Tim Wirth of Concerned Nazarenes a Hair's Breadth from Emergent Nazarenes

If you have been following my last few posts you would know that their has been some progress in reconciling what has been an historically adversarial relationship between Concerned Nazarenes, represented by their founder Tim Wirth, as they asserted that many Pastors, professors and leaders in our denomination were heretics and not even Christians. However, In the comments of a recent post Tim concluded that my confession of the atonement, provided I believe it-which I most certainly do, means that he would now receive me as a brother in Christ.

Tim also said that he wants to work to focus more on what he considers “false teaching” rather than focus on people. In my last post I thanked Tim for his humility and honesty and though he did reply to it, I am not sure he realized that I would like for him to stick around so we can work some things out together. I don’t think he knows that I replied back and look forward to building on his positive step of his embracing me as being a fellow Christian.

Tim said that he felt that he was “estranged” from real brothers and sisters in Jesus because he feels they “promote and endorse false teachers.” In the last post and in the comment which I am not sure he read yet, I assured him that we don’t “promote” these teachers he is concerned with any more than he might “promote” John Macarthur or John Piper”. We promote Jesus Christ just as you do. (See my complete comment in context here and here)

Tim felt the need to share with me that he is not a Calvinist, and he believes that Jesus died for everyone, though he has said before that he respects and reads books by some Calvinist because he finds them biblical. I pointed out that as Nazarenes in the Wesleyan tradition we believe the Calvinistic idea that Jesus did not die for everyone is very dangerous and unbiblical as it undermines the great work of the atonement. Of course Calvinist’s through out history thought that Armenian/Wesleyan theology is what really undermines Christian orthodoxy and so these two groups called each other heretics and accused each other of preaching the “doctrine of demons” for centuries.

Looking back on it now we could easily see these two groups as actually “estranged” brothers in Jesus. Even though they each thought the others weren't real Christians, they both put their faith in Jesus Christ regardless of the differences they had in their theology describing how it all works. But at the time (and actually with some people it still may be true today) these two different theologies were viewed as completely different paths that sit opposed each other on two different sides of a vast un-crossable gulf. As I told Tim, this is why I appreciate Wesley because he chose a more generous perspective; one that chose to see what many believed to be completely incompatible to actually be just a “hair's breadth” apart. When Wesley focused on what he had in common with Calvinist the great differences between them began to look really small (of course not all Calvinists returned the favor).

I think Tim and I also have much more in common than the things we disagree over. I actually think the same is true for all the Nazarene leaders Tim has called heretics and non-Christians in the past (a past Tim began to put behind him when he received me as a brother- thank you Tim). Tim confessed to me that he believed that “all in all there is nothing in the Article's of Faith that (he) would part fellowship over with a fellow Christian.” And so then, as people who together affirm biblical Christianity in our understanding of Sin, Atonement, Repentance, and Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption through faith, we should NOT break fellowship with each other. There is no reason to be “estranged”.

I understand that we may still have strong disagreement about many things. (I do address these a little more in the comments of last post). I just don’t think we should let our disagreement about these things divide us when it took the blood of Jesus to unite us.

Also, in the comments of my last post which Tim has not yet responded to, I proposed three things that I would like to happen as I worked with Tim towards reconciliation:

1. I asked Tim to acknowledge all those in our denomination who have a confession of faith in Jesus Christ and embrace our shared standard of biblical orthodoxy as described in our Articles of Faith as his brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Posting this on his blogs , websites, and facebook group would go along way to work toward reconciliation. It would be great if he could mention people by name that he has named in the past as those he did not embrace as fellow Christians before and let people know that he now embraces them as brothers and sisters of Jesus.

2. I asked him to consider loosening up on the use of moderating (blocking) blog comments and to cease banning certain Nazarenes from facebook activity and allow fellow Christians and Nazarenes , even if they don't agree with him to participate in some of the dialogue in these places. I told him that I would work in return to encourage people not to abuse such a welcoming spirit by being adversarial against them or their concerns. I told him that I would jump to his defense about this and work to encourage others to be respectful of them in a shared effort to create a new tone. Bottom line is that we should not lock fellow family members of God out of public conversations or marginalize them. Now that Tim understands that we are really Christians I am sure he can understand that.

3. The last thing I suggested is that we do some good work together. Let’s mutually promote the things we all can be proud of as part of a shared tradition and denomination. In the wake of catastrophes like in Haiti I suggest a joint endorsement for support for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and Nazarene Compassionate Ministries inc.

I also asked him to share his ideas about what we might be able to do together.

Now this is just a summery, for my complete reply see the comments HERE.

Tim,

You are welcome to reply here or HERE, but if you reply to this I ask that you check out my more thorough comments in the previous post first. Also, I am asking that we move toward reconciliation, not just a cease fire where we each go our own separate ways. So hang around, we have a lot to talk about.

Too many people are involved in this, it isn’t just you and I but everyone listening and engaging in these conversations all over the place. We need to lead and model reconciliation Tim and how Christians should love each other and interacted despite perhaps great disagreement. So please check back after you reply so we can continue to work through these things.

Thank you Tim

Your brother in Christ

James Diggs