue that our identity crisis stems from our loss of the American Holiness understanding of entire sanctification as an instantaneous work wrought by the Holy Spirit subsequent to justification. Richard Taylor would be one of these. Others would say that our identity crisis comes from our lax ethical interpretations of what the life of an entirely sanctified believer should look like. My mother would be one of these.
However, I feel that our identity crisis comes from a deeper place, as evidenced by the fact that we cannot even agree on what is causing said crisis.
Mark Quanstrom does a great job of tracing the growth of divergent views on our "distinctive doctrine" in "A Century of Holiness Theology." I highly recommend this book, but I do not feel, as he seems to, that our biggest problem is our inability to agree unilaterally on how to understand and communicate the doctrine of entire sanctification. Neither do I think that what we need is an agreed upon set of rules that will form us into a unified body. I feel our greatest problem, that feeds our inability to agree on sanctification, is that we have gradually, as we tried to carve our place within the denominational marketplace, separated ourselves from the trunk (the catholic church) that gives life to our individual, distinctive branch (the Nazarene denomination).
To reclaim an identity that is not best described as a bland, generic, fundamentalist evangelicalism, we must first rediscover the depth of our Christian heritage. This goes back much further than Phineas F. Bresee, Phoebe Palmer, John Wesley and, yes, even Martin Luther. To truly see who we are in Christ as members of his Body, we have to see that who we are is bigger than a misguided response to theological and ethical liberalism, bigger than our pet economic theory, bigger than the Nation-State in which we live, bigger than a reaction to the abuses of power that the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of(2). We need to see that we are not the end, the climax of God's work on earth. We are instead the product of the faith of our fathers and mothers, and instead of jettisoning them to achieve our own short sighted goals we need to see our place as contributing to the long-term life of the church.
Yet, even this is not enough, is not an end in itself. Doing this will only be beneficial if it takes us from the trunk to our true root: love as understood by the life and actions of God. It is the love of God that led God to work in history through his Son to restore mankind to himself. It is this love that gave the Holy Spirit to continue this work in and through the lives of the disciples. This love is the same love that caused each generation of believers to shape new believers, and therefore to pass the Gospel on to us. It is this love that allowed us to become members of the church today. It is this love that sanctifies us as we participate in it, making it our own as we love God and neighbor.
And it is this same love that must be at the very core of our identity. Not a time line of sanctification. Not a list unacceptable entertainment and adornment. Without this love we are left to our own devices, which will lead us to nothing but nihilistic amnesia.
(1) Yes, this is a particular interpretation of the Articles of Faith, but it is also the way of interpreting that I later argue for as being critical to recovering a unified sense of identity.
(2) Yes, I said "was," not "is." No, I am not referring simply to the sales of indulgences and the carrying out of the crusades, I am aware of what has recently been exposed about the way that the Church covered up sexual abuse (see Amy Berg's documentary "Deliver Us From Evil" for a heartrending treatment of this misuse of power). I used the past-tense because 1. Though the crisis is far from over and much is left to be done for the victims, I believe the Church is repentant, and 2. I believe God forgives. Therefore she was guilty.
