Levi's Second Reply
by Levi Hamilton
Friends,
I agree with Wade that the Nazarenes are still young. Much like American ambivolence as people are amazed that anybody not an American would hate us, but we as Americans are also young. Typically, as the obnoxiuos rich teenager of world commerce, we stick our nose where we shouldn't, and then make a mess of things that don't really have that much to do with us, as well as all the lying that goes on...no wonder we aren't taken seriously, but as the rich young man always buys dinner, everybody will be our friend to our face (while they are hungry at least). The Nazarenes were started by some highschool grads, not Ivy League Alumni, and so I guess we should be patient as to their understanding of educational importance and ecclesial history.
I also agree that the Manual is lacking. After doing an analysis of the grammer in class one can quickly see that the problems in language and the lack of certain important material cause the manual to be only satisfactory. Once again this can be attributed to youth and ignorance. The articles of faith go from the Trinity (which at least they start here) and skips God the Father to go on to Jesus and then the Holy Spirit. One could argue that God the Father is identified under the Article of the Trinity, but this does not adequately portray that God is three in one. Next is scripture, which I don't know if it should follow God, maybe after Church, but that doesn't come until after Sanctification. The sacraments are rightly located after Church, but these three are all located after sin. Why is sin so high up on the heirarchy? Seems that our focus might be on sin rather than even say Sanctification which isn't for 5 more articles. Anyway, you can see that order could cause some confusion for non-believers, luckily we don't have catechism, so there is no confusion yet (I'm being sarcastic). The fundamentalist also came in and change much of the language around, especially in the Article of Scripture. Plenary inspiration and inerrant were added in the 50's I believe...not 100% on that. No we can explain it away, but the language is still risky since it has been borrowed from fundamentalism and the reform traditions.
My biggest problem with the Manual is the political structure. The church's power structure seems to be formulated using capitalism as a model. The church that brings in more money increases the power of the district. The district that brings in more money increases the amount of votes/power you can bring to General Assembly. We call ourselves an international church but until the last several years all the international churchs had no representation even though they outnumber us...we have more money in the US and thus more power. With the explosion of numbers and thus more money, the international church has become a presence that the domestic church has to respect. We are an international church, yet we have never had a GS from another country, and we only recently voted a female as a GS...correct me if I am wrong, but I thought women in ministry was one of the foundations of Nazarendom. Things are going to become very interesting when the American Nazarene church truly does become international.
Cud for thought,
Levi
Friends,
I agree with Wade that the Nazarenes are still young. Much like American ambivolence as people are amazed that anybody not an American would hate us, but we as Americans are also young. Typically, as the obnoxiuos rich teenager of world commerce, we stick our nose where we shouldn't, and then make a mess of things that don't really have that much to do with us, as well as all the lying that goes on...no wonder we aren't taken seriously, but as the rich young man always buys dinner, everybody will be our friend to our face (while they are hungry at least). The Nazarenes were started by some highschool grads, not Ivy League Alumni, and so I guess we should be patient as to their understanding of educational importance and ecclesial history.
I also agree that the Manual is lacking. After doing an analysis of the grammer in class one can quickly see that the problems in language and the lack of certain important material cause the manual to be only satisfactory. Once again this can be attributed to youth and ignorance. The articles of faith go from the Trinity (which at least they start here) and skips God the Father to go on to Jesus and then the Holy Spirit. One could argue that God the Father is identified under the Article of the Trinity, but this does not adequately portray that God is three in one. Next is scripture, which I don't know if it should follow God, maybe after Church, but that doesn't come until after Sanctification. The sacraments are rightly located after Church, but these three are all located after sin. Why is sin so high up on the heirarchy? Seems that our focus might be on sin rather than even say Sanctification which isn't for 5 more articles. Anyway, you can see that order could cause some confusion for non-believers, luckily we don't have catechism, so there is no confusion yet (I'm being sarcastic). The fundamentalist also came in and change much of the language around, especially in the Article of Scripture. Plenary inspiration and inerrant were added in the 50's I believe...not 100% on that. No we can explain it away, but the language is still risky since it has been borrowed from fundamentalism and the reform traditions.
My biggest problem with the Manual is the political structure. The church's power structure seems to be formulated using capitalism as a model. The church that brings in more money increases the power of the district. The district that brings in more money increases the amount of votes/power you can bring to General Assembly. We call ourselves an international church but until the last several years all the international churchs had no representation even though they outnumber us...we have more money in the US and thus more power. With the explosion of numbers and thus more money, the international church has become a presence that the domestic church has to respect. We are an international church, yet we have never had a GS from another country, and we only recently voted a female as a GS...correct me if I am wrong, but I thought women in ministry was one of the foundations of Nazarendom. Things are going to become very interesting when the American Nazarene church truly does become international.
Cud for thought,
Levi
posted by Scott M. Collins | 12:11 PM
1 Comments:
"The fundamentalist also came in and change much of the language around, especially in the Article of Scripture. Plenary inspiration and inerrant were added in the 50's I believe...not 100% on that. No we can explain it away, but the language is still risky since it has been borrowed from fundamentalism"
As Spross pointed out to me many moons ago, the Nazarene stance in the Manual is deceptive as the Scopes Monkey Trials caused angry G.S.'s to put in the words "plenary" and "inerrant," when someone, whose name escapes me, passed it through that it actually reads something to the effect of "inerrantly describing all things necessary for our salvation." The word inerrant is there, but it is spun with decidedly non-fundamentalist undertones.
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