Thanks!

Dave Felter

In one email, the writer said he was no longer going to use the term as he felt it was inflammatory, often imprecise, and failed to offer any significant usefulness as a broadly-used, but ill-defined construct.

The other email was written from a polar opposite. In that email, the author suggested that the term represented the enemy. It was the single designator that grouped the dangerous and insidious influences impacting the Church into one, well-known, frequently-used term.

So, which view is correct?

I believe the term has outlived its usefulness, if indeed, it ever had any usefulness. The term was undoubtedly poorly conceived as a catchy slogan when combined with the noun, “CHURCH.” Additionally, by having a single phrase, i.e. EMERGENT CHURCH by which to label all the deleterious impulses and trends extant in the church-world today, it should be much easier to identify “the enemy” and offer corrective suggestions.

Instead, something else has happened. With imprecision of use, and reckless distribution without proper analysis, the term gradually descended into that pile of useless terms that represent trendy and faddish slogans and phrases. So much so was this true, that progressives like Scott Daniels wrote, “The Emergent Church is dead.”

I was reminded of the first time I read Keith Drury’s article, “The Holiness Movement is Dead.” I grew up familiar with the phrase the HOLINESS MOVEMENT. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever heard anyone ever spend any significant time and energy giving that phrase the precision of definition it so richly deserved. So it was only natural that over time, given imprecision of definition and ubiquitous usage, the term began to mean little. As a catch-all, it might refer to churches and denominations in the Wesleyan tradition. Even that, however, seemed to lose effectiveness as eventually an entire sub-group developed their own moniker, the CONSERVATIVE HOLINESS MOVEMENT.

Hidden behind these examples are issues of greater significance. For me, the rallying cry to “fight the Emergent Church” makes little sense without providing more definitive, precise descriptions of what it is exactly of which we are to be wary! The examples so often identified with the so-called EMERGENT CHURCH, e.g. meditation, prayer labyrinths, Rob Bell and the NOOMA videos, Brian McLaren, et al, represent topics of interest, but without explanation, fail to communicate a relatedness to Scriptural integrity.

I’m not for substituting New-Age practices for traditional means of grace. At the same time, many of us in the Holiness Movement (take that, Keith Drury!) have developed an arrogance that implies elevated opinions of our own self-righteousness and intellect. We have found the proverbial bogey man in every innovation that is different from the way we’ve always done things.

Here’s an example. When I was growing up, we knelt for prayer. As a child, the true mark of a prayer meeting was the fact that everyone was on their knees. I read stories of David Brainerd, the great missionary, and Hudson Taylor, another great missionary, who did their work with God on their knees. Then came standing for public prayer in the morning worship service. I remember people talking about the “slippage” in the church…”We now STAND for the prayer in Morning Worship!” Then, of all things, as a pre-teen, I remember being in a worship service in a holiness church, and lo and behold…we SAT for the prayer! Unbelievable! Clearly, everyone could see the backsliding that was happening…the compromising that was going on…the Church was slipping in its devotion and holiness.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but let’s face it! Unless we define with precision, the challenges that we think we see in the 21st century church, such imprecise lamenting will fall on deaf ears. Furthermore, it may serve only to alienate and polarize good people, which, come to think of it, would be something the ENEMY of the Church of Jesus Christ would love to see!

In my next letter, I’m going to identify trends that trouble me…in the mean time, I like what my friend suggested…let’s stop using the outmoded, fuzzy, and imprecise term, the EMERGENT CHURCH. Let’s begin thinking about the critical issues. One look across the evangelical landscape will confirm your suspicions that not all is well. Please remember that a generation of new believers is watching and listening. If the best we can do is trot out warn phrases without precision, we will have generated more heat than light.

Until next time,
Grace and Peace!

David Felter

One of my favorite Nazarene scholars is Tom Oord; not because I agree with his erudite teachings, lectures, and writings, but because he is a gracious person who models the definition of love he teaches. In his recent blog by the same name above, Tom challenges his friends and colleagues with a variety of opinions. It is in the spirit of love and appreciation for Tom that I offer an alternative critique of his original article.

Tom’s first sentence begins with a problematic statement. He writes, “The Bible functions as a key resource…” I believe the Scriptures are more than a functional resource, enabling better understanding of God and life in general. Indeed, I believe the Scriptures are the very Word of God. Having said that, however, I must quickly add that the Wesleyan perspective regarding biblical inspiration excels the mechanical dictation theories from which so many of the problems Tom explores in his blog, arise.

The second problem I have with Tom’s blog is the fact that I believe he, (and others who have addressed this “problem”) have created a straw man and spend a lot of time and energy pummeling an illusory enemy. The problem begins with the definition of terms incorporated in Tom’s argument. Tom allows himself to be captured by inaccuracy and imprecision, two enemies of good theology and proficient writing. The “problem” Tom thinks he’s addressing is obscured by his unwise choice of terms: errors and inerrancy. The issue is not inerrancy but whether there are “mistakes” in the text of Scripture.

The issue Tom addresses, had he not fallen prey to the popular straw man of biblical inerrancy, could have been addressed and resolved 18 paragraphs earlier, had Tom began his missive with his section, Wesleyan Approaches to the Bible. Had Tom led with his paragraph, Symbiosis not Dictation, the problem of differing accounts, numbers, sources, etc, could have been addressed in a way that both acknowledges legitimate differences and discrepancies, while preserving the inspirational character of the Bible. Tom gives himself away, however, by admitting that for him, “the Bible functions as a key resource.” That’s like saying, Cliff Notes function as a key resource in understanding Shakespeare.

As I stated above, I am fully convinced the Wesleyan perspective regarding the inspiration of Scripture is superior to all other arguments. However, to be fair, we need to know what our Reformed and Fundamentalist sisters and brothers mean when they use the terms inerrant or inerrancy. From the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:
Article XII.

WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

If by exposing problems with biblical inerrancy, Tom means to suggest that the Bible is not free from all falsehood, fraud and deceit, then his blog takes on a different meaning. The “evidence” Tom amasses for “errors in the Bible,” (which by the way is a list that I’ve seen in various places on the Internet) seems shaky at best. Show me the attempt to express falsehood, fraud, or deceit in any of this evidence!

I believe the writers of Holy Scripture were truly human vessels through whom the Holy Spirit communicated the written Word of God. But like all “eye-witnesses” differences occur in perspective, memory, and recall. In fact, things like the time of day or the reference of a quotation are both elements in which the best minds in the world sometimes get confused. Tom renounces the sovereignty of God, yet he creates a situation in which because there are discrepancies and even mistakes, he is free to extrapolate to the position that the Bible is not inerrant, it is indeed full of errors.

Our Reformed/Fundamentalist friends believe, “Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called infallible and inerrant. These negative terms have a special value, for they explicitly safeguard crucial positive truths.” (Quoted from the Chicago Statement)

As Wesleyans we should not go so far as to state unequivocally that there are no mistakes in the Bible for the following reasons:

1. We do not possess the originals

2. Copyists through the ages have handed down the Scriptures through painstaking labor, lovingly applied and with the utmost care for accuracy and precision.

3. Mistakes, even some perpetuated in longevity, are intrinsically different from falsehood, fraud, and deceit, and as such, reflect not on the Bible as God’s Word, but acknowledge the gracious of divine accommodation by using human instruments guided by the Holy Spirit for both the transmission and preservation of God’s Written Word.

There are legitimate responses to the 10 so-called errors Tom sees in the Bible. These responses can catalogued as follows:

1. There are the differences of perspective utilized by the human author. This is endemic to the craft of writing and enriches the content by providing windows into the character and complexity of the author by offering readers access to multi-faceted elements the author is describing.

2. There are human mistakes due to the frailty of memory, recall, and hearing. The presence of such mistakes have nothing to do with the inspiration of the Scripture, but only reveal the graciousness of God who entrusted his communication to human conduits without varnishing them or robbing them of their unique personality, individuality, and even their fallibility.

3. In the error Oord lists as #8, Tom has obviously either copied this “error” from the work of someone else, or he spent too little time with the actual texts of the Bible. He references 2 Sam. 24:1-2 and I Chron. 21:1-2. In one text, the writer notes the “anger of the Lord burned against Israel.” In 1 Chron. the writer notes, “Satan rose up against Israel.” The common theme in play here is the fact that Israel is not in spiritual fellowship with the Lord God. Could it be that Satan is described as the instrument of God’s anger against His people in one passage, while in the other passage, no reference is made to an instrumental cause, but rather to the immediate condition of the divine-human relationship in which God’s anger is unleashed? Citing these as polar opposites stems from the absence of examination of the text.

4. Oord fails to recognize the Middle Eastern penchant for hyperbole when he accuses Jesus of not knowing the real size of a mustard seed. Seeing this as an “error” requires a willful dismissal of an acknowledged Middle Eastern practice, and focuses on a technicality born of a desire to “find” errors when there is only hyperbole for the sake of emphasis. We engage such practices everyday in our communications with others.

5. Tom also fails to recognize that not all details are alike. In the observation about Judas’ death, he juxtaposes two accounts to contrive what he thinks is erroneous reporting on the part of the biblical authors. Both descriptions of Judas’ final end are compatible; one may have offered more detail than the other. In the end, Judas destroyed himself in an act of inconsolable grief and guilt.

Oord writes, “Honesty demands that I be frank about this fact (that there are errors in the Bible).” One could only hope that such honesty would be accompanied by the precision of scholarship for which Dr. Oord is well-known!

In conclusion, Dr. Oord has fallen prey to the popular practice of seeking to discredit the very book he professes to respect by suggesting the presence of numerous errors within its contents. This is unfortunate, for Dr. Oord and others like him, are making an “apples-to-oranges” comparison. Error in the biblical sense always means, “A wandering, a straying about; one led astray from the right way; one who roams hither and thither. As a metaphor, it denotes mental straying; wrong opinion relative to morals or religion; it means error which shows itself in action, a wrong mode of acting; it is error which leads into error, deceit or fraud.”

No one is suggesting the Church of the Nazarene should move away from its Wesleyan theological roots, so beautifully articulated by the late Dr. H. Orton Wiley in his monumental work in Systematic Theology and Article IV of our Articles of Faith. The challenge we face, however, is the subtle intrusion of a new liberalism that is chipping away, bit-by-bit, creating space for de-construction, de-mythologizing, and revisionist forces that are challenging “the faith, once delivered to the saints!” Straw men have frightened the faithful, giving rise to growing reluctance to engage the Scriptural vocabulary of words like inspiration, justification, sanctification, disconnecting them from important modifiers like inerrant, saved, and entire. But, I digress!

Grace and Peace,
Dave Felter

Over 200 years have past and the Church continues to sing this glorious hymn. One may ask, “Can we still sing this song given the unsettling winds of change that seem to be blowing across the ecclesial landscape?”

There can be little doubt that the inauguration of the 21st century has been a time of change in the Christian Church. Phyllis Tickle in her work, “The Great Emergence,” has described what she believes is a seminal moment in the life of the Christian Church. She has characterized what she sees occurring in the Church this way:

What is happening is really based on a 500 year cycle in which the Church, “holds a rummage sale and decides what to keep and what to let go.”
She sees the new expression of the Church as “radically Jesus-oriented.”
It is a communal experience, with the more radical elements even opting for monastic-like experiences.

She sees this movement as both post-denomination and even post-Protestant.
Additionally, she sees this as a virtual reality, incorporating technology and the Internet.
She notes that there is a lessening of “religious particularity” and religious exclusivism.
Those who are pursuing this movement are discovering their cues from the first three centuries of the Primitive Christian Church.

Now, some of this is not terribly new information. Episcopal Bishop Mark Dyer was one of the first to see any connection between the “great emergence” and the so-called 500 year cycles. Critics of such claims, including our own denominational archivist, Dr. Stan Ingersol, remind us that the choices made by such observers of the Church History are selective and arbitrary in the events by which they reckon such 500 year cycles. In other words there are other assumptions that could be made depending on how one choses to inaugurate and tally such cycles.

For Nazarenes, such claims should not prove unsettling for a variety of reasons. Observers of any phenomena can describe that phenomena in any manner they wish. Indeed, descriptions will vary and must never be counted on to provide the final, trustworthy criteria by which evaluation is declared as absolute.

The uncritical assumption that something must be true because there are many voices discussing it, will indubitably lead to fuzzy conclusions, based more on the wisdom of the crowd, and not anchored to that ancient foundation which undergirds the faith. The very terms, Emergent, emerging, or emergence, are examples of words co-opted by some for the purpose of providing some category by which discussions, conversations, and even practices may quantified. We have witnessed many examples of this practice!

The truth is, that in the Church of the Nazarene the foundations of faith remain firmly anchored to the Rock, Christ Jesus. If some think the, “great emergence” is radically Jesus-centered, they have forgotten our history and do not know the current narrative of our global church. Radical Christian discipleship, where the price is often exacted in blood and persecution, flourishes in those places where the Gospel has been muted or silenced. The curriculum writers providing educational material for new believers, children of our families, youth and adults, provide the Church of the Nazarene with Jesus-centered material to strengthen and focus Christian discipleship. Compassionate ministry volunteers, food servers in city rescue missions, and thousands of Nazarenes are involving and investing themselves in Jesus-centered ministry.

Many Nazarenes are aware of the slippery definitions often associated with the Emergent church. In point of fact, there is little uniform agreement on what is the Emergent church. Simply put, to many of us, the Emergent church is a wide-open frontier where people selectively read the Scriptures, making their own determination as to what is authoritative, and what can be scuttled. It passes for an arena of freedom to dispense with protocols under the guise of recovering the lost essence of the original Church, while allowing some wholly new form of the Church to be born.

Some of us believe that there is a significant difference between the Emergent group and emerging churches. Sadly, some in the Emergent group have messed with the message. They have started down the road of compromise, eliminating the “useless” baggage of “religious particularity.” The jettisoning of critical content may lighten the load of such churches, and even create a temporary euphoria of false freedom. In the end, however, these choices prove to be liabilities. The solid rock of biblical authority has been exchanged for the shifting sands of relativism, the diminishment of the Deity, and the subtle seduction of other narratives that appeal to carnal minds.

Emerging churches can recognize the non-negotiable elements of their historic faith, preserving them, internalizing them, and living them out in the world they serve. Emerging churches can adapt their methodologies for a changing culture without tossing Scriptural truths to the winds of change. Some Nazarene churches are boldly challenging the culture by acknowledging the poverty of unexamined practices and adjusting their praxis to speak to the culture. They remain steadfastly committed to the faith of the Bible and the theological statements of the Church of the Nazarene, while creatively exploring fresh ways of being the Church in the 21st century world.

The preservation of orthodoxy does not mitigate against the options of variant methodologies. Every congregation faces the challenge of change. Every congregation will ultimately have to examine its style. The substance can remain unchanged, for it is premised upon the authority of Scripture, not the changing winds of culture.

Experimentation can reveal new strengths and strategies for making Christlike disciples. No congregation is exempt from the fissures of volcanic social milieus. Change can be embraced simultaneously while remaining firmly committed to the foundations of faith.

The Church of the Nazarene revealed a level of genius over a century ago when it expressed the non-negotiable elements of biblical faith in eight (8) simple yet profound statements found in our MANUAL:

Agreed Statement of Belief

26. Recognizing that the right and privilege of persons to church membership rest upon the fact of their being regenerate, we would require only such avowals of belief as are
essential to Christian experience. We, therefore, deem belief in the following brief statements to be sufficient.

We believe:

26.1. In one God—the Father,Son,and Holy Spirit.
26.2. That the Old and New Testament Scriptures, given by plenary inspiration, contain all truth necessary to faith and Christian living.
26.3. That man is born with a fallen nature, and is, therefore,inclined to evil,and that continually.
26.4. That the finally impenitent are hopelessly and eternally lost.
26.5. That the atonement through Jesus Christ is for the whole human race; and that whosoever repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is justified and regenerated and saved from the dominion of sin.
26.6. That believers are to be sanctified wholly, subsequent to regeneration, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
26.7. That the Holy Spirit bears witness to the new birth, and also to the entire sanctification of believers.
26.8. That our Lord will return, the dead will be raised, and the final judgment will take place.

Many Nazarene congregations will recognize that these statements, far from being a millstone inhibiting innovation and creativity, encourage them to explore the opportunities presented in a changing environment. Compassion, social justice, and holiness were common components of Bresee’s ministry and many of our earliest Nazarene ministries. Tapping the interest of the young in giving back to their communities and working for justice offers the Spirit-led congregation favorable venues for preaching and teaching Scriptural truths so beautifully and economically stated in our Agreed Statement of Belief.

We shall steadfastly resist any and all attempts to undermine these beliefs. We shall resist those efforts that seek to retain the vocabulary while stripping away the biblical meaning and essence of these beliefs. At the same time, we shall acknowledge the courageous work of Nazarene pioneers engaging a virtual world, energizing a justice-seeking generation, and encourage their continuance in the faith, “once delivered to the saints.”

Grace and Peace,
Dave Felter

Friends, when I began sending these emails out, I didn’t realize the number of interested people who were out there and how strong the level of interest was. Your responses have been extremely gratifying. To know of your interest and commitment to the faithful doctrines and theology of our beloved Church of the Nazarene is truly encouraging.

A couple of friends who have responded with comments have not only encouraged me, but they have showed me where better precision of language might be helpful. So, before I get too far down the road, I thought it might be helpful to respond to their comments with more robust explanations that might unpack my comments.

Using the previous post, I selected nine sections that I would like to amplify, offering a more detailed perspective of what I see extant in not just some areas of our church, but with the whole of Protestant, Evangelical church tradition.

1. First, I used the phrase, the slippery definitions often associated with the Emergent church.

I do not want to leave the impression that just because a church is searching for new and effective means of communicating the Gospel or incorporating people in both the experience of worship and the communal life of the church, that it is an Emergent Church. In fact, this is exactly what makes discernment so important. I wouldn’t for the life of me, imply that this church or that church or pastor is a part of the Emergent Church movement. The EM movement is so dynamic that it is next to impossible to definitively label or identify it with certainty. This is possible because wordsmithing allows us to incorporate terms, even definitions that have often been reinvested with different content. This is what I mean by slippery definitions. Error, even heresy is never born full form. It usually begins with enough orthodoxy to deceive the unsuspecting. When listening to definitions, the old, but effective maxim will always prove true: always define your terms.

2. I also used the phrase, where people selectively read the Scriptures, making their own determination as to what is authoritative. Recently, I’ve become more aware of the fact that when we talk of the authority of Scripture, not everyone in the conversation agrees with a single, comprehensive definition of Scriptural authority. For some fundamentalists, Scriptural authority is based on a mechanical dictation theory that implies that God simply took over the writing instruments in the hands of the human writers, bypassing their experiences, intellectual insights, and personal spirituality. In this scenario, the human writer offers nothing other than a willing hand by which God records the divine message.

For others, Scriptural authority means almost the polar opposite. To them, the Scriptures are metaphorical, even mythical. They believe these stories and myths become inspired metaphors from which we the reader draw comfort, instruction, and example. Many of these folks do not believe that Scriptures are inspired as they stand alone in the library of 66 books, accessed by the faithful over the centuries of Christian faith. Instead, they believe that the Scriptures are authoritative and inspired only when they are read in the context of the Community of faith.

There are at least five problems associated with these examples. First, for the fundamentalist, Scripture must be inerrant which means without error. Secondly, the fundamentalist believes the Scriptures must be understood literally, These assumptions pose challenges that have to be reconciled with reality. This means going to great lengths to explain how there are some conflicting descriptions, differences in numbers and sequences, and even differences in interpretation within the Body of Scripture itself. Thirdly, the liberal interpretations rob the Scripture of a timeless, consistent, and dependable core of understanding that is true in every time and in every place. Fourthly, the liberal interpretation places the onus of both interpreting and communicating the message of Scripture in the hands of a collective group, subject to consensus and change. This minimizes the role of the Holy Spirit to communicate the divine message directly, without mediation, to the mind and heart of individual believers. Fifthly, determining what is to be accepted as divine revelation, expressed in history, and reliable in character, is undermined by discarding the tradition of the Christian Church over time, and superimposing on the Scriptural message, interpretations born in the heart and mind of man. Reading the Bible as literature, even accepting a level of inspiration, is not unlike believing that Shakespeare is the author of inspired literature.

Finally, there is a relativism to which I referred when I used the phrase: the shifting sands of relativism. When the Scriptures are either enshrined in the literalism of fundamentalism’s bibliolatry or diminished in the compromise of metaphorical myths the only possible methodology with which to engage the Scriptures is relativism. Consider this claim: Passages of Scripture describing God’s instructions to the Israelites to “utterly destroy” their enemies, are inconsistent with the teaching of Jesus to love your enemies. Literalists must reconstruct ways to qualify such instructions in order to harmonize them with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. At the same time, a liberal interpretation, ignores the historical context, and may even deny the historicity of the story, while seizing a “value” worthy of examination. Both have fallen prey to the temptation to make their own determination as to what is authoritative.

We believe in the full (plenary) inspiration of Scripture, and that it is “inerrant” or without error, in all things pertaining to our salvation. When I read that God instructed the Israelites to utterly destroy even the children of their enemies, I must adopt an attitude of intellectual humility and admit that I do not understand all that surrounds that story. It is neither my duty to “explain” God, nor is it my option to explain away the hard sayings of the Scripture. It is enough for me to live daily confronting the divine revelation made perfect in the Living Word, our Lord Jesus and attested to in the Written Word of the Sacred Scripture.

3. Thirdly, I used the phrases, some in the Emergent group have messed with the message and the jettisoning of critical content…I simply meant that rarely do I hear the description of humankind’s true plight: we are lost in sin! Some of my friends no longer believe that the Church is for anyone or anything other than the nurture and encouragement of the Christians. I believe the Church is both a laboratory for developing holy lifestyles in an unholy world and a soul-saving station; a lighthouse, if you will. The Biblical message which is the repository of faith that has been given to the Church, the Body of Christ, contains the good news of Jesus, the Cross, redemption, and resurrection. It also contains the truth: all have sinned and come up short! There is no one who naturally does good. Original sin is a reality and there are some things in this world that can only be explained by understanding this fundamental concept: Everyone is born with their back toward God. Any church that neglects the full-orbed presentation of both the gospel of redemption as well as the nurture of faith development-in-community, has messed with the message. This can only be true because some congregations and preachers have jettisoned or cast off critical content. Some of the most inspirational speakers in the Christian world, have the capability of inspiring people without leading them to the blunt edge of unchanging truth. Too often, however, they minimize the heart-breaking reality that original sin is not just a reality, it lurks within, contaminating and poisoning even the well of faith until it is cleansed by the sanctifying blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. While I have addressed the phrase biblical authority elsewhere, some further elaboration may be in order. The Bible, read in a proper, Wesleyan manner, elucidates the situation in which humankind finds itself. I deeply appreciate the insights of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, and even theology! In truth, however, I believe we must begin with the Scripture in order to elaborate the true condition of humankind. We can even extrapolate from the Sacred Word to the problems of society and the world in general. The post-modern temptation to begin with each other’s story, may be interesting but cannot be adequately depended upon to sustain a faith community with any degree of spiritual depth. The authority of Scripture must be recognized as the divine prerogative that can probe and judge both individuals and churches!

5. I used the phrase, the diminishment of the Deity because I see a lot of “open theism” and “process theology” cropping up in the dialogue of clergy education. Both open theism and process theology diminish God. In the former, God does not know the future because he divested himself of such knowledge in order to reach humankind. In the former, God does not possess unique attributes because he is a contingent being needing a relationship with others in order to ensure his own continued existence. What’s more, creation, in process theology, is co-terminous with God. This means that God cannot exist unless he is in relationship with creation. This is complicated, but I think it illustrates my charge that such thinking has the long term effect of diminishing the traditional, biblical understanding of God and therefore diminishes Him.

7. I also referred to the subtle seduction of other narratives that appeal to carnal minds. Admittedly, this sounds like “code.” What I meant is this: some of the Emergent thinking that I’ve encountered leaves the door open to other religious traditions under the rubric of “prevenient grace.” While we agree with Wesley’s emphasis on prevenient grace, I don’t believe that Wesley or the Scripture writers ever intended that we should infer God’s redemptive presence in the narratives of other world religions. That probably sounds judgmental of me, but I believe in the absolute exclusivity of Jesus and the message of the Cross. I believe in humility and respect when it comes to engaging other religious traditions. But please don’t ask me to infer the redemptive message of the biblical gospel in the narratives and stories of other, non-Christian religions.

8. Finally, I wrote, Some Nazarene churches are boldly challenging the culture by acknowledging the poverty of unexamined practices and adjusting their praxis to speak to the culture, steadfastly committed to the faith of the Bible and the theological statements of the Church of the Nazarene, while creatively exploring fresh ways of being the Church in the 21st century world. I meant this as a compliment to those Nazarene clergy and churches that are taking on amphibious roles: they have one foot anchored firmly in the traditions, theology, and trajectory of the Church of the Nazarene, and another testing the waters of post-modern culture with an eye to finding their voice to a new generation. I also meant it as a cautionary warning: some of the new practices especially in the area of worship, may prove to be passing fads and empty trends. At the same time, the seven-last-words of the Church, “We’ve always done it that way before,” could prove disastrous to the life-expectancy of many congregations who are hanging on to out-moded expressions, schedules, and methods.

Your comments, even those critical of what I write, are most welcome. May God keep his hand upon the helm of our beloved Zion.

Grace and Peace,
Dave Felter

From the Scriptures it is clear that without the authoritative base of the divinely inspired, Scripturally-based message, the church rests on the unstable sands of human opinion, unexamined traditions, and speculative strategies. When these three elements are examined, it is clear that much of what is transpiring in our faith communities, exhibits instability because we pursue one or more of these elements.

The unstable sands of human opinion are often substituted for the rock-like stability of the Scriptures. When a theological pebble drops into the sea of organized religion and its multitude of congregations and denominations, eventually the ripples wash against every element in the sea. The impact of Liberation Theology is but one example. It has transmitted a wave that broke hard against many of the mainline denominations in their missions work around the world, especially when dealing with under-developed cultures and third-world areas. This theology is the result of human efforts to combine the insights of Karl Marx and the teachings of Jesus, to express a message of cultural change generally, and fighting poverty specifically even to the point of fomenting attempted revolution. The end result of this theological wave, was the politicization of the Gospel message. The Church of the Nazarene is far removed from the epicenter of the initial disturbance, but the wavelet of the impulse to marry the message of Jesus to a strategy of social justice has taken on political and theological dimensions. It continues with the message of environmental justice, eco-theologies, etc. The upshot of this one example of theology-by-human-opinion has been both alarming and insidious to the Christian Church.

For one thing, the focus on sin shifted from the sins of individuals to the institutional sins of society, often referred to as ’systemic evil.’ We often hear the term coined by the ‘father’ of Liberation Theology, Gustavo Guiterrez, “preferential option for the poor.” The result of the ‘leavening’ wrought upon the Christian church vis-a-vis Liberation Theology has been the politicization of the Gospel resulting in a preoccupation with social and economic justice over salvation from sin. This is obvious because the nature and definition of sin has been changed by the liberationists. Hence, sin is social rather than individual, and poverty is the single greatest expression of sin. Thus, fighting poverty and the systems of economic injustice that allegedly contribute to it, is given the lion’s share of attention.

The intrusion of unexamined traditions has brought confusion to many in the traditional holiness churches. ChurchAlert Ministries will continue to examine the traditions that are being appealed to in order to help our laity discern the truth. Admittedly, our church (the Church of the Nazarene) is the product of the 19th and 20th century revivals that swept Methodism and other Christian churches. At the same time, our spiritual roots have sunk deeply into the “believer’s church” tradition. A good definition of the Believer’s church is this: “The term ‘believers church’ has come into use in the past century and a half to designate that church tradition as such, and those denominations and congregations in particular, that baptize Christian believers on the basis of their personal confession of faith and insist on voluntary church membership.” (Helmut Harder]

While we believe in freedom of worship and expression of devotion to, and the worship of God. We are not a liturgical church. Neither are we to embrace those forms of worship that pander to fleshly interests and desires, generating the heat of emotion without the penetrating power of Holy Spirit conviction. We rejoice in the orderly yet free worship that we have the privilege of enjoying in our local churches. Our prayer is that the simplicity of our worship will always be maintained in order that the freedom of the Holy Spirit to minister to the people will never be diminished. How many times have we felt the nearness of God’s presence in a worship service, when that awareness was almost shut off like a switch because of our hurried pursuit of the next item on the agenda of public worship!

Evangelism must never be exchanged for speculative strategies in the hopes of elevating the appeal of the church to those who have been blinded by the inventive genius of this world system. We must do everything we can to witness to lost people. We must do all we can to increase the attraction of lost and broken people to our churches. We must attend to the ports of entry through which the unconverted, the lost, and the broken can be exposed to the transforming, redeeming message of Christ crucified, resurrected, and anticipated to return! Ports of entry into the church are critically important. Programs that engage every age and ministries to as wide a variety of needs and interests are key investments in pre-evangelism. Evangelism, however, must not be neglected or else those entering the ports of entry into our fellowships will have only been inoculated with just enough exposure to the message of Jesus, as to develop an immunity to its convicting, ultimately transforming appeal.

Hosea 4:6 states:
**My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. (KJV)
**My people are ruined because they don’t know what’s right or true. (The Message)
**My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. (NIV)

Grace and Peace!

Dave Felter

Are you puzzled by what you hear and read about the “new” church? Do you have that nagging sensation that something isn’t quite the same but you just can’t quite put your finger on it? Well, you’re not alone. If you’ve grown up in the church, taking the message for granted, accustomed to hearing sermons that seemed straightforward, you may be in for some interesting times ahead. The sermons you’ll be hearing aren’t going to sound the same. You’ll notice some of the old familiar vocabulary, but you will notice that it’s being used in a new and different way. Welcome to the Postmodern church.

It’s not just the music that has changed, or the format of the services. The change is more than just a rearrangement of the church furniture. The difference between the church many of us grew up in, or came to faith in and the Postmodern church is subtle, nuanced, and above all, significant.

To understand the Postmodern church, a very brief primer is in order. To that end, therefore, let’s consider some of the very basic elements of a Postmodern faith.
The old (or what many now call the modern) church stressed belief, based on the Scriptures, the tradition of the church, the reasonableness of faith, and the cumulative experience of the faithful down through the ages of time. In our tradition, we called that the Wesleyan quadrilateral. Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience; these were the four corner stones on which the faith and experience of the church rested for many years. John Wesley may not have been the first to appeal to these elements, but he framed them as important elements of his theology and they have served the holiness churches well as they have navigated both the criticism of the skeptic as well as the sincere doubt of true believers.

In the Postmodern church, belief no longer counts as much as community does in the new church. The modern (old) church stressed believe and become. The Postmodern church stresses become, and then believe. Indeed, the whole notion of belief is not emphasized at all.

Below are starting points for the Postmodern church:

Ask questions. While we all believe in the validity of questioning, Postmodern churches sacralize the process of questioning, discarding, and deconstructing. Certainty is not valued by postmoderns as much as it is by moderns. The interested seeker is not being enticed to a particular belief system, but is being invited to a community of fellow journey-ers.

Hope is God’s word to the world. This is good news, and nothing nearly as foreboding as the message that every one has sinned and falls short of the glory of God. No one should misunderstand this. The modern church also emphasized the good news, but made no effort to hide the fact that the “good news” is exactly that because it is in the face of the truth of humankind’s lostness that Christ’s offer of loving reconciliation is such incredible news. The Postmodern church anchors the message to something fresh, and highly desirable in a world where real hope seems in such short supply. The hope it holds out to humankind is not “pie in the sky, when you die.” It’s hope that together, we can bring in the change that will make the world a better place for everyone.

The kingdom of God is clearly a cooperative effort between God and humankind. The modern church often spoke of evangelism as though it could be diagrammed by using the arms of the cross to demonstrate the fact that Jesus’ death bridged the gap between lost humanity and the justice and holiness of God, and that it was God’s incredible grace and love that arranged this miracle in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Postmodern church may intuitively recognize this, but neglects to articulate it. Instead, the Postmodern church suggests the kingdom of God can be established if we’ll all lock hearts and arms and begin working to bring it about.

The critical elements of the kingdom are simply, loving, creating space, and reaching out to the marginalized. No one can deny that these three values are indeed elements inherent in the message of divine grace. Love begins in the heart of God for those who have fallen from the original position of righteousness so beautifully described in the Garden Story. The love of God knew no limits. Jesus emptied himself of all that was rightfully his in order to take upon himself the form of humankind, bear its sin, and bring reconciliation between God and man. That’s real love. The Postmodern church also believes in the love of God. The emphasis, however, shifts from the vertical to a more horizontal emphasis. While this is intrinsically good, we understand the command to love our neighbor as ourselves best when we first learn to love God with our whole being.

Traditional Christian churches look at the triad of loving, creating space, and reaching out to the marginalized, as evidence of our conversion. These are understood to be “good works” that the people of God engage as the fruit of their discipleship. The Postmodern church begins with these virtues, calling followers to these ideals, challenging them to express them in a variety of ways. Such ways might include simplicity of life to intentional living that seeks to be in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized.

The traditional church shares a biblical concern that something as mysterious as what the theologians call “original sin” can inhibit and even distort our best efforts to live the Christ-life. The traditional church describes this essential problem as inbred sin or the inner pollution of our sin nature. The New Testament describes it as the flesh as opposed to the Spirit. The Postmodern church does not address this issue frequently if ever.

Christians are agents of God using hope to participate in building the kingdom. Here is a very obvious difference, at least for the Christian having grown up in the traditional church, between much of the modern church and the Postmodern church. Whereas the modern church spoke often of evangelism, the “e” word seldom occurs in the vocabulary of the Postmodern church. Postmoderns who do not accept meta-narratives, also reject confrontational evangelism. The Billy Graham crusades were examples of the modern church’s belief in the necessity of calling people to decision, often citing the Old Testament words of Joshua, “Choose this day, whom you will serve.” Graham’s international radio program was appropriately named, “The Hour of Decision.”

The Postmodern church eschews confrontation of any kind. It prefers instead the dictum attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Share the gospel; if necessary, use words.” The compassionate ministry effort of the Postmodern church, while wonderfully refreshing, is the new evangelism. It is not the hour of decision, but it is the Church and its people as agents of hope. The goal is not decisions, but simply to do good in the name of Jesus.
Participation in hope, according to the new church, is how we enter a new relationship with God. While the traditional church often spoke of “conversions” the Postmodern church looks beyond the narrowness of such experiences and invites participation in that which gives hope to the hopeless, the discouraged, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized. Hope is given through hospitality, hence making space for the last and the least among us. It is in this participation, according to proponents of the new church, that we enter into a new relationship with God.

The traditional church, while not denying this, emphasized the significance of intentionality of discipleship by inviting all to receive Christ in a personal conversion experience. The Scriptural definition of salvation, “by grace through faith,” was emphasized in the context of conviction, repentance, faith, and obedience. The “rites of passage” were celebrated by the modern church, e.g. the altar experience, baptism, entire sanctification, growth in grace, etc. The Postmodern church is less interested in such “rituals.”

The ‘prayer of the kingdom,’ not the way of the cross is seen as the initial starting point for the Postmodern church. The modern church believed in the prayer of the kingdom, but saw it against the context of a conversion experience that is intimated in the teachings of Jesus. Working to bring in the kingdom is really the vocation of the saved, not the altruistic endeavors of people who have yet to meet the Christ of Calvary. The Postmodern church does not emphasize “privatized redemption” or “privatized piety.” The modern church believed in a heaven to gain, and a hell to shun. The Postmodern church is not sure about either. There is little to no reference to heaven in the Postmodern community. Rather, there is a belief that we are most like Jesus when we are working with him to bring in the kingdom. And we do that by loving, making space, and reaching out to the marginalized.

In Postmodern churches the prayer of the kingdom (the Lord’s prayer) is emphasized as the descriptive pattern for the new church. No one would disagree with this assessment. The challenge for many Christians is the fact that the cross of Christ is the inescapable scandal that stands between the pride of mankind and the wrath and justice of God. The Lord’s Prayer anticipates the Cross by intimating that the kingdom cannot come into our hearts and lives until all competing kingdoms have been subdued and conquered by the consuming love of God expressed through the suffering of our redeeming Savior and the baptizing presence of the Holy Spirit.

The cross is reinterpreted in terms of a ‘vocational call’ rather than a redemptive event that challenged the principalities and powers of darkness. The Postmodern church has not totally forgotten the cross. Indeed, it has invested the cross with new meaning, more focused on relationships especially those with and in the community-at-large. As a “vocational call” the Postmodern church challenges its participants to join the world in its suffering, its disenfranchisement, and its marginalization. It emphasizes the belief that Jesus is not necessarily to be found exclusively on a bloody cross where an eternal transaction that secures the propitiation of humanity’s sin and the restoration of our broken fellowship with our Creator God is effected. Instead, the call of the cross is to join the suffering and there discovering the “hidden” Jesus in the faces, lives, and experiences of suffering people.

The modern church would not deny that the intimation of Jesus can be seen in the suffering of the innocent, the calamity of the unsuspecting, and the brokenness of the oppressed. We would go further, however, and state our conviction that everything begins at the cross, for it is there that we encounter God in his fullness; love, holiness, justice, and mercy. We would state, with conviction, that it is only after we have experienced the cross ourselves, that we are able to journey with Jesus back out into the world, redeemed, empowered, and ready to bear witness to him and for him.

In conclusion, we cannot say that our friends in the Postmodern church are any less Christian than those of us nurtured in a biblical, traditional faith setting. We can learn much of the compassion of Jesus and the grace of loving, creating space, and reaching out to the marginalized. In return, we would hope that the Postmodern church would learn that good works in order to effect transformation of both the inhabitants of earthly kingdoms as well as those of the community on the journey, begin with the invasive power of God’s transforming grace through personal faith.

Grace and peace!

Dave Felter

So, I am going to include the six pieces I’ve written to date here on IdeaBridges. I’ve been using the name ChurchAlert! to identify these pieces. I will begin with the first one in this post, and then offer the other five is successive posts.

Please feel free to comment. Obviously, not all will agree with my perspective. I do hope, however, that all will recognize the fact that I love the Church and want to be a positive voice that cares deeply about it’s potential as well as its future.

Please watch this site for ChurchAlert.

Grace and peace,

Dave Felter

WSJ - August 13, 2010

by BRETT MCCRACKEN

‘How can we stop the oil gusher?” may have been the question of the summer for most Americans. Yet for many evangelical pastors and leaders, the leaking well is nothing compared to the threat posed by an ongoing gusher of a different sort: Young people pouring out of their churches, never to return.

As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the Christian establishment.

Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.

Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they have done wrong (why didn’t megachurches work to attract youth in the long term?) and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members engaged in the life of the church.

Increasingly, the “plan” has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called “the emerging church”—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too “let’s rethink everything” radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate Christianity’s image and make it “cool”—remains.

There are various ways that churches attempt to be cool. For some, it means trying to seem more culturally savvy. The pastor quotes Stephen Colbert or references Lady Gaga during his sermon, or a church sponsors a screening of the R-rated “No Country For Old Men.” For others, the emphasis is on looking cool, perhaps by giving the pastor a metrosexual makeover, with skinny jeans and an $80 haircut, or by insisting on trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed materials. Then there is the option of holding a worship service in a bar or nightclub (as is the case for L.A.’s Mosaic church, whose downtown location meets at a nightspot called Club Mayan).

“Wannabe cool” Christianity also manifests itself as an obsession with being on the technological cutting edge. Churches like Central Christian in Las Vegas and Liquid Church in New Brunswick, N.J., for example, have online church services where people can have a worship experience at an “iCampus.” Many other churches now encourage texting, Twitter and iPhone interaction with the pastor during their services.

But one of the most popular—and arguably most unseemly—methods of making Christianity hip is to make it shocking. What better way to appeal to younger generations than to push the envelope and go where no fundamentalist has gone before?

Sex is a popular shock tactic. Evangelical-authored books like “Sex God” (by Rob Bell) and “Real Sex” (by Lauren Winner) are par for the course these days. At the same time, many churches are finding creative ways to use sex-themed marketing gimmicks to lure people into church.

Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia, created a website called yourgreatsexlife.com to pique the interest of young seekers. Flamingo Road Church in Florida created an online, anonymous confessional (IveScrewedUp.com), and had a web series called MyNakedPastor.com, which featured a 24/7 webcam showing five weeks in the life of the pastor, Troy Gramling. Then there is Mark Driscoll at Seattle’s Mars Hill Church—who delivers sermons with titles like “Biblical Oral Sex” and “Pleasuring Your Spouse,” and is probably the first and only pastor I have ever heard say the word “vulva” during a sermon.

But are these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to church? Is this what people really come to church for? Maybe sex sermons and indie- rock worship music do help in getting people in the door, and maybe even in winning new converts. But what sort of Christianity are they being converted to?

In his book, “The Courage to Be Protestant,” David Wells writes:”The born-again, marketing church has calculated that unless it makes deep, serious cultural adaptations, it will go out of business, especially with the younger generations. What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.

“And the further irony,” he adds, “is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them.”

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that “cool Christianity” is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

Mr. McCracken’s book, “Hipster Christianity: Where Church and Cool Collide” (Baker Books) was published this month.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575355311122648100.html

I’ve often told my children, “Always be aware of your surroundings.” Obviously, that can be interpreted in many different ways. It’s pretty good advice when you are in unfamiliar settings. It’s also good advice when you find yourself sorting through the cacophony of opposing messages, free advice, and “woulda, shoulda, coulda” prescriptions.

On this Tuesday when the media will focus on the elections of a few officials, listen for the story that’s not being reported. You’ve already noticed that change is afoot. You’ve heard the pundits, the skeptics, and the soap-box orators. Many people are attempting to draw the lines in the sand for you. Take the stories that you’ll hear, see and read and ask: “If I were covering this story, what is the point I would wish to make?”

The terrible thing about today’s world is an ugly reality that doesn’t get enough coverage: while the opposing teams claim victory, tout their superiority, and slam the opposition, the real game continues. The oil is still spilling. Freedom is still challenged. And the future still awaits the sculpting hand of the optimist.

Be ready to do good today!

Peace!
Dave Felter