Education

The Church of the Nazarene put an emphasis on education.  I have heard stories of G.S. Chapman demanding a Seminary to train preachers.  SNU was founded in the 1800's...before the denomination itself.

But, we are now petrified of what education has caused.  There are two sides of this:

(1) We are a church that was founded for the poor (ask Phineas Bresee what he was up to...).  We have now become somewhat bourgeois.  Our identity has been compromised through education.

(2) We are finding out that some of our presuppositions are unjustified.

a.  God may or may not have created in 7 literal days.

b.  Holiness may or may not be two altar experiences that lead to ultimate spiritual clarity                  (which sounds a bit like Scientology, no?).

c.  Other.  The list is endless.

So what do we do?  We cry to the authorities.  We threaten to withhold money (which we never used to have anyway).  We consider splitting the church (yeah, because that keeps working out so well...).

This isn't even my point...but, I could go on.

What I am really concerned about is the fact that we insist that Pastors in the church be educated, but we fear what may be learned.  I am teaching a Nazarene Bible College Extension class for my district.  The folks in this class are largely fundamentalist dogmatics.  They are certain of what they believe, but have no grounding for any of it.*

* This is not everyone in the class.  I love much of the class and respect them very much.  They are true students of the Word.

But, we pass them through as though they have a right to ordination.  Education is a means to an end.  We do not expect that they would assent to basic biblical or Nazarene principals.  No, we want to make sure that they attend every class.  If they do that, we will eventually ordain them.

What?  Is this what we really believe?  It has to be, because our actions are what our beliefs are, no matter what is written down in a Manual.  Life-transforming scripture?  Yeah, it "transformed them" ages ago and they are fine now.

I think it is high time that we get serious about Ordination.  The church has a role/reposibility in, for lack of a better word, weeding out people that should not be pastoring.  If people cannot sustain G.P.A.'s that are respectable, if they cannot demonstrate how they are learning about God, if we see sinfull pride in their lives and exegesis the church should declare: you may feel called but the church does not see it. 

Oh, and never trust a person, let alone pastor, that is dead certain.

Tim