Emergent-Hyphenated-Nazarenes

One of the things that have found interesting about the emergent conversation is all the “hyphenated” parallel conversations. By “hyphenated” I mean those who both identify with the emergent conversation while still identifying with the story of their own traditions. These groups tend to take on names like presbymergents, Angli-mergents, Metho-mergents, Luther-mergents ect. I guess when I named the blog over three years ago we should have been Naz-mergent, but the idea is the same.

Phyllis Tickle the author of The Great Emergence said on a blog late last year, “They (hyphenateds) fascinate me more even than do completely emergent congregations, because they seem to me to be engaged in the more difficult task of bringing to the party the best of two worlds, the ancient and the future. They are hyphenated, in other words, because they seek to meld the DNA and passion and post-modern theology of a new form of Christianity with the existing body and operative history of an established tradition.”

Here are some hyphenated groups that can likely identify with the tensions we are navigating as Emergent Nazarenes.

Methomergent (Methodist)
Baptimergent (Baptist)
Presbymergent (Presbyterian)
Luthermergent (Lutheran)
Anglimergent (Anglican/Episcopal)
Convergent (Quaker)
AGmergent (Assemblies of God/ Pentecostal)

I occasionally go to the DC Emergent Cohort, and one of the great pleasures of this is that I get to meet and interact with people in other Christian traditions who also are trying to navigate this hyphenated existence. I love the ecumenical feel of these groups as it reminds us all that we are all branches connected to the same tree; perhaps I should say the same Vine. Yet, we also all very much identify with the particular stories of our various traditions and do not want to abandon them.

I find it very interesting how this conversation has gravitated to us hyphenateds. I think some of the early disillusionment with the institutional church, which was a contributing factor to the emergent conversation early on, drove many to nondenominational circles. Yet the conversation itself caused many to pause, to look back at church history as we are trying to move forward enough to recognize that further division simply is not the answer. Brian McLaren refers to this in his book A Generous Orthodoxy as being “post-protestant.” At some point we have to just stop the protest that leads to endless divisions. Such division certainly is not consistent with call for unity in the Body of Christ we find in scripture.

Besides, hyphenateds tend to really resonate with the story of their particular tradition, while at the same time seeing it as just part of the broader Christian story that all followers of Jesus have taken part in through out history.

Emergent Nazarenes are Nazarenes

As Nazarenes we resonate with being a church that named itself “Nazarene” because they wanted to be a “church for the despised”; after all "can anything good come out of Nazareth?

We resonate with the Church of the Nazarene’s message of holiness, which is optimistic rather than pessimistic about our Salvation and embraces the transformational power of the gospel. We can trace some of our roots here to some shared roots with Pentecostalism which shouted from the rooftops concerning the power the Holy Spirit in our lives. This message took off also in the American holiness movement within our tradition that spoke of being able to live in God’s transformational power TODAY.

Related to this, we resonate with the history of the Church of the Nazarene as it embraced not only the individual transformational power of holiness, but also the social dimensions of holiness. Our denomination was built on taking on social issues like helping the poor and working to bless the communities we lived in by doing things like taking a stand against alcoholism. This is true Wesleyan theology in action that frames holiness in the context of love and understands John Wesley’s statement, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

As Nazarenes we resonate with our big tent mentality. We appreciate the mentality of our community that has long lived with the tensions of “American holiness” views and “Wesleyan holiness” ones. We appreciate our willingness to find solidarity with even our Calvinist leaning friends who were perhaps attracted to our more hopeful and optimistic view of holiness and decided they wanted to hang out with us under our tent; perhaps these where some of the first “hyphanated” folks. We also embrace all our efforts to become truly an international church community, no matter how rocky and imperfectly we have navigated those efforts so far. We appreciate that as Nazarenes we strive to be a welcoming community.

So we emergent-Nazarenes may identify ourselves with the emergent conversation and even desire to be agents of change and growth as we transition into a growing post-modern word, but we also hold fast to our roots and the particulars of our Nazarene story. We humbly move forward trying to take the wisdom of the past found in our tradition and apply it in new ways in our changing world. We are emerging from and with our tradition, understanding that all change, growth, and transformation is a hard journey. But we are confident that Christ is present with us all on this journey and he leads and empowers all transformation which makes us more like him.

Peace,

James Diggs

What Is the Function of this Blog?

If I understand the history correctly, this blog is 2-3 years old. Many of us have found this site encouraging and challenging, and it new people are also engaging positively.
However, as a regular reader/contributor, there seem to be two recurring problems.
1) Angry comments from people who are upset about all things emergent (and sometimes angry rebuttals)
2) Off topic comments (sometimes "friendly," sometimes combative). By "off topic," I mean comments that have very little to do with the post at hand. These comments often create major side streams of discussion, which are usually apologetic in nature. I understand that live conversations often flow that way, however, in large group discussions a good mediator will steer the discussion back to the topic at hand.

This raises two questions for me.
1) What is the function of this blog? (What are we hoping for here?)
We have the "About Us" description in the sidebar: Emergent Nazarenes are Christians who both identify with the Emergent Church movement while being a part of the Church of the Nazarene . Our purpose is to connect as Nazarenes with the larger conversations of the emergent movement, the Kingdom of God and the world.
However, this doesn't necessarily give a clear answer as to the function of the blog. Personally, I would like to do more discussing with other emergent folks and less defending of emergent stuff to people who are hostile to emergent thinking. I understand the benefit of the later, but along with Dave and possibly James, I am growing weary of defending ourselves and responding to hostile comments. Also, I think such comment streams might detract from our overall goal.
I hesitate here because I don't want us to be exclusive, but I proceed because I don't want us to stop talking because the hostile comments and debates are wearing us out.

2) Do we need some "rules of engagement"? For example, do we want to create a short set of guidelines for our conversations. This might help to curtail some of the problems mentioned above, and it might help to guide us all into more productive and helpful discussion. We might simply include a line at the top or on the sidebar: "Read THIS before commenting." Then we could link it to the discussion guidelines.

Please share your thoughts.

Statue of Liberty

Not like the vaulted cathedrals,
Not like the pews with names and reservations,
Not like the hair-sprayed televangelists,
Not like the nice churches who say nice things to nice people,
Here at our doors shall stand a sign: All are welcome!
Open hearts, aflame with the burning love of God,
Open, open, open, to all who come.

Keep, o normal churches,
your nice people,
your beautiful people,
your people who have their shit together and put on pretty faces.

Give us your freaks and your punks,
your hippies and granolas,
your Goths and your bikers.
Give us your homeless and your unemployed,
your job-hoppers and bed-hoppers,
your addicts and your hard drinkers.
Give us your hookers and your strippers,
your gamblers and smokers,
your dippers and your chewers.
Give us your church-haters and your liberals,
your atheists and agnostics,
your fundamentalists and your prudes.
Give us your gays and your lesbians,
your transvestites and transsexuals,
your offenders and your victims.
Give us your polluters and your tree-huggers,
your executives and lawyers,
your tax-evaders and your tax-collectors.
Give us your doubters and your name-it-and-claim-its,
your hypocrites and holier-than-thous,
your skeptics and your relativists.
Give us your seekers and your strugglers,
your lovers and haters,
your saints and your sinners.

Send us all of these, for they are like us.
We lift high the cross of Christ,
Brother of exiles, Friend of sinners.
His nail-pierced hands shout world-wide welcome
For all who long to breathe free,
For all who long to find home,
For all who didn't measure up,
For all who need a new start,
For all who want a new world.

We lift high the cross of Christ,
So that we will all be transformed together.


April 15, 2009 (author's copyright by Josh Broward)

----
This poem was obviously based on Emma Lazarus's famous poem, “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on the interior of the Statue of Liberty.
----
My poem should not be interpreted to mean that all of the actions implied in the "send us" section are OK and morally acceptable. Rather, the interpretation should be that all of us are welcome in our brokenness to gather around the cross of Christ (the Statue of Liberty) where we will all be made free, healed, loved, and transformed. A community that welcomes like this is a means of God's healing grace for everyone concerned.
----
In two weeks, I am preaching on Acts 3 (the healing of the crippled beggar and his subsequent inclusion into the temple worship - almost certainly his first time to enter the temple in his 40 year life). I am thinking of having one of our church members read this poem during the service.
Any feedback?
I know it's edgy, but the edge is kind of the point. My wife thinks using the curse word will take away from the message, but as poetry, I think it contributes to the message that all are welcome.
I look forward to hearing some of your opinions. Also, if this is not an appropriate forum for something like this, please feel free to rebuke me thoroughly!

Saved by Grace, Judged by Works???

On my trip to Manila, I finished Brian McClaren's A New Kind of Christian trilogy, with the last book being The Last Word and the Word After That. I liked this book best of all. (However, the first book, A New Kind of Christian, was the book that first helped me get somewhat of a grasp on postmodernism and how huge this shift is.)
In this book McClaren has three basic points. I'll try to summarize them briefly and then talk about the most controversial one.
1. Most of the conversation in the book is about hell. How can a good and loving God send finite creatures to enternal, conscious torment? McClaren doesn't give an outright answer. Instead, he is content to shoot down the traditional answer(s) and to suggest possible alternatives. It seems as though he advocates, overall, a position of humble agnosticism tempered by grace. Basically, we don't really know because the Bible isn't entirely clear, and in the end we have to trust in God's mercy and grace as well as in his justice.
2. As the main character embarks on this study of hell-ology, he discovers that learning and knowing happen best in community. McClaren advocates again and again the importance of a community that we "know with." In many respects the people at www.emergentnazarenes.blogspot.com serve as some of the people I "know with."
3. We are saved by grace and judged by works. Since this is (by far) his most controversial statement, let me quote a section from the voice of one of his mentoring characters:
So I'm not denying salvation by grace, no, no, not at all. It's all by grace. I'm just advocating judgment by works ...
Salvation by grace, judgement by works. There's nothing in the Bible clearer than those two realities. Of course, you have to define salvation in Jesus' way, not just modern Western Chrsitianty's [way]. ...
You thought that if you are saved, you are not judged, right? Yep, I used to think that too. I didn't realize that being judged isn't the same as being condemned and that being saved means a lot more than not being judged. For a lot of lok, salvation still means little more than escaping from the legal consequences of having original sin on your passport. For them, until you have your passport changed, which is what being saved means, you can't get through customs in heaven and you're stuck going to hell. But remember - conventional Western Christianity is the religion of the empire. It developed at a time when the church and the empire were joined at the hip, if not the heart. A lot of us didn't get too good of a deal from Imperial Christianity. [The character speaking here is a black pastor.] I guess you could say some of us have seceded from Imperial Christianity, the theology of the empire. When you secede from the theology of the empire, your understandings of salvation and judgment can change for the better. ...
Try reading through your New Testament and looking for the word judged or judgement. You'll see it as clear as day: we're judged by our works. But that's not in contradiction to being saved by grace - if you define salvation in a broader way.

This line of reasoning strikes me as intuitively true. The Bible says again that we will be judged according to the deeds we did in our bodies whether good or bad. We just read that yesterday from 2 Corinthians 5. I've had a hard time reconciling Jesus' parables which mostly imply judgment by works with Paul's discussions of being "saved by grace" and even with Paul's comments of being judged by works.
I'm still pretty sure I don't get all of this. It's hard for me as a Protestant, having grown up with the manifesto of "saved by grace through faith and not by works," to wrap my head around a different idea of salvation and judgment and works and grace. (Maybe this is part of what people refer to when they say "post-Protestant.")
However, this seems true to me, and it seems like it is a missing puzzle piece to make sense of the various pieces of the New Testament which have always seemed in tension to me. I'm still trying to figure this out, but I wanted to share with you an idea that is shaking up my theological world, possibly shaking me into a more Biblical theology. I look forward to your comments.

General Assembly

I've been thinking about General Assembly for a while and wondering if our (little?) group would be planning any kind of get togethers or conversations or forums. I think the NazNet people had a get together last time around.
Do we dare? Do we dare even over the pint of ale so often suggested?
I think several kinds of meetings could be beneficial and/or painful and/or dangerous. Here are some possibilities I'd like to open for dialog.
1. A contributors meeting. I know many of us may not be going, but my family happens to be Nazarene enough that this will serve as a bit of a family reunion/vacation. Nonetheless, it would be great for any of us who will be in Orlando to sit down for some face-to-face conversations.
2. A meeting for emergent-leaning people. I think there are lots more emergent-type folks out there who are not involved in this blog (for many simply because they are unaware of it). Anyhow, a wider conversation about emergent issues among people who are generally on the same page (or at least in the same chapter), could be very fruitful and helpful. (Somehow it would be nice to limit this meeting to people who want to talk seriously about issues from an emergent perspective, so that the meeting doesn't break down into arguments about things most of us would consider peripheral to the issues we would really like to be talking about.)
3. An open meeting for dialog with critics. This meeting could potentially be the most dangerous of all. If we host this meeting, I think we could expect a great deal of heated criticism and maybe anger. Basically lots of people are really scared that the Church of the Nazarene (along with the Church in general) is slipping into heresy (as evidenced by the set of posts below from the beginning of this month). Some basic questions about this type of meeting:

• How could we get the word out? (This question also goes for meeting #2 above.)
• How could we mediate the discussion? (For example, we might want to invite a compassionate critic, who would be well respected among very conservative circles, to be a joint mediator with an emergent person.)
• How could we facilitate lots of discussion without digressing into long arguments that could last for hours or days? (One of the images that keeps settling in my mind - or unsettling my mind - is a group of emergent people surrounded by a group of fundamentalist people who are shouting at them. How could we lay a ground work for discussion that would make this kind of scenario less likely? How could we facilitate a discussion that would be at least moderately satisfying for all participants? For example, maybe a combination would be best: a) small group discussions - with facilitators, b) large group question and answer time, c) maybe even some short lecture time presenting the "case" for each side.)
• How would we go about planning and getting approval for a meeting like this?
• Is that "petition" cited in the April Fools post for real? Are people really petitioning to get an official statement on the "emerging church" from this general assembly?
  

I invite your comments and discussion. And for any who will be in Orlando in a few months, I hope we'll have the opportunity to meet face to face.

Good Friday Verses

Darkness came, evil enveloping the light of the world

No one wanted to take the blame or the credit

You crucify him, no you do it, they yelled back and forth

No one wanted the blood of Jesus on their hands

Slowly, excruciatingly, determined he walked

Wood digging into open wounds

Wounds given not because they were deserved or earned

Wounds given by a scapegoat looking to avoid making a decision

Wounds taken for me, endured for me, bleeding for me

No one wanted the blood of Jesus on their hands

Walking, lumbering up steep hills of cobble stone

Crowds jeering, yelling, profaning the precious one

Walking onwards towards death and life

How dare they mock my precious one!

And yet, I am there too mocking and cursing he who would die for me

No one wanted the blood of Jesus on their hands

Lying in a heap his body broken

Soldiers make others carry his burden

Determined, unwilling to let pain win out

He rises from the ground to drink from his cup

Not the soldiers, not the crowd, not the people he loved

No one wanted the blood of Jesus on their hands

Finally there, but barely begun

The skull looms, showing what must be done

The wails can be heard from all around

Wails from the wounded, the mourning, those jeering them on

No one wanted the blood of Jesus on their hands

Raised above the wails and insults

A cross high on a hill stands

My savior, my God, my all

Exposed in helpless torture for evil to celebrate

Yet he would not curse them, found only love

Forgave the thief, a home for his mother he found

Yet there he died, God of us all

We all have the blood of Jesus on our hands

It is hard Lord to call this day good

Desires fill us to go back and stop your pain

Yet you were unwilling to pass on the cup given to you

A cup none of us had the strength or love to drink

A cup filled with your redeeming blood

Instead we ask to be covered in your blood

Cover us from head to toe, do not stop with our hands

Cover us and make us new, beside your cross let us stand

Picking up our crosses we come

Following our savior, our precious one

Holy Tuesday Offerings

Even for us Protestants who consider ourselves to be fairly liturgical Holy Tuesday isn’t usually a day we think about too much. It wasn’t until I happened to be leading a Tuesday night service during Holy Week that I really spent time learning about the history of Holy Tuesday.

It was on Tuesday of Holy Week that Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ head. This was an incredible offering to Jesus. It was extravagant almost to the point of absurdity. It seemed frivolous and misplaced, yet Jesus promised this story would be told whenever the gospel was told throughout the world.

But this kind of extravagance wasn’t popular, even with Jesus’ disciples. This offering of perfume was the final straw for Judas who immediately went and agreed to betray Jesus. But Jesus really had to rebuke all those gathered who looked at this gift as a waste of money. Looking at my life, I don’t think I have ever given God a gift someone could mistake for being extravagant. That pains me as I think about it today. Even as a minister, and someone who has uprooted his family to leave everyone they love and go to a place where it is still ridiculously cold during mid-April, I don’t feel like I have ever given to God with that kind of abandon.

When you give with that kind of abandonment it is only because of overwhelming love. The only times I have ever given to extravagantly in my life have been to my family. My love for them has led me to give of my time, energy, money, and giftedness to them in ways that has been extravagant and I relish that gifting. But thinking of Jesus, this day, awaiting his passion I can’t imagine what I could ever give that would be enough to reflect my love. Thinking of my precious savior awaiting his passion, there is no gift I can give that is sufficient to express my love.

All I can offer is the verse from my favorite hymn The Wonderful Cross. “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”

An Open Letter To Legitimately Concerned Nazarenes

You may have read our previous post on April 1st that parodied what it would be like for the specific group that identifies themselves as “Concerned Nazarenes” to get what they want. This post was written as a way to laugh at the absurdity of what we have found ourselves in this past year in order to keep from crying. Sometimes we all just need to laugh to help us get some perspective. But you should know, while the fiction accounts of various Nazarenes being “banned” was part of our April fools joke, the links provided throughout this post to these “Concerned Nazarene” websites are real.

You should also know that every name listed on our April 1st post are actually listed on these so called “Concerned Nazarenes” sites, as heretics. They are demanding that the denomination “do something about” these individuals. These represent a fraction of names maligned by these websites. Their list of unfavorables includes General Superintendents, District Superintendents, University and Seminary Professors, and many, many Ordained Elders and Pastors within our denomination. Many of us were on these lists, and so are many of our valued and respected friends and colleagues.

This group has coined for themselves the name “Concerned Nazarenes”, but in reality they are a very small group of individuals that have taken upon themselves to lead a crusade and witch hunt against those they personally deem as heretics.

This is so very unfortunate, not just for those of us under attack, but also for those Nazarenes who have legitimate questions about the impact of post-modernity and the emergent/emerging conversation on the church; particularly on our denomination.

• Perhaps a safe place is needed for individuals to voice and work through their concerns.
• Perhaps those of us who have been leaning into the emergent conversation would benefit from hearing these concerns and we should welcome the accountability that comes from some healthy push back.
• Perhaps we all could benefit from creating space to work through the dynamics of what this all means for us as a diverse and international Christian, Holiness and Wesleyan community.

One thing that is disappointing to me about the “Concerned Nazarenes” websites and their mailings is that they just aren’t very “Nazarene”. Not that I don’t think that criticism from outside our tent can’t be valid, but the particular criticism from “Concerned Nazarenes” are presenting arguments as “Nazarenes” that are not consistent with our tradition and historic theological perspective. Much of what they are calling issues with the “emergent church within the Church of the Nazarene” are actually issues with the Wesleyan tradition that are being objected to by those with Reformed and Calvinists perspectives.

Again, this is very unfortunate because I believe there are some legitimate concerns that some Wesleyans may have with the emerging church. But “Concerned Nazarenes” hardly provides the space to explore these concerns because they demand that everyone needs to submit to their perspective. I just think people should be clear about what they are objecting to. Is it the “emergent church” or is it the Wesleyan perspective that is objectionable?

I certainly think that the emergent church can benefit from criticism from the broad brush of Christianity that extends outside our Wesleyan tradition. However, the issues here surround emerging Nazarenes and the objections come from those who have identified themselves as “concerned” within the Nazarene tradition. So in order to have more fruitful conversation as Nazarenes I would like to encourage any criticism here to stay within the parameters of our context. There does exist plenty of other venues to explore the emerging church, as good or bad, from a broader Christian context.

I would like to also suggest NazNet as a place where Nazarenes can go to safely explore their concerns. I believe NazNet reflects the diversity of our English-speaking community within our international denomination. You will find fair-minded people there that fall on both sides of the emergent church issue. Not only that, but their discussions are done with every effort to display humility, love, and sound reasoning. Also, if you have real concerns, don’t just post a drive by comment, stick around and let the discussion develop.

I suggest this because some may feel safer exploring these issues in more neutral territory. Please do not mistake this as chasing anyone away. Anyone who wants to express a concern is always welcome here. I and others here have entered into dialogue with those expressing their concerns here before. We have tried (I confess not always successfully) to show both grace and humility when in dialogue with those who disagree with us. I also ask for grace to be extended to us as well, because there are times that we may feel under attack which can lead to frustrations that produces less than generous responses. Please forgive us for these times. I am hopeful that we can all work together to create a safe place for everyone to share their views, perspectives and concerns.

Again, it’s unfortunate that those who have gathered under the banner of so called “Concerned Nazarenes” are NOT helping to facilitate this, but rather are fueling panic and fear. Interestingly enough, if you look up synonyms for “concerned” you will find, words like “worried”, “anxious”, “troubled”, “alarmed”, “fretful”, and “fearful”. I can’t help but to think in response to this of Paul’s second letter to Timothy where he writes, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and discipline.”

I look forward to powerful, loving, and disciplined conversation that can help bring healing, growth, and solidarity for all of us.

Peace,

James

Denomination Caves To Concerned Nazarenes

It is my sad duty to announce the end of Emergent Nazarenes, not just the blog, but the end of The Church of the Nazarene’s tolerance for any Nazarene that has leaned one way or the other into the emergent conversation. I have been instructed by the denomination to renounce my association with the emergent church movement or I will lose my credentials.

It seems that over the past year a petition has made its rounds asking the General Superintendents to answer for “how our general church reconciles Emergent Church theology and practice with the concept of the Bible as the inerrant word of God.” When I first saw this I originally thought it was absurd because the Church of the Nazarene does not speak of inerrancy in terms of what scripture IS, but only as to what it DOES; saying that scripture “inerrantly reveals the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation”. But, I was wrong and now the denomination will be changing this article of faith to better reflect a confession of inerrancy which they are now convinced is necessary for our salvation.

The petition further demandeds that they “want assurance that advocates of the Emergent Church will not be allowed further access to any forum within the Church of the Nazarene.” The denomination is taking this seriously too, which is why they have demanded that I shut down or radically change this blog to comply with their new standards. They say they hold all rights to the name “Nazarene” and my “unauthorized” use of it is a “copyright infringement.” So, I am changing the blog to meet their demands. Other Nazarenes will be greatly effected as well, including many in our educational institutions, many Pastors, and even one General Superintendent. More on that in a moment.

Also during the last few months, another group known as “Concerned Nazarenes” has sent out information to churches all over the country warning them of the dangerous of the emergent church. It seems that these documents provided the final nail in the coffin for any emergent Nazarene and convinced the General Superintendents. The arguments in these documents against the evils of “Contemplative Spirituality”, “Lectio Divina’s” and all things too “Catholic” combined with their scripture references proved to be too much for the General Superintendents to be able to continue to justify what they are now calling the “conversation of demons” in regards to the emergent church.

Because of this, the General Superintendents have enacted a little known provision in our polity known as the “J.P. Widney Rule”, which enables the Generals to protect the integrity of the name of the Church of the Nazarene at any cost. In other words, they have declared Marshal Law; though they would never call it this. Perhaps they might call it “General Law”.

I have to confess I am shocked, but not half as shocked as Dr. Jesse C. Middendorf who has been removed as General Superintendent by the other five Generals because of his documented sympathies with the emergent church according to Tim Wirth of Concerned Nazarenes and his 15 other websites on the same topic. You can see one of many of his articles about the Middendorfs HERE.

Though Middendorf is the highest to go, he is not the only one. Jesse’s son Jon has also been removed of his duties as a Pastor (again because of the amazing journalistic prowess of Tim Wirth) along with many other Pastors in our church that refused to comply with the new standards that ban all things emergent.

Dr Dean Blevins of Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City was also dismissed after Tim Wirth posted his papers on his Concerned Nazarenes website. Dr. Dennis Bratcher, who has served as an educator in the Church of the Nazarene for over 25 years, has been stripped of his PHD after Tim Wirth revealed how Mr. Bratcher has been “saying dumb things” and having a “problem with the authority of scripture concerning the scriptures being inerrant.” Again you can read the article that exposed Dennis Bratcher at the website called Psalm 11:3, another one of Tim Wirth’s Concerned Nazarene sites.

The pruning away all things that even hints of emergent is not stopping with these individuals, the General are also investigating all the Nazarene Colleges and Universities that have had Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, Tony Jones and Tony Campolo speak at their chapel service. There is some rumbling that the Generals may pull funds for these schools and send our Nazarene educational funds to Liberty University instead. I have heard that there is a chance that these Nazarene colleges might retain funding if the college Presidents repent. Unfortunately, there is currently an investigation into one Nazarene University President who endorsed Yoga on campus; it is felt that he has transgressed beyond the ability to repent. You can read what prompted this investigation HERE.

The Generals also acted swiftly to excommunicate any Nazarene who had signed the late Robert Webber’s “call to an ancient evangelical future”. The names of Nazarenes on the list had been hidden, scattered among the great number of signers, until recently when the ExNazarene blog found their names and posted them. The General’s have since dealt swiftly to deal with those listed below who signed such a heretical document.

• Rev. Ken Balch, Mission Director, Mid-Atlantic COTN, Crofton MD
• Sam S. Barber, Senior Pastor, Troy COTN, Troy, OH
• Dan Boone, President, Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, TN
• Daron B. Brown, Pastor, COTN, Waverly, TN
• Rev. James B. Chapman, Sonlight COTN, Minneapolis, MN
• Eric Frey, Toronto First COTN, Toronto, OH
• Timothy Green
• Dr. Sam Green, Associate Professor of Music, Chair of the Division of Music, Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, TN
• Chad A. Harvey, Pastor, Little Sandy COTN, Bruceton Mills, WV
• Rich Mark, Pastor to Families with Children, Nashville First COTN, TN
• Scott Marshall, Pastor of Fellowship & Discipleship, Southside COTN, Chesterfield, VA
• Rev. Harlan Moore, Minister of Worship Arts, Bethany First COTN, Bethany, OK
• Brian M. Niece, Pastor, Grace Community COTN, Brusnwick, GA
• Dr. Charles Nienkirchen, Prof. of Christian History & Spirituality, Alliance University College/Nazarene University College, Calgary, AB, Canada
• Rev. Brent Peterson, Pastor, Chicago Northside COTN, Chicago, IL
• Rev. Brian K. Postlewait, Spiritual Director, Community of Hope, Inc., Washington D.C.
• John D. Prichard II, Lead Pastor, Butler COTN, Butler, MO
• Dr. Keith Schwanz, Assistant Dean, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, MO
• Rev. Todd A. Stepp, O.S.L., Pastor, COTN, Greencastle, IN
• Rev. A. Blake Teston, Lead Pastor, Blackwell First COTN, Blackwell, OK
• Rev. Brian R. Thomas, Sr. Pastor, Wasilla Lake COTN, Wasilla, AK
• Rev. Greg Voiles, COTN, Elder, Ph.D. Preparation Historical Theology & Christian Spirituality (Fall 2007), Allardt, TN
• Michael Wiebe, Minister of Worship & Music, First COTN, Nampa ID

Finally after much consideration and wrestling the General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene have decided to distance themselves from John Wesley. Apparently it was recently discovered in an article by an expert in the Methodist Church, Dr. Hal Knight, that Wesley himself had much in common with the emergent church. If this wasn’t enough to persuade the five remaining Nazarene Generals, the arguments of the Concerned Nazarenes website certainly convinced them that Wesley falls short of Calvinists standards.

So, it with a heavy heart, that today, April 1, 2009, we say goodbye to our little emergent Nazarene Blog. It seems so ironic that just last year to the day we were talking about putting the emergent church in the Nazarene Manual. What a difference a year can make. I should have known it would end badly for me when Tim Wirth posted THIS about my Corridor church community. He found me out, he found us all out, and now we are no more.

Farewell

James Diggs