This post contains quotes describing abuse of children
I wrote this essay but have been going back and forth over whether I should release it. But I feel very deeply that Wesleyan Holiness folk are being led around by doctrines and ethical frameworks which are rather counter to a Wesleyan-Holiness context. It is incredibly seductive to want to grasp power and influence over culture, politics, and faith. But control over those is not the move of disciples. We are forfeiting the very place we have in being counter-cultural by following the example of Jesus; who showed in his earthly ministry that kenotic love was more important than cultural, religious, or political control. Refusing to participate in the powers of his day is part of the reason both Rome and Jerusalem wanted him dead.
The beauty of the Church of the Nazarene is also our bane. We are a medium sized tent in which broad latitude on some ideas is embraced. Of course we have things that we are clear about like scripture, sin, humanity, equitable treatment of human beings, and core essentials like our Articles of Faith. But, we are open to modern science, social justice, equitable societies, and others things not deemed essentials. Where we end up in what Mildred Bangs Wynkoop called credibility gaps are the moments our claims look different than our actions. The embrace of church growth strategies and the influx of Reformed flavored apologetics has watered our holiness message down into generic individualistic “fundevangelical”** comments. But we actually have a deeper, richer, more communal faith on offer as a people. We abandon that at our own peril. We need to remember we are to be an “odd” people as Dan Boone wrote in Charitable Discourse. Too often we are not odd at all; rather we look to much like the chaotic and power hungry fundevangelical world. Or, we look just like the World in its quest for power.
The unserious nature of online discourse can be discouraging. Social media has the potential for magnifying human interaction as it connects people apart from geographic constraints. But, social media is too constrained itself by algorithms. So, much of our discourse becomes deeply unserious. The lure of nonsense becomes incredibly strong because the dopamine hits for getting likes is more likely when we buy into the nonsense. As I mentioned in the essay Unserious, Green Day expresses this idea well in the line “nonsense is [our] heroin.”* The nonsense captures people so thoroughly that accusations of false teaching routinely get made against clergy faithfully teaching doctrines within their denominations or traditions. This is one reason I highlight the hyposcrisy which infects our discourse.
A leader in my Wesleyan-Holiness denomination posted the following several days ago. “False teaching has become so mainstream today that discipling people—especially new believers—requires confronting it.” Several people showed their agreement with the statement, some even implying that this is a problem of what “we” believe. The funny thing is that the statement and some comments are so ironic they verge on hypocrisy. I agree that denominations should be clear about what they believe, but that does not make divergent beliefs false in the broad sense. Hypocrisy enters by claiming a concern over being right while celebrating those whose ideology not only differs from ours, but who consider the Church of the Nazarene to be teaching false doctrine.
That’s the rub. It is very difficult to take one seriously who makes the statement of false teaching days after saying the following about Voddie Baucham. “Another faithful servant, courageous preacher, and anointed teacher who impacted countless lives has gone home too soon.” It is true that many were impacted by the teachings of Voddie Baucham. It is also true that a life lost is tragic. Sadly, many were harmed by his teachings as well. Baucham taught a particularly violent form of patriarchy and authoritarian Christianity. A Baptist News Article deals with this ideology in an article which also discussed Baucham’s alleged plagiarism. I have gone to the source material and agree that the words are evidence of Baucham’s toxic theology.
Here are a few samples of the supposed “anointed teacher:”
“People who don’t believe in original sin don’t have children. … That’s a viper in a diaper. The angry cry happens early. The demanding cry happens early. The stiffening up of the body, that happens early. … One of the reasons God makes them so small is so that they won’t kill you. And one of the reasons he makes them so cute is so that you won’t kill them.”
“they desperately need to be spanked. And they need to be spanked often. … There were days when Junior needed to be spanked five times before breakfast. … You need to have an all-day session where you just wear them out.”
“Baucham has gone so far as to give an example of a shy little pastor’s daughter who was afraid to shake a male deacon’s hand at church. Baucham described: ‘Pastor goes back in the office, goes through that whole process – spank the child, comes back out, child won’t do it again. Goes back again, asks the deacon, ‘Will you please wait here?’ Thirteen times. Thirteen times. That deacon was like, ‘Little girl, please … .’‘”
“There’s also the war against the patriarchy, the war against male headship, which again is an assault on the God of the Bible. The woman is made after the man – male headship. The woman is made for the man – male headship. The woman is brought to the man – male headship. The woman is named by the man twice … male headship.” (Baptist)
None of these idea fits within the doctrines of the Church of the Nazarene. Our anthropology, our view of women, our view of God, our view of sin, and our view of scripture are very different from that taught by Voddie Baucham. So that alone makes the comment on false teaching ring hollow. His theology led to violent attitudes toward women and children. You cannot sanctify abuse no matter what words you use.
The claim that Charlie Kirk’s memorial service was a revival is evidence of how deeply we have gone into contrary doctrinal beliefs. Whatever you may have experienced in that memorial service, there is a difference between a memorial service and a revival. This is especially true when much of the content was political triumphalism or violence infused Christianity. When you claim Romans 13 describes the government wiping out the enemies of Christ, you’ve wandered right into Empire theology. You can dress things in the name of Christ, but that does not make it particularly Christlike.
But wait! There’s more. You see there is a very real undercurrent of teaching against the doctrine of scripture as understood by the Church of the Nazarene (COTN) by some clergy and leaders of clergy in the COTN. The problem is that the doctrine of scripture being taught in opposition to our understanding is one on the fundamentalist side of doctrine. I deal with what our doctrine is in a deeper way in the essay “A Word on the Word.” Skewing toward fundamentalism is often ignored even if it goes against doctrine.
To summarize, the Church of the Nazarene does not believe scripture to be inerrant in the sense that the text is without error in all things it teaches. Our doctrine is one of soteriological inerrancy. Simply put, we believe that scripture is able to inerrantly accomplish its purpose; which is to point humanity to Jesus and how to be in right relationship with God and creation. Inerrantly is an adverb describing how scripture accomplishes its purpose versus what scripture is within the doctrines of the Church of the Nazarene.
It is the very fact that clergy are teaching against our doctrine of scripture that makes the concerns about false teaching ring as hollow as a cheap chocolate Santa. One commenter is a leader of an organization which has repeatedly hosted teachers who disagree with our doctrine of scripture and human sexuality and taught on that disagreement. One famous influencer even mocked the doctrine of scripture held in the Church of the Nazarene. That organization has been agitating against Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS) for beliefs of visiting professors that were not taught by those professors at NTS. Yet, speakers at this organization’s gatherings have taught that scripture must be understood through textual rather than soterilogical inerrancy, One such speaker is a member of clergy in the COTN who has claimed that the rejection of textual inerrancy is rooted in sin. “The opposition to biblical inerrancy is deeply rooted in the innate, sinful nature of man.” (Bible) That article also contains teaching against the doctrine of human sexuality in the Church of the Nazarene. This member of clergy claims that same-sex attraction is sin which is an idea the COTN explicitly rejects (but that is for another essay).
It is not simply clergy, but also the leaders of clergy who teach a contrary or, one might say false teaching, about our view of scripture. The idea of textual inerrancy is taught and claimed at many levels within the COTN. There is a faction which has chosen to not accept the affirmation of our doctrine by the 2012 General Assembly and continue to teach textual inerrancy, I have a suspicion as to why which I will illuminate in a moment. But I noticed shortly after the post about false teaching appeared that the organization I mention above released a list of workshops for an upcoming gathering, In that list the following workshop being led by a leader of clergy in the COTN appears. “Being a Man of One Book: Scriptural Examination of the Inerrant, Infallible, and Imperishable Word of God”
The pre colon part of the title is a reference to a comment by John Wesley about being a “man of one book.” Of course Wesley meant that in a sense other than that being his only source of theological and pastoral understanding, but even then, Wesley meant something very different than contemporary assumptions. Randu Maddox has done excellent work in describing what Wesley meant in the essay John Wesley - "A Man of One Book." The above title containing inerrant could refer to the idea that Jesus the Christ is the eternal logos or Word of God, but I seriously doubt that based upon the historical record of the organization hosting. While the Word of God (Jesus) may be imperishable, there is no concrete scriptural support for scripture as the written word being imperishable. Nor is it the doctrine of the COTN. Taken in isolation this might not be concerning, but…
In my district a church displays a statement on scripture on their website that is contrary to the doctrine as illuminated in the Manual of the COTN. There is also a Wesleyan fundamentalist leaning school nearby whose president has been making the claim that rejecting textual inerrancy is teaching false doctrine. The view of that school on scripture is a reason it is not an officially recognized educational partner of the COTN. (WBS) The president also claims that this school has grown because of its view on inerrancy. It is this myth of growth which I suspect leads to an embrace of textual inerrancy. Control and power are also motivators for textual inerrancy for if you control the interpretation of scripture, you control those who read scripture.
However, it might be more important to note that the enrollment of the school increased exponentially following the creation of the Global Methodist Church (GMC) who accepted the school as an approved institution for the GMC Course of Study for ministry. It should be noted that the GMC does not hold to textual inerrancy but to soteriological sufficiency similar to the Church of the Nazarene. But the GMC needed partners quickly as they lost access to the Course of Study of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry in the United Methodist Church (UMC) as they separated from the UMC. That fact, rather than a fundamentalist belief of scripture is the much more likely reason for an increase in enrollment.
There may also be an element of fear. Fear that allowing scripture to be living and possibly interpreted “incorrectly” may cause an embrace of textual inerrancy. Yet, fear is as bad a motivation as power. Sauron’s reign of evil in Middle Earth began as a plan to make a better world. But good intentions do not beauty make.
My vocational ministry position is centered in discipleship and teaching. I am deeply interested in the human beings whom I serve understanding our doctrines and our polity. I make a point of giving opportunities through regular intervals of exposing people to our Articles of Faith, our Covenants of Christian Character and Conduct, and our polity so that they understand where we are located within the larger Church catholic. This is incredibly important as our geographic cultural Christianity is shaped primarily by the Southern Baptist Church and offshoots of that denomination; so expressing how we differ as Wesleyan-Holiness people is important. We exist in an ecumenical and apostolic tradition of faith shaped by our own distinctives. Yes, there are some dangerous and false teachings out there, but those are mostly toxic like Christian Nationalism or the explicit heresy of The New Apostolic Reformation (montanism).
I wish I had the kind of weird certainty that professes excitement any time the Gospel is preached but also claims that false teaching is so prevalent it requires special attention. Or hounds those who faithfully teach as false teachers simply because a slick YouTube star said that faithful teaching was “another gospel.” I just can’t buy into the exclusivity of championing teachers who demand patriarchy and violence. I happen to believe in what we Nazarenes are called to even if I get accused of divisive language.
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. (Manual p 50)
The lure of influencers is so strong that many in our tradition quote influencers as authorities on our doctrines even when they diverge. Scripture is just the beginning, because many of the influencers differ on salvation, God, the ordination of women, atonement, creation care, and social justice. Those influencers often wield much more influence over our congregations and some of our clergy than our doctrines. So it is vitally important to teach our doctrines, but we should probably be certain we are actually teaching our doctrines. Judging by many of the claims of false teaching, ignorance of our doctrines is prevalent. The influencers often determine what is false teaching rather than our deep and rich heritage of Wesleyan-Holiness good news.
Let’s be just a bit odd.
* Look Ma, No Brains
** Randall Rauser used this to describe many of the influencer apologists
https://baptistnews.com/article/plagiarism-is-the-least-thing-to-worry-about-with-voddie-baucham-who-is-a-threat-to-children-women-and-daughters/
https://pastorsvote2020academy.school.blog/2023/09/14/did-jesus-believe-in-biblical-inerrancy-yes-and-so-should-you-heres-why-it-matters-2/
https://wbs.edu/about/statement-of-faith/
Blevins, Dean G, et al. Manual. Copyright 2023 by Nazarene Publishing House.