Is There Hope?

Faithful Clergy in the Church of the Nazarene

A few months ago, I wrote a post that began with this statement and quote:

“We exist in a chaotic moment in history. The late Phyllis tickle explained it this way in the book The Great Emergence ‘The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, an Anglican bishop known for his wit as well as his wisdom, famously observes from time to time that the only way to understand what is currently happening to us as twenty-first-century Christians in North America is first to understand that about every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale.’ (Tickle p 10) Our five hundred year rummage sales have been painful and full of upheaval, but they led to new expressions of the Church that became the norm. But even knowing something better may come, the current struggle feels overwhelming.”

We are in the middle of something coming, and that causes angst and upheaval. That is perfectly understandable, but history has also shown that those who fight hardest against the evolution of the Church end up coming round, eventually. Yet, it is still painful because there is a tendency to form walls to protect something that may need to be lost. Not that the core essentials of faith go anywhere, but they get illuminated apart from a cultural crust that builds up over the centuries. While tradition is important, it is still subject to scripture and, in a Wesleyan context, informed by reason and experience. Identifying this does not help reduce the anxiety, but it may help us avoid the pitfalls of retrenchment and a turn toward dogmatism.

We are facing a crisis of clergy in the Church of the Nazarene. Some leadership have minimized that crisis, but it is a crisis that can is clear within numbers and the difficulty of filling assignments. I wondered about the disconnect, but then I remembered the story of a woman I worked with related to IBM in the late 1980’s. I worked with the woman in a Christian bookstore and she was talking about her husband, who trained over the road truck drivers. He had been an IBM employee working up from a field technician to corporate accounting. In his job as an accountant, he noticed a trend that numbers coming from the field and divisions were being presented in ways that made them appear better as they went higher up the leadership ladder. He felt compelled to blow a whistle and IBM had to look closely at their numbers. He was rewarded with a layoff in the first major round, sparked by the reality of IBM’s lack of success.

I am not saying that numbers are being cooked in the COTN, but there are other ways numbers get masked. I was reading a recent post about the average attendance in USA and Canada for the Church of the Nazarene. The poster had looked at the numbers and determined that a very few large churches are skewing the numbers and that if we look at most our churches, which are under 200, our average attendance is cut in half. That is an example of how we may ignore a crisis which skews the clergy as well. There have been some very public comments from a few clergy which can mask the possibility that for every public leaving, countless others are leaving quietly. The reasons are multiple and complex, but there are many young clergy leaving the COTN. I have some thoughts why this is happening.

When I was a young child, Winnie the Pooh was scheduled to come to our local Sears catalogue pickup location (it was not a full-blown store). While I realized that Winnie the Pooh is a character in a book and cartoon, I was expecting the costumed Pooh I saw on televised events and in advertisements. When we arrived at the store and the anticipation of seeing Winnie the Pooh was at a fever pitch, the door of a storeroom opened and out came a complete disappointment. The Winnie the Pooh who emerged was a person in a very ill-fitting costume with what I decided was a very dumb looking honey jar on its head. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I obviously still carry that memory today.

I wonder if that is what young clergy are experiencing in areas of the COTN. It may not be systemic, but we have some issues. It is very clear that there is a struggle ongoing in the denomination that is creating a polarized clergy. While some leave for disagreement with provisions in our Covenant of Christian Conduct, the quiet leaving is marked by deeper issues, with inconsistency, credibility gaps, and leadership failures. Between the influence of sectarian groups like the Holiness Partnership, to the pushing of partisan politics, and continued failures to protect vulnerable children from predators, clergy can get discouraged. The swiftness with which certain infractions are dealt with versus allegations of abuse or protecting abusers is discouraging. In the most recent case, it is alleged that a pastor and District Superintendent used extortion and threats to stop reports of a sexual predator who tithed well.

Are our young clergy repulsed by the ill-fitting costume of Wesleyan-Holiness, not reflecting who we claim to be? Social media can be a maelstrom of chaos, but also reach people. Unfortunately, it seems to shape our clergy and leaders rather than the other way round. After the recent presidential election, I saw clergy sharing memes which devalued other human beings. I saw clergy share memes that made light of promises to deport human beings from the U.S. Some of these were subsequently deleted, but the attitude that thinks is it good to share those remains. Much of the growth in the COTN in the U.S. has come through Hispanic churches, which makes me wonder how one could so easily miss the value of human beings who may be affected by heavy-handed policies. Just to remind anyone who is part of the COTN, we have some powerful language about human beings in our Covenant of Christian Conduct:

29.6. We call our people to reject attitudes and actions that undermine the good of people and devalue individuals. All humans are created in the image of God and Christ died for all, therefore every person we encounter merits our highest regard and love. As a people of God, reflecting Christ’s love for the world, we reject all forms of racism, ethnic preferences, tribalism, sexism, religious bigotry, classism, exclusionary nationalism, and any other form of prejudice. All of these are contrary to God’s love and the mission of Christ.

You could quote this in some clergy groups and be called “woke” and “progressive.” As I write this essay, a prominent District Superintendent has made the following statement on Facebook. “I’m not upset with Christian leaders who get sidetracked by progressive theological trends and lose sight of the Great Commission. I actually feel sorry for them.” Of course, there is no context or definition of progressive or examples of how people have lost sight of the great commission. But we have historical statements to help define. One such quote is one in which a traditional understanding of God’s revelation in a Wesleyan-Holiness context is called progressive. “In other words, they believe in progressive revelation. Their low view of Scripture makes it easy for them to reject biblical authority.” (A Time To Speak) You can see how a prominent fundamentalist leaning Nazarene professor from the mid century believed in progressive revelation in this passage of Richard S. Taylor’s Biblical Authority and the Christian Faith.

Now the deduction which must be drawn from this is quite obvious: The various parts of the Bible are uneven in authority. No one exhibited a higher regard for the Old Testament than did Jesus, yet in His discussion with the Pharisees about divorce He clearly implied that not all parts of Scripture were equally authoritative. Jesus appealed to the Genesis account of God’s original intention in creation: “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matt. 19:4–5, NASB). When they appealed to the authority of Moses, Jesus plainly implied that Moses’ regulations concerning divorce were deviations from the norm, as accommodations to human sinfulness, and must not be elevated to a level of authority which in effect would supersede the Genesis passage. The primitive Word of God was authoritative in determining the norm; any accommodation was subordinate and therefore temporary and local in authority. Here are two grades of authority, ultimate and secondary; and the ultimate controls the secondary, not the other way around.

But the principle of progressive revelation also means that the authority of certain portions of the Bible may not be, in detail or application, the same for us as it was for those to whom those portions were originally addressed. This is to say that authority also is progressive, and that the authority of one stage is modified or even superseded by the authority of a subsequent fuller revelation. It is on this basis (though the full working out of this cannot be traced here) that such matters in the Pentateuch as the dietary laws are not binding on us; nor is the right of the lex talionis our right; nor is it our duty to take our childless brother’s wife and raise up children for his name and inheritance. This principle of progressive revelation, and thus changing authority, was clearly illustrated by Jesus in His conversation with the Samaritan woman. (Biblical Authority, Ch 5)

That many who are called progressive Christians are at the forefront of disciple making is enough to dismiss this hot take, but the fact that the progressive label is often aimed at traditional Wesleyan-Holiness thought is frustrating, to say the least. Maybe we should feel sorry for the way culture informs how we approach faith as Wesleyan-Holiness folk. We seem to have lost the roadmap to being counter-culture kingdom bringers. The DS mentioned above replied to a question with the following; “Because I believe progressive Christianity is currently the greatest hinderance to the mission of Jesus. And sadly, many theological institutions have bought into the propaganda.” Now, that seems innocuous on its face, but this DS has been an outspoken critic of Nazarene Theological Seminary. The seminary recently received a grant to work on climate science and how it can inform theology, which has been a source of consternation for some who call this a distraction or woke. Of course, that misunderstands the way theological education benefits from a greater understanding of wider disciplines. The COTN believes that creation care is important and thus understanding how science can help us better care for creation is an important piece to a well rounded seminary education. Here is what our Covenant of Christian Conduct has to say about creation care; “28.9. We call our people to care for creation. God pronounced the original creation to be good and appointed humanity to steward creation for God’s greater purposes. Care for this created world includes such things as avoiding lifestyles of pollution and of unnecessary consumption of goods and resources. (Genesis 1:26–28; John 1:3; Romans 8:18–25; Colossians 1:15–20)”

Even our historical call to social justice is condemned by leaders and clergy. Here are statements about our call to work for equitable societies and peaceful societies within our Covenant:

28.4. We call our people to proclaim and demonstrate God’s grace and love to the world. Equipping believers for reconciling love as ambassadors for Christ in the world is the shared responsibility of every congregation. God calls us to attitudes, practices of hospitality, and relationships that value all persons. We participate as joyful disciples, engaging with others to create a society that mirrors God’s purposes. Our faith is to work through love. Therefore, the Church is to give herself to the care, feeding, clothing, and shelter of the poor and marginalized. A life of Christian holiness will entail efforts to create a more just and equitable society and world, especially for the poor, the oppressed, and those who cannot speak for themselves. (Leviticus 19:18, 34; Deuteronomy 15:7–8, 11; Isaiah 61:1; Zechariah 9:12; Matthew 25:34–44; Romans 5:7–8, 12:1; 2 Corinthians 5:16, 20; Galatians 5:6; Ephesians 2:10,6:12; Philippians 2:5–11; Colossians 1:27; James 2:1–9)

28.10. We call our people to be peacemakers. Because Jesus blessed peacemakers and commanded us to love our enemies, we commit ourselves to being agents of reconciliation in our families, among friends, at the workplace, in our churches, societies, nations, people groups, and tribes. (Psalm 34:14; Matthew 5:9, 43–48; 2 Corinthians 5:18–20; Ephesians 2:14–16; Hebrews 12:14)

Yet, when our clergy live into these ideas, they get called progressive, woke, and accused of neglecting the Gospel or the Great Commission. Is it any wonder our young and not so young clergy are leaving? It is discouraging, and it is insulting the way many of us are characterized by those who should lead in servanthood if we are really being like Jesus. But I am an unpaid associate pastor in an average church. I have very little standing in our denomination, as many young clergy find out the hard way when they lose their assignment because of a pastoral change. True, I have this Substack, but even that is tiny as I have fewer than three hundred subscribers who are overwhelmingly free subscribers. But I believe I am faithful to my call and faithful to the Great Commission, the Gospel, the mission of the COTN, and the mission of reflecting God into a world that needs God desperately. While my efforts and response to the Spirit may not play out on the stats we feel are important, I see the evidence of growth in maturity and in depth of faith. I see transformed lives and countless evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our local church. My friend Aaron Simmons defines faith as “risk with direction.” That is what I feel in my faithfulness to the call of God on my life. It is a risk, but it is in a direction pointing to Jesus. My prayer is that we are all on that path.

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Brian Powell A Time to Speak Episode 5 (Timestamp 8:41)

Manual 2023: Church of the Nazarene

Taylor, Richard S. Biblical Authority and Christian Faith. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1980.

Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.