Review of the Concerned Nazarenes DVD (Part 3)

This is the third post in a five part series. This post is a continuation of the review of the Concerned Nazarene's DVD. The first post can be found here.

By Ryan Scott

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 was an interview with Mike Oppenheimer, another author and former New Age practitioner. His comments were very pragmatic in nature. This was perhaps the least well produced segment. Oppenheimer wasn’t that comfortable on camera and perhaps that nervousness led him to appear a little less together. He spoke of his conversion from New Age practices and the dangers these pose for the Church. He also spoke about how many of the things he sees and hears from emergent leaders come from the New Age literature he used to read.

This segment touched on Jon Middendorf, which was the only connection in the entire DVD to the Church of the Nazarene (aside from the short introduction). Oppenheimer mentioned he had seen or heard a few clips from Jon’s workshop at M7 and they had some audio from a podcast where Jon was speaking with Greg Horton, although Horton did all the talking. Oppenheimer commented on two statements he connected with Middendorf, one a quote from the M7 conference where Jon said, “An emerging congregation embraces the culture and expects to find God there,” and the other a comment made by Horton on the podcast that too many Christians think there was a time when people actually lived according to the Mosaic Law.

Oppenheimer was passionate and given his background as, essentially, a pawn manipulated by the New Age movement, he is rightly concerned in keeping others from the same fate. It is difficult to fault someone for such strong feelings when they have such an emotional connection. At the same time, one with such an intense connection often has difficulty gaining proper perspective to truly evaluate those experiences.

At one point Oppenheimer spoke of moving from yoga to vegetarianism to a religious sect that was essentially Satanist. He spoke as if this was a natural movement. It might be without some other accountability procedure, but it is difficult to say that it is automatic transition. He gave lip service to the idea that people could practice yoga without incorporating Hinduism into the practice, but he was unwilling to say it was possible. Again, it seemed like his personal involvement clouded his ability to judge the involvement of others in some of the same practices.

As for his dealings with Jon Middendorf, it was pretty apparent that he had little actual knowledge of who the man was and had only been given some clips on which to comment. He read almost exclusively from a note pad during this part of the interview. He also misinterpreted the statements that were used.

In the quote, “An emerging congregation embraces the culture and expects to find God there,” Oppenheimer rebutted that we should never look for God in the world around us, but find God in scripture. I agree, in principle, with the rebuttal, however perhaps the lack of context made it more difficult for Oppenheimer to understand Middendorf’s point.

I was in attendance at this conference and participated in this particular workshop. Jon was referring to prevenient grace, in that God is always at work everywhere, so when Christians get out into the world, they expect to see God already at work in some way, even if the gospel still needs to be proclaimed or light shown on those places in which God is already at work. This concept of prevenient grace is traditional Wesleyan theology. It would have been heartily affirmed by any of the founders of the Church of the Nazarene.

The second comment, that no one ever actually lived according to the law of Moses was made not by Jon, but by Greg Horton. Jon Middendorf has taken a lot of heat for befriending Horton, an intellectual who has strayed in and out of orthodoxy in his beliefs. Regardless, even in this point, Horton was simply trying to communicate that even the Jews could not live up to the Law of Moses. Oppenheimer made the same point in his rebuttal; this was again a place of mistaken context.