The first way that the American-Holiness Movement might provide a path through the apparent LGBTQIA+ impasse. (Although this is *one* thing, I say it in too wordy a way, again! I'll add numbers.)
1. Its resistance to chattel slavery,
2. its opening of ordination and full ministry to women,
3. its solidarity with and advocacy for the poor,
4. its prophetic denunciation of the economic/social/political trajectories of its contemporary American status quo,
5. that is, its refusal to align with the general interests either of conservatives or progressives.
6. That is why the two political organizations with the largest Nazarene membership just after the founding of the denomination were (1) Prohibitionist Parties and (2) Socialist Workers Parties.
7. That is, the American-Holiness movement expended its life's blood on the ground for those America wished to push off the page.
8. Then, too, you could have found which people Nazarenes lived and worked with and for by studying suicide statistics.
The second way that the American-Holiness Movement might provide a path through the apparent LGBTQIA+ impasse (numbered):
1. It is often said that the theology of Wesleyanism in general and of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition in particular is not Fundamentalist.
2. That is certainly true, even though there has been a significant and growing number of Fundamentalists among the people of those traditions my whole life (and, of course, much longer).
3. Fundamentalism is a *modern* phenomenon, arising most clearly perhaps in the 19th century, peaking, perhaps, with the publication of *The Fundamentals* in 1909, but prominently articulated by theology professors at Princeton. (Really. This is no mindless belching of idiocy. It is a respectable, if misguided, way of reading theology.)
4. Here's my point here, however: Fundamentalism is not what has created the impasse that is killing the Church of the Nazarene (and others) in America. Something much more ancient and much more insidious lies at its root.
5. The impasse has been created by a theological stance, viz., the belief that (a) the Bible is a collection of propositions (b) that are to be reduced to simple and brief truth statements and then (c) arranged by an orderly mind (d) following the supposedly foundational structures of traditional Western logic (e) resulting in (i) metaphysical positions, especially about God and (ii) moral commands that we must obey (with occasional contrite confessions), if we are to be rewarded and not punished at death.
6. The American-Holiness Movement did not operate that way. (I am tempted to talk about Ken Grider at this point and his longtime opposition to those who think that you can "pick" verses here and there to prove your point. He was saying, if I may put it this way, that reading the Bible is not to be like picking fruit, but rather like eating it.)
7. The American-Holiness Movement was never very good at convincing people by quoting Scripture that they were to be entirely sanctified or that women were to be ordained or that slaves were to be freed. In fact others, who rolled their eyes at that Movement, were way better at quoting Scripture in support of slavery, the subordination of women, and their other positions.
8. Sometimes the difference between those two groups is said to be that Wesleyans follow the "Quadrilateral," and other Christian groups rely on something else (like "the Bible alone" or whatever). I continue to be confused by this idea. The "Wesleyan Quadrilateral" substitutes for one obsession with propositions (Fundamentalism) another, slightly more complicated, obsession with propositions. It doesn't make any difference if you go hunting in "the Bible alone" for propositions to prove your bias or if you do so also while reading the writings of "the Fathers" or peer reviewed scientific journals (or the books of Whitehead). It is the same mentality and it is deadly.
9. So, what is it that distinguishes the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement from other groups, such as the SBC or Catholics? Well, maybe nothing (since there is way more diversity of opinion in those groups and others than caricatures would lead you to think), but what stands out to me is that the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement thinks always on its way to martyrdom.
10. What does that mean? Well, I think I'll have to make that its own status line, but for now I'll say that it means that a Wesleyan-Holiness mode of operation has given up on proving things, on winning arguments, but rather thinks in the mode of devotion to God, the mode of prayer, a mode of thought that knows in its bones that God is not the punchline of an argument, but rather God is the love that will not be defeated even by humiliating, alienating death. It is a way of thinking that is engaged by the mystery of sacri-ficial (holy-making) love, the love that is not thrilled by victory, but warmed by redemption—a way of thinking that is performed in solidarity with the suffering and dying, a way of thinking that lives and dies right there with the suffering, because God in Christ is there already—even if this way of thinking can't find a proposition in the Bible to justify its devotion. That is, the face of the other is more powerfully inviting to a child of the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement than somebody's prooftext.
I'm going to try to articulate what maybe a week ago I referred to as (something like) "martyrial logic." I'll number my points once again in order to make this easier to think.
1. I begin by believing in my bones that, when you've set out on the path pronounced at the end of Mark 8, your life becomes a martyr's life.
2. A martyr is not someone who has died for a cause. There is no cause, not as that word is ordinarily used. There is a reason for the death of a martyr, but it is a reason in a very particular logic.
3. But in any case, it is not death that makes a martyr, but a life lived toward and through death, a death that may come in old age as the result of a very ordinary illness, without any drama.
4. That death toward and through which a martyr lives is death in solidarity (a) with Christ and him crucified (to quote Paul) (b) that is, Christ who died as he lived, (i) in solidarity with the coming of God and (ii) in solidarity with the oppressed and broken people into solidarity with whom God comes and thus (c) with those very oppressed and broken people.
5. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word that signifies "to witness." That is, a martyr is not one who dies, but one who bears witness, to Christ and him crucified.
6. Bearing that kind of witness, however, endangers the life of a witness, just as it endangered the life of Jesus.
7. That is because it is not some abstract "willingness," but actual bodily witness, that is, witness with your bodies, living, eating, drinking, working with the people who are being flogged by the world.
8. It is for these reasons that the word "martyr" has come to be associated with people who die as they serve the gospel. When you die because you serve the gospel, it's, like, "Of course, they died, they were true to the work of Jesus."
9. I just realized this is going to be so long that I'm going to lose most readers.
10. Oh, well, I think I shouldn't break this up into different status lines, so I'll continue.
11. It is crucially important to understand that a martyr does not aim for death as a goal. A martyr's death is never "noble," and a martyr will do anything short of apostatizing in order to avoid dying.
12. That is because the martyr loves the people they serve and loves their enemies and would not make them murderers.
13. And so, life is lived according to the description in 1 Corinthians 7, owning as if nothing were owned, marrying as if they were not married, entering into the structures of this world knowing that they all are passing away.
14. Life is taken seriously, very seriously, but it is relativized, since the New Jerusalem is coming and it looks like the ruptured body of Jesus. That is, the life that is coming "passeth understanding," even as it is the redemption of this life.
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15. This mode of life is also a mode of thought, since thought is a way of living and not to be abstracted from it.
16. The faithful member of the body of Christ is to think as they are to live, that is, toward and through the death of all thought.
17. This involves occupying the patterns of thought that operate in this present evil age, the patterns that are passing away (see 1 Corinthians 7).
18. It is helpful to learn traditional Western logic, especially if you live in a world dominated by traditional Western logic (which is increasingly all the world, thanks to global capitalism). Such things as "informal fallacies" are good to know.
19. This is not to say that traditional Western logic is the best logic. In fact, it is very likely suitable only for the world that has arisen thanks to the advent of monetization, colonialism, and the other principalities and powers that have taken over. (I suspect that as the planet warms and resources run out, among them clean water, Western logic will have less and less of an appeal.)
20. The logic of martyrdom, "martyrial logic," is a logic that may reach conclusions, but those conclusions are immediately ruptured. The openness on the other side of death, the openness that robs death of its victory, opens everything that might otherwise be closed. Thus all conclusions, occlusions, exclusions, and inclusions are ruptured by the glorified defiled body of Jesus.
21. The traditional terms for this relationship are "kataphasis" and "apophasis." The suffix "-phasis" signifies "speech." The prefixes "kata-" and "apo-" signify, respectively, "according to" and "away from."
22. Kataphasis is to operate according to the rules of speech, say, of traditional Western logic. Apophasis is to operate away from those rules. Kataphasis is sometimes called "saying" and "apophasis" "unsaying."
23. Whatever is said is to be unsaid, whatever is thought is to be unthought, whatever is concluded is to dis-closed, opened, yielded to what is to come.
24. All that means that nothing is to be claimed as "mine," not even "salvation" or "God" or "atonement" or "goodness" or "truth" or "beauty" or anything else. Whether abstract or concrete, there are no possessions on the path to Golgotha, just some stuff to be used for a while and gifted to another and finally discarded.
25. All of this is a way of thinking in accordance with the fluidity of prayer: (1) metanoia (which is not the same as "conversion!"), (2) intercession, (3) lament, (4) petition, (5) thanksgiving, (6) doxology. All of these moments in the flow of prayer are operative at all times in the life of the faithful, it's just that one (or more) of them is (are) operative more prominently than others sometimes.
26. That means that martyrial logic is a logic that will not land on any conclusion, any property, whether an idea or real estate. It is life in the mode of gift, the gift that comes to us as the Holy Spirit and the gift that by the Holy Spirit our lives become, to, with, and for the pummeled among our neighbors.