Another letter about the CN's

Greetings, Friends.

I am writing because I noticed that some parishioners and friends of mine have recently joined a group on Facebook called “Concerned Nazarenes” (“CNs” for short). I have been following this group – noting their message and their methods – for over a year now as they wage a misguided war on “emergent church theologies and teachings that are coming into the Nazarene church and our universities,” a claim that is overblown and based largely on ignorance, misunderstanding, and fear. I wonder if perhaps over 200 folks have joined the CNs Facebook group without a true understanding of its history, leadership, message and tactics. If so, I would like to help by filling in some facts and additional context, in light of which they might reconsider their affiliation with this group, and so those of you who haven't joined the group might avoid any affiliation altogether.

* The CNs are being driven primarily by a man who has only been a member of a Nazarene church for about 2 years; he has no biblical or theological training; he has demonstrated a pattern of chronic trouble-making and antagonism in his previous churches; yet he is a self-appointed watchdog and heresy-hunter for our entire denomination. Sadly, there are also a few faithful, well-intentioned Nazarenes who have been sucked into this effort only to find their own reputations compromised or even ruined.

* The CNs have published materials (in print and online) attacking godly, well-respected leaders in our church. They have slandered: our General Superintendents (GSs); our seminary president Ron Benefiel, who was considered for GS at our General Assembly this summer; our Nazarene Theological Seminary, where we send pastors to be trained for ministry, and most of our other Nazarene institutions of higher education; our Nazarene university presidents like Dan Boone, who has served our denomination faithfully as a pastor, teacher and now president of Trevecca; and many other noteworthy pastors and religion professors in the denomination. Their accusations are ridiculous, and have been repeatedly discredited, yet the CNs persist in these evil smear tactics.

* The Fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) are completely absent from the literature and rhetoric of the CNs, which leads one to conclude that another spirit, not the Holy Spirit of God, is at work in their efforts. Again, I have been watching this unfold for over a year, but if you don’t want to take my word for it, browse their materials, where they speak of the “spiritual demise” of our denomination, and invite others to “join the fight to throw the bums out before the Lord pours His wrath upon our denomination” – “bums” like Dan Boone and Jon Middendorf, pastor of Oklahoma City First Nazarene (and son of one of our GSs). Their message is angry, bitter, judgmental, divisive, arrogant, ugly, paranoid and based on fear. They have even stated that they don’t care about church unity – so they are acting against Jesus’ prayer that His followers might be ONE (John 17:21).

* The CNs showed up at General Assembly (GA) with no other purpose than to create problems at a gathering that should be all about unity. They hired non-Nazarenes (and even some non-Christians!) to participate in their mud-slinging, carrying signs and passing out pamphlets and DVDs on the sidewalks outside the convention center, without approval from the denomination or even alerting them. Having failed to gain any support from well-respected Nazarene leaders, they turned to para-church figures outside the Church of the Nazarene to speak on behalf of their cause. (Thankfully, from the reports of everyone I’ve spoken to who was there, their efforts at GA were largely ignored.)

* Not only are these para-church speakers not Nazarenes - which doesn't discredit them, but they are not particularly "invested" in our denomination - it seems they don’t care about the Church of the Nazarene at all. They are taking advantage of our church for their own profit. Their ministries, which are independent and not accountable to any church, are suffering right now because of the economy, so they are rushing to wherever they see sparks flying with a can of gasoline to try and turn it into a blaze. I find this incredibly offensive.

Sadly, I could go on and on, but I don’t want to waste any more time on this than I already have, and I don’t want you to either. I am confident that this very small but very vocal group will eventually just fizzle out and go away as they continue to be ignored. But in the meantime, as they continue their assault on our Church and seek to undermine our unity and our mission, I will do everything I can to ensure that their divisive message and their satanic methods do not infect our church any further, and our Xenia Naz family in particular. My intention is not to disparage the individuals involved in this group, who may have the best of intentions, but to shed light on the darkness and nastiness of the CNs and discourage my Nazarenes brothers and sisters from buying into this cancerous effort.

Not simply as a Pastor, but as a brother in Christ, I encourage you to avoid and/or sever any connection to this group. Please do not be a “Concerned Nazarene” – what they have come to represent within our denomination is something you do not want to be part of, I promise you. Instead, be a hopeful, optimistic, joy-filled Nazarene, who believes that Christ is the Head of His Body the Church, and that He will continue to lead us in the fulfillment of the work the Father has called us to do! If you have real concerns, I assure you that the doors (and inboxes and phone lines) of your pastoral staff are always open; we want to foster a culture of openness within Xenia Naz, where real concerns are expressed and discussed and taken seriously. But let’s commit to addressing our concerns and conflicts according to the Bible’s clear instructions: by approaching one another in person, with love and grace and unity, and seeking reconciliation.

In closing, let me extend an invitation. This whole “emergent/emerging” church issue is one of the most controversial but least understood subjects being discussed in our churches right now, along with some accompanying themes like “postmodernism,” “contemplative spirituality” and “mysticism,” and so on. While I have never had any association with any church or ministry that would be described as “emergent,” I have been following the discussion surrounding “emergent” for several years, on both sides of the debate. I am by no means an expert on or a spokesperson for the “emergent movement” (if it can even rightly be called a movement), but I think I can discuss this issue with a reasonable degree of competence and fairness. So if anyone is troubled by what they have heard about this whole emergent thing, I do invite your questions and am happy to discuss any of this further with anyone who might be interested.

In the peace of Christ,

Pastor Brannon Hancock
brannonhancock at xenianaz.org

mobile: 937-510-7807

CONFESSION: I PROCLAIM A DIFFERENT JESUS!

This post was originally posted to facebook. I thought that it did such an excellent job of explaining what is good and right and Nazarene about missional theology. Here was my response:

"Sign me up. My favorite part the book Wholeness in Christ is the way he ends his discussion of the Biblical witness on sanctification by talking about the Sermon on the Mount. I like how this view recognizes the inherent opportunity in the demise of Christendom not for a rejection of Jesus, but a full embrace that encompasses both the Jesus that our concerned brothers and sisters hold up along with the Jesus we see in the writing of folks like John Howard Yoder. I like the clear way that you hold the two together and that is what I see as our hope and calling. "

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

by James Petticrew
There has been a lot of talking about missional church folk presenting a different Jesus. Well I want to make a confession, as someone deeply committed to the missional church movement I do indeed present a different Jesus and will continue to do so. I present and try and follow a different Jesus from the one that the evangelical church in Christendom Europe (and I suspect America) shaped by modernism proclaimed. That Jesus was a Saviour but in practice little else. I affirm wholly and completely that Jesus is the Saviour of the world and outside Him there is no salvation. The problem is that the Christendom church presented Jesus as a Saviour but in practice ignored Him as an example and as a teacher. They wanted to be saved by Jesus but not shaped by Him. He was a Jesus who offered a heavenly reward devoid of real earthly change or challenge.

One of the things that attracted me to the missional movement was its emphasis on Jesus. There was an emphasis on Jesus as Saviour but also as teacher and example, in other words a commitment to being saved AND shaped by Christ. Stuart Murray in a book called POST-CHRISTENDOM puts the issue like this:

“Our greatest resource in post-Christendom is Jesus. … Our priority must be to rediscover how to tell the story of Jesus and present His life, teaching, death and resurrection – recognising past attempts have seriously missed the mark. We cannot continue to present Jesus only as the Saviour from guilt few feel in post-Christendom. Nor can we invite people to follow a Jesus who merely guarantees life after death to those who are otherwise comfortable or a Jesus whose Lordship affects only a limited range of personal moral decisions. We can no longer present a safe establishment Jesus who represents order and stability rather than justice, who appeals to the powerful and privileged for all the wrong reasons. Nor can we reduce Jesus to dogmatic statements in simplistic evangelistic courses or perpetuate the overemphasis on his divinity at the expense of his humanity that Christendom required.
Instead, we must present Jesus as (amongst much else) friend of sinners, good news for the poor, defender of the powerless, reconciler of communities, pioneer of a new age, freedom fighter, breaker of chains, liberator and peacemaker, the one who unmasks systems of oppression, identifies with the vulnerable and brings hope.
But if we would present Jesus in such ways to others we must encounter Jesus afresh ourselves” p316

For years I wondered how “evangelical” Christians could be involved in the Klan in the States, protestant para-militaries in Ulster and in the security forces of apartheid South Africa. I wondered how saved people’s underlying values reflected Western consumer culture so clearly. Then it struck me they had been present by Jesus whom they had been told had to save them but they had never heard about a Jesus whose shaping was equally necessary. This idea that we can be saved and remain unchanged should get an allergic reaction from those of us who are part of the Wesleyan Holiness movement who have always believed that salvation necessitated real progress in sanctification. The problem was that we defined holiness in legalistic terms, in terms of what we didn’t do instead of positively in terms of listening to and follow Jesus.

Surely the God given definition and demonstration of Holiness is Jesus? In Jesus teaching on the Sermon on the Mount we hear holiness defined and in His actions in the Gospels, embracing the least, the lonely and left out we see holiness demonstrated. This Jesus establishes the Kingdom of God by his passion and resurrection but calls on us to serve it in the here and now as well as wait for its consummation. His teaching and his actions show us what it means to live and serve that Kingdom. Yet all too often we have been content to be saved by Jesus but have resisted being shaped by Him. I call a that a different Jesus, a Jesus different from the one who I encounter in the Gospel who embraces his cross to save me but calls on me to embrace the cross to serve Him.

So I am committed to another Jesus, the Jesus who saves me but also has the right to shape me. This is the Jesus I want to proclaim and follow in word and deed. This is the Jesus I want to unleash in my life, in my church and in this world. This is the Jesus that the missional church movement has helped me rediscover if someone considers that heretical I wonder what Jesus they follow? (I would highly recommend Alan Hirsch’s RE-Jesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, on this subject)