DISQUS

DanGlenn · 6 months ago

As i read this post i found my anxiety rise and fall with statements associating my death and theological propositions. I understand many to think of these feelings as indicators of some form of a lesser than faith. However for me it has nothing to do with faith but what my faith stands on. Please now this is not a critique but a translation for my own internal dialect.

I wont die for a Christ that is fully human while also fully god, but i will die for a Christ who endured and experienced humanity to know and show me something that me and my people couldn't understand without that act. I wont die for the babe of a virgin, but i will die for a man who acted in perfect love during his entire life and could stand before authorities and peers with blameless past, even to the point of conception, yet still accepted a punishment fit for the worst of our kind. I wont die for the fact that a man from Nazareth lived and died, but i will die for the 33 years followed by eternity which he exemplified love for us and advocated love on behalf of us. And because his existence has brought about new life and conversations such as these for 200 centuries. I wont die for a faith that transcends consumerism, but will die for a faith that puts God first, others second and anything else into a category of meaningless things in a far distant third. I wont die for a faith stands up with teeth against dilution, but i will die for a faith that can not be diluted because any concession made would result in a foreign faith without resemblance to prolegematic faith which it originated. It can not be changed because once changed it ceases to be itself. In short i too will die for kingdom come down to love face to face through the incarnational work of Jesus.

Again i hope you see this is not some form of rebuttal. I write because i think it is not the what that has me jumping on grenades, taking bullets, or protesting with possibility of fatal violence. I find my heartbeat becomes meaningless in the light of the why.

mrdcbrush · 6 months ago

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. Indeed, my intent was/is to focus on the uniqueness that is the Christ and your comment brings to light the other side of the same coin. We can only believe in a concept so far as it points as towards Christ himself and not the belief itself as the object of our faith. Beautiful.

Naz · 6 months ago

This is the first time I have been exposed to any emergent church movement. As a life-long Nazarene and Nazarene university graduate, and with a Master's in Political Science, I am refreshed and encouraged by this blog. Since my last few years of college (five years ago), I have struggled to attend a church regularly. The older I get, the more I realize that the God I worship seems to not even be the same God that many mainstream churches worship. My God is love, mercy, and justice, not condemnation. My God isn't focused on the four "greatest sins" of homosexuality, pre-marital sex, abortion, and so-called socialism. I feel discouraged when I hear a minister discuss the evils of the homosexuality every Sunday, while wearing his $300 jeans and driving away in his Mercedes. I feel hurt and angry when my friends and family question my relationship with God when I mention that I struggle with the "justice" of war or believe that capitalism is not God-ordained.

I am so grateful that there is now a movement more open to respectful dialogue, to seeking the true meaning of scripture and God, to questioning traditional, Protestant rules while still clinging to those traditions that are Godly.

Monte_Asbury · 6 months ago

Beautiful comment - and how real it is to me!

Nazbollah Insurgent · 6 months ago

The Guardian Council of the Nazarene Revolutionary Guard has declared Jihad on the Emerging Movement that is threatening to destroy our beloved denomination. Nazbollah Special Ops Strike Force Units have been dispatched to Orlando to counter these counter-revolutionaries and their tactics. We have intercepted communications between known Nazarene Emergents who are secretly planning a palace coup on the convention floor. We vow to crush these heretics in the holy name of Phinease Bresee. Our ultra-secret Gitmo-style prison facility has been prepared for the arrival of these emerging goons. We are prepared to bombard our prisoners in this reeducation facility with Gaither videos and GS sermons in order to make them repent of their actions.
The Insurgency has begun. May God rest on the shoulders of our brave Nazbollah fighters. May we carry the banner of holiness from Orlando.
Long live Nazbollah! Long live the Insurgency! Long live the Nazarene Revolutionary Guard!

Jeff Snelling · 6 months ago

I was just sent a youtube link to the upcoming film from a place called "Concerned Nazarenes". This looks like a lot of anti-catholic bigotry.

mrdcbrush · 6 months ago

Thanks for stopping by Jeff,

James Diggs has posted on open letter to the 'Concerned Nazarenes' group on this blog and on NazNet as well. There are multiple areas of disagreement with the CN group, mainly that they just aren't very Nazarene in their theology, which is decidedly more fundamentalist and reformed in it's nature than our Wesleyan heritage.

The CN group is obviously more vocal, has more money, and has more influence over some than the lowly and poor ragamuffins that hang around here; however I doubt the size of their movement in numbers is large.

I wish you the best as you find your way in between the eddies and whirlpools seeking to drag you in.

DB