We Hate Us

Sigh

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

I have chosen to move up the timing on all access to this post because an example of the attitude I am discussing happened in a Facebook group for clergy in the Church of the Nazarene. A choice was made to anonymously attack the fitness of a young pastor experiencing a major season of struggle. Rather than encourage like the majority, this anonymous commenter chose to make assumptions based upon political ideology not in evidence. I hate to say I am not surprised by the attack, but I am not surprised. Admins in groups also see the actual name of anonymous posters, so I know that the original pastor is not what the commenter assumes nor am I surprised by who the nasty comment was posted by. This is an endemic problem in which arrigant clergy who lecture us on how to preach and teach holiness choose ugliness over beauty.

Years ago the original XFL football league had a Worldwide Wrestling connection and attempted to capture the over the top show of WWE. One of the features of the XFL was that players could have whatever they wanted on the back of their jerseys. One player had the name “He Hate Me” on his jersey. I wish I could remember the player’s given name, but his choice worked in terms of remembrance. When asked why the name “He Hate Me,” the player said that the opposing team hated to see him coming because of his skills. The commentators mentioned it seemed rather arrogant to assume that a rookie would be hated. I remember that “He Hate Me” became a bit of an apt name because the others did kind of hate the attention he grabbed.

I tell the story of how I remember “He Hate Me” because I sometimes wonder if some pastors hate their fellow pastors. Maybe not an active and loathing hate, but a simmering apathy toward their fellow clergy. A few essays ago I discussed the twin issues of influencers and the general disregard for fellow clergy. I deal with the impact of influencers in my essay “Unserious.” Here I will deal with the more personal issue of fellow clergy and the leaders of clergy displaying an attitude of disdain. In addition, I’ll discuss the problem of clergy straying into partisanship, influencer culture, and going outside their tradition directly in their teaching and preaching.

When a person is called into ministry, they may or may not choose the path of a denominational structure. For many of us, the accountability and doctrinal structures of a denomination help to form and shape our ministries. In submitting to a system of polity and doctrine (organizational structure and beliefs) those in ministry covenant with the denomination in what should be a mutual and symbiotic relationship. In agreeing to support and teach the doctrines of the denomination, we choose a path of learning, accountability, and respect.

It would be appropriate for clergy to expect respect and support in such a relationship. But, denominations sometimes forget they are part of an organism as a church and act as institutions. When a people who should act as a body act as an institution, the relationships get skewed. This can leave pastors feeling alone, abandoned, or despised. I believe this is unintentional in most experiences, but some may feel intentionally despised.

Intentional or not, the leaders of pastors often use the world’s language of success and leadership rather than servanthood. Efficiency, production, income, and effort become the watchwords. I have seen leaders make the claim that the church is not growing because:

• Pastors are not putting in the hours required to grow the church like in past years

• Pastors are lazy based on their desire for rest

• Small church pastors need to partner with larger churches so they can learn to be big

• You have hidden your talents in the ground, so your church is failing

• Why are you even ministering?

• You don’t preach holiness

• You can never hope to share the Gospel as well as my favorite influencer or Christian star

• You are preaching “another gospel”

• You are obviously a progressive liberal and not a good fit for your church

None of these are things that mark faithfulness. Many pastors are burning their bodies and minds out by trying harder and harder to show the effort they assume is expected. It is one crisis of ministry. The brunt of tut-tuts is the smaller church. Of course, in our denomination, the average church is under one hundred people. Yes, we have some outlier large churches with over one thousand in attendance, but those are rare. But the comments toward the average church is that obviously the pastor or church is not doing enough to grow.

There are even times when the denominational leaders even send messages that feel like gut punches.I don’t believe it to be intentional, but messages are sent that feel like condemnation. Especially by those leaders who care more about the three b’s (butts, bucks, and buildings) than the discipleship of holiness. One can be tracked; the other is too Spirit-led to fit into a spreadsheet. There are members at our church who still speak of the embarrassment of being called out at a District Assembly prior to our current DS’s term. They mention that they and some other churches were shamed for not meeting the funding the mission goals. The church was finally recovering from two splits and felt they were on the road to health when they were smacked down for not doing enough with the three b’s. It seems impossible for some to believe that a church of fifty can be just as faithful and missional as a church of thousands. But the truth is that faithfulness in born out in the fruit of relational holiness.

Besides the not enough, there are inevitable conflicts over doctrine within a denomination. In our covenantal understanding of holiness, polity and doctrine are not championed in equitable ways. What do I mean by this? Disagreements within the clergy about some of our doctrines and covenants are treated differently depending on the doctrine. Leading up to our last quadrennial General Assembly, it was shared that our article of faith on baptism was being reviewed because so many pastors disagreed with our historic understanding of the sacrament being available to infants. The willingness to change because of the number of clergy who disagreed is in start contrast to the way disagreement with our doctrine of human sexuality is dealt with. In one case, there was a thought of changing, but in the other, the clergy are expelled. I am not arguing for change, but trying to show how inconsistent we can be.

But there is also a deeper issue with the embrace of our doctrines. Clergy routinely teach contrary to our doctrine of scripture. We have a study and an entire book written as references to oppose the idea of textual inerrancy (the idea that the Bible is perfect in all that it teaches). Our understanding of scripture per our doctrine is of soteriological inerrancy (perfection of purpose in revealing all that is necessary for salvation). This is the view of scripture held by the majority of the big C Church. But fundamentalists and the influence of those I mention in my essay Unserious have blurred the line so that many pastors teach against our actual doctrine with no corrective from leaders. I have even found churches in our denomination that have a contrary statement about scripture on their website.

Another place where we find deviation is the concern for creation care and the care of human beings. If I argue that Christians should care for the earth or strive for equitable societies, I am called “woke.” “obviously a liberal,” or worse. Yet, our Covenant of Christian Conduct calls for us to work for equitable societies in paragraph 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.

There is a paper that I’ve mentioned before in which a Nazarene pastor argues that social justice is contrary to Christianity and holiness. He argues against equity and the paper was shared by some district leaders and a partnership of holiness folk. The problems in that paper are many, but if we only focused on his use of political sources and Fox News as primary, it would be enough. But he even misrepresents arguments in the one scholarly Christian source in the paper through quote mining. When it was pointed out how the paper conflicted with our Covenant, the response was that justice and equity don’t mean what they mean. Remember, influencers have way more influence than our own doctrines on some subjects. (Pun intended)

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I really don’t know what the solution is. We can educate only so much. Even in a denomination that champions education. But our efforts are small compared to the onslaught of culture, politics, and slick partisan packaging. We can drive giant trucks right through our credibility gaps. The issue is also partly that some of us are performative in our messaging. I know a pastor who many believe attended a small fundamentalist Holiness Bible college because of the way they describe their education. But I know they graduated from a Church of the Nazarene University. There is more influence in being less than forthright because you attract the anti-intellectual crowd.

In a vocation that can by its nature lead to discouragement, the credibility gaps and strong messages sent down to pastors can crush spirits. One of the reasons for a crisis of clergy is the credibility gaps we face. When faithfulness is labelled as heresy or false doctrine, it is hard to keep a straight face when you know what you just said, wrote, or preached was language from the Manual. But the influencers I mentioned in my previous essay tell disciples and clergy that those ideas are contrary to the Gospel. Most influencers don’t explain the Gospel so much as they recite a formula that many see as magic. That formula becomes the Gospel, but it is a poor reflection of the truth of the Gospel. The Gospel is the story of a God who saw how deeply we are harmed by sin and knew that the only way to show us how much God loves us was to become us, experience our lives, be killed by our violence, but then to come out the other side showing us that death and sin are temporary. We are invited into the beauty of a God who enters the muck we put ourselves into, who carries those we place in the muck out of that muck. The God who enters our suffering and never leaves us or forsakes us. That is Gospel truth.

Preveniently, Sarah McLaclan’s new album contains a love song that speaks Gospel more honestly than any influencer. We can see an example of the love of God in her song Gravity.

Yours is an island of wild weeds and lush, tangled ground

Unbridled energy, all possibility

You pull yourself up on two feet that have not stood alone

Slowly and gingerly

Reaching with toes

It’s hard, the way you look at me

With a rage I cannot place

But I’m not the enemy

I’ll carry you through your pain

Here’s the song - I’ll continue after you have a moment to hear it

What truth, you can hide away, but I won’t give up.

So you can hide away, hold your heart at bay

I know you wanna be loved

Though life will come apart, break and unbreak your heart

I will be like gravity, always true

I won’t give up on you

I’ll never give up on you

So, I guess I do know the solution. Preach the Gospel. Live the Gospel. Embrace the Gospel of brokenness, of the sinned against, of the God who never gives up on us. Quit listening to the haters and embrace the ultimate in love.