Starting a new series of posts on doctrine. I'm still addressing the gut-punch of Dee Kelley's martyrdom—at the hands of his nominal friends. I'm no longer talking directly about the doctrine of sin. I am talking about the even more horrifying [bmm-bmm-BMM] doctrine of entire sanctification. (And I'm adding this first paragraph after writing the paragraphs below. I probably should do some rewriting to make this flow better, but I'm just going to stop here and let the rest come as it may.)
I'm going to talk about perhaps the most taboo subject in all of Nazserenity (to use a term coined decades ago by Juli Petry), the doctrine of entire sanctification. Of course the doctrine is not taboo everywhere, but it is taboo in a great number of places, especially in the U, S, and A.
It is taboo for lots of reasons, some of them institutional (churches don't grow and giving declines when people start focusing attention on this doctrine), some of them quite personal (people have been traumatized by the way the doctrine was and sometimes still is pushed), some of them cultural (Nazarenes have so sold their souls to American Evangelicalism that there are no categories available to them to make sense out of the doctrine), some of them a combination of these other reasons (a culture of power and fear has made Nazarenes afraid to engage anything with a history of violence, anything that agitates people, especially ecclesiasts with the power to make your life harder), and for other reasons.
I'm going to talk about the doctrine of entire sanctification in part because it is a doctrine that claims (more or less) to cast out fear. If Nazarenes hear the story of Dee Kelley and have neither sold their souls to the Lenexan machine, nor hardened their hearts to him, there is a good chance that they will be impressed by what they are likely to call his "courage." I mean, can you even imagine someone who does not fear those who can "kill the body," i.e., who can take away your job, plunge your closest loved ones into despair, bring discord to the people you serve, and besmirch your good name? Well, Dee, from all appearances, is such a person. The doctrine of entire sanctification is about the emergence over the course of the work of the grace of God—in the time-and-space-specific lives of frail and self-protective human beings—of a life that would so stand and fall with the outcasts of the world that even the threat of great harm, even from those who claim to be your siblings in Christ, is not enough to push such a life off the path of faithfulness to the coming of God.
(Quick qualification: That is not to say that there aren't all kinds of courageous people who have no use for this doctrine or for any doctrine of any Church or who have never even heard of Jesus [or whatever]. It's not even to say that to be entirely sanctified is to be courageous. Indeed, I suspect that those who are entirely sanctified not only would not call themselves courageous, they may well not even call themselves entirely sanctified. Further, people are complicated. Some of us are just way too inept to know how to behave in a certain situation. Some of us, that is, are just awkward. We may behave cowardly and have the appearance of behaving courageously, or vice versa. "I may look like a farmer, but I'm a lover. You can't tell a book by looking at the cover." So, it's unwise to think you know who is and who is not entirely sanctified.)
Some more on the doctrine of entire sanctification:
1. The American-Holiness Movement (of the 19th century) made a big deal about two things (among others): (1) Solidarity with those shoved off the agenda of Western Civilization and (2) the doctrine of entire sanctification. The former led to the ordination of women, fairly radical demands that chattel slavery be abolished, the opening of what were called "Homes for Unwed Mothers," work among the poorest of the poor, e.g., in inner cities, extensive "world mission" work (way beyond what would be expected of so few people "back home"), and way more.
2. The latter—intimately linked to the former—led to fiery revivals where women committed to honoring God above their patriarchal husbands, where women and men committed to abandon their dreams of wealth and pleasure for the sake of caring for the dying of the world, where whole churches learned to lean hard into God's future, to live and die with the Jesus who was crucified among thieves and other outcasts. Eventually what tumbled from rigid organizations was the institutionalization of an idea (what is often called the establishment of an "ideology"). Ideas are great; ideologies, not so much. An ideology (and I'm using that word sort of like the way Marxists use it) tries to manage unruly people, to impose crowd control, to manage the unmanageable. Eventually, this ideology became so inhumane and traumatizing that it was put on an IV sedative drip and kept comfortable until it could peacefully die. The sounds we have heard from Lenexa have been the death rattle of this idea.
3. There is no doubt that preaching "entire sanctification," especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, was met with all kinds of spectacles, many of them, I believe, good, true, and beautiful. They included running the aisles of some "brush arbor meeting" or shouting or laughter or sobbing or "speaking in tongues" or sessions of prayer lasting long into the night or some or all of these things. (The Church of the Nazarene has for some time now been a little embarrassed by "speaking in tongues" and has tried to manage that, too, sending practitioners to charismatic churches, where they'd "better fit." [Incidentally, there may not be a more demonic phrase than "better fit."])
4. As it turns out, the doctrine of entire sanctification is both (a) a big deal and (b) rather anticlimactic, when understood. (I'm going to provide just a very brief description of the thing now and try to say more tomorrow.)
5. If it is remembered that the stories of Ancient Israel and of the very young, first century church are all about movement, the doctrine of entire sanctification, one would expect, is likely to be about movement, too. I mean, God goes outward to Israel (Abram of Ur, Adam and Eve of the Garden, Moses in the wilderness, etc.) and calls them forth. God says, "Follow me!" And so, Israel (to use that example) rises up in Egyptian bondage, throws off its chains, leaves the "flesh pots" of slavery, and follows God into an elusive "Promised Land." God leads them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Their task is simply to follow God. To be faithful to God is to follow God, to move.
Jesus, we learn very quickly in the gospels, also calls to people, this time people under the thumb of Rome and its emissary Jerusalem, and Jesus uses that same imperative, "Follow me!" Their task is to follow him, as he *moves*! And into what does he move? He moves into solidarity with those Western Civilization would shove off their agenda. And he dies there. As one of them. He does that, because it is for these outcasts that the apocalyptic coming of God is breaking in. Jesus is rushing to meet the arrival of the apocalyptic in-breaking of God's Reign (God's "Kingdom," to use the more traditional, patriarchal word). And he calls the children of Israel to follow him there, to live and die with them, with him, there. And so, chapter 8 of Mark ends with Jesus's saying right out loud "to the crowd with his disciples" to follow him to crucifixion, that is, to be crucified with him, literally to die with him among thieves and other outcasts.
6. That is still the call and that is why the doctrine of entire sanctification is a big deal. Here's why it isn't as big a deal as we've been led to believe:
The call of Jesus is to change direction. The assumption is that the people within the range of his voice have been cowering in fear from Rome and Jerusalem or have been in active complicity with them. "Stop that!" Jesus says. "Follow me, I'm going to the site of the coming of God's Reign, the apocalyptic in-breaking of the New Creation, where the first will be last and the last first!"
The "big deal" is just that change of direction and the journey that follows it. That change of direction is usually called "conversion." In the Greek the word is "metanoia," the Greek word that translates a Hebrew word that signifies "to sigh." "Meta-noia" doesn't only mean a "change of mind" (as it does when one "turns around"), but also and more primally "a mind in pursuit," again, a "meta- (pursuit, a going-after, movement forth) "-noia" (a "mind," and "mind" is a much richer term in Ancient Israel than it is for us).
And so, one and all are to pursue the coming of the apocalyptic Reign of God, to "follow Jesus." Doing so is huge and means leaving everything you held dear. (The accounts of Jesus of what is entailed in following him are deeply disturbing, at least until somebody spiritualizes them and makes them some abstract "willingness.")
Entire sanctification is an adjustment in this "following" of Jesus, that's all. It doesn't make anybody better than anybody else. It's not a big deal. (Of course, it is a big deal, too, but more about that tomorrow.)
Here is the way to imagine it: (a) a bunch of people are running in the opposite direction, away from the coming of God's Reign; (b) Jesus calls them to follow him *to* the coming of God's Reign; (c) they turn around and follow him; (d) over time they lean more and more into the "end" of their movement, the Reign of God, that is, into which they now move; (e) the point at which the *inclination* of their *leaning* is no longer *away from* the "end" tower which they are moving, but rather *aligned* with the God toward whom they have been *moving*, that is the "moment" of "entire sanctification"; (f) they now walk or run or whatever in the direction of solidarity with the poor and other outcasts, but also "lean into" that solidarity.
That's all. It's not a big deal. However, it *is* a big deal, too, and it has led no small number of people to throw caution to the wind and perform the gospel in outrageous ways. Institutional functionaries seem pretty able to control people who are meekly trying to maintain a kind of minimal commitment to the gospel. The ones whom they have trouble managing are the ones whose outgoing is a kind of sighing release of control over the breath of life, who inhale (are in-spired) only as the gift of breath is given, and who release that breath (ex-pire) right after, non-possessively. Of course, a similar rhythm of breathing is operative with the whole crowd who have turned around and some of them might even have a zeal that outdoes those of the most devout among the sanctified. But the entirely sanctified seem to be the hardest for Lenexa to control. That's why they keep telling everyone that true "holiness" is compliance to persons in authority.
More tomorrow. Sorry that I can't say this more quickly. To say it more quickly, I fear, would be to say it in ways that are too hard to understand.
Another installment on entire sanctification. This time I'll sort of combine stuff I said about "sin" with the stuff I'm saying now about being hallowed. This won't be much review, but mostly new stuff.
1. There may not be anything that better illustrates the extent to which the Church of the Nazarene has sold out to juridical (if I may use that awkward word) Evangelicalism than what has become the common understanding in Nazarene churches (and in the minds of card-carrying Nazarene leaders) of "sin" and its relationship to sanctification.
2. The Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, of course, goes back to John Wesley (and some of his contemporaries, especially his brother Charles). John Wesley distinguished between three different ways the word "sin" may be used: (1) "Sin" may be used in the phrase "original sin," which he considered to show itself as a tendency or disposition *away from* God. (Lots of people hate the doctrine of original sin. I think it's really helpful, but not in the ways it is taken up by abusers.) (2) "Sin" may be used of a whole host of deviations from "God's will" that are not acts of faithlessness (like accidentally breaking someone's arm or raising your children stupidly or making errors in judgment or acting while failing to know things adequately, etc.). He calls these "sins improperly so-called." In other words, these are not sins in the full sense of the term. Humility calls for sorrow concerning these "sins" and prayers for mercy, but they will not be held against those who throw themselves on God's mercy. (3) Then there are "sins properly so-called," acts of out-and-out faithlessness, acts that deliberately break from God, acts that "resist God's grace" (to use an Arminian term) to the point of standing tall to determine what is good and what is not. (Wesley's own, oft repeated, word-for-word definition of "sins properly so-called" is not helpful at this point, since he uses language that juridical Evangelicals are hair-trigger-poised to take up. I'm tempted to go off on a tangent about that now, but I will not yield. Maybe in the comments below.)
3. As for what happens to these three kinds of "sins," well, here goes, one at a time: "Sins improperly so-called" may be addressed and to some degree eliminated from your life, but never completely. We are just too weak, ignorant, and stupid. Further, though Wesley lived before the advent of serious empirical psychology or sociology or brain physiology (and the other "social and behavioral sciences”), "sins improperly so-called" cannot be abstracted from the whole complex of infirmities that batter us all. So, again, no human being will be completely rid of vulnerability. In that sense, we do in fact sin ("improperly so-called") every day in word, thought, and deed.
4. "Original sin," according to Wesley and the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition out of which the Church of the Nazarene has emerged, is "eradicated" with the advent of "entire sanctification." Now, that set of metaphors has been much abused and many a holiness preacher has turned "original sin" (or just "sin") into some stuff gumming up your "heart" (or some other body part). It has been thought of as some *thing*, some *entity*, some *substance* in there. I mean, that can be turned into something that is easily imagined, but it has been deadly.
But "original sin," according to Wesley (and, like, a jillion others) is not a thing in anybody. It is not the *direction* life is going, but the *manner* by which your life is going that way. Again, Wesley's term is "inclination"; it is an "inclination" to move away from God (and by "inclination" is just meant that desire or fear or anxiety or something else makes running headlong into the coming of the Reign of God unappealing). To say that "original sin is eradicated with entire sanctification" only means that with entire sanctification, we not only move toward God, we not only wander in the general direction of the coming of God's Reign, we not only follow Jesus to crucifixion among thieves and other outcasts, but we also lean that way. What is "eradicated" is (to mix metaphors, as they must be mixed, if that word is used) a "leaning away from the coming of God's Reign." It's that simple. (And sorry if that takes away the drama of it all.)
5. Finally, and this is going to be the strangest sounding stuff in this (long) post, "sins properly so-called," i.e., acts of faithlessness: This will clash with what juridical Evangelicals have been animal-trained to think, but it's what the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition has taught, at least when it has been faithful to its revered founder John Wesley. Since salvation/justification/regeneration/initial sanctification, or whatever you would like to call it, is by grace alone through faith alone, sins properly so-called cease in the life of every redeemed body. To use unfortunate, but common, language: Nobody who is a Christian commits sins properly so-called. It's not that they *cannot* commit such sins. It's that, if they do commit such sins, they are no longer Christians (man, I hate that last word!). A Christian (I think this is the last time I will use that word here) is one who is faithful to the gospel. To cease to be faithful to the gospel is (obviously?) an act of faithlessness. Faithlessness breaks from God. And so, "backsliding" is possible, according to Wesleyans. (All of this is way too easily thought voluntaristically and I am no fan of the way I've just said all this. It is the language that I was brought up on, however, so I'll leave it. I don't plan to reuse it, however.)
6. Summary: (a) Nobody stops committing "sins improperly so-called." (b) No faithful adherent to the gospel commits "sins properly so-called." (c) "Original sin" has been "eradicated" from the hearts, souls, minds, and strength of those who are entirely sanctified.
Enough for today.
More on "entire sanctification," a doctrine that has deep roots in the soil of the traditions of the church and its Bible, but which is articulated for the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition by the most prominent of its early leaders, its namesake, John Wesley. It was once thought as the primal doctrine of the movement. That probably wasn't a helpful way to understand it, since, surely, the doctrine of the Trinity had better be that. Still, it's much better as the tradition's primal doctrine than the juridical non-sense that provides rationalization for the flogging of hospitable pastors and others.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, here is more on that doctrine. I'm going to write on what I take to be some of the social implications of what I articulated yesterday.
1. Recap: Wesley uses the word "sin" in at least three ways: (1) in the phrase "original sin," which is a "tendency," a "leaning," away from God; (2) in the phrase "sins improperly so-called," acts contrary to "God's will" for God's creatures that are due to our defects of intelligence, knowledge, habit patterns, social and political conditioning, foolishness, infirmity, etc.; and (3) in the phrase "sins properly so-called," or very deliberate, conscious acts of faithlessness, of abandonment of the love and faithfulness of God.
2. Recap: Re these uses of the word "sin," Wesley thinks this is the best possible future for these three: (3) "sins properly so-called" stop with "conversion" to the coming of God, since such "salvation" is by grace alone through faith alone and a "sin properly so-called" is an act of faithlessness, a "No!" to God's love; (2) "sins improperly so-called" are managed over time, but never simply absent from any creaturely life; and (3) "original sin," the "leaning" away from God, is "eradicated" (or "expelled," to use Wesley's word) with the coming of "entire sanctification." (Wesley's language is that love so fills your heart that all the sin in it is "expelled." It's not a lot better than the language of "eradication," but it's a little more humane, even if still way too wooden an image.)
3. New stuff: If "entire sanctification" is a shift in the way we move toward the coming of the Reign of God, then there is no reason that this would need to be understood individualistically. Again, with "conversion" (man, I hate this language!) we turn from a life that flees from the coming of God. We are turned around and now move *toward* the coming of God. "Entire sanctification" simply says that in the course of this movement toward the coming of God a shift occurs in the *way* we move toward the coming of God. Instead of *leaning away from* God (as we move *toward* God), we now "lean toward* God (again, as we move *toward* God). This has been understood in all kinds of crude ways in "brush arbor meetin's" and elsewhere, but this is what is being said. And it is the highly metaphorical way of speaking in accordance with traditional theological virtue discourse. It has also been understood, in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, in very individualistic ways. That is a problem.
4. If "entire sanctification" is a shift in the *way* we move toward the coming of God, there is no reason that it has to be understood in terms of individual human beings, in isolation from each other. Little local churches also move away from or toward the coming of the Reign of God and, if they move toward that coming, they either lean away from or they lean toward it. Here comes the most unfamiliar stuff, to Nazarenes: What I'm saying here is that it is not only (and I'd say not chiefly) the particular human being who may be entirely sanctified. It is above all a *little local church* that is in this way called, that is, to be entirely sanctified.
5. If I'm right about that, and I really, really think I am, then preaching and liturgical life and work in a local church are not to be focused on private individuals with their private inner lives, but on the little local church as a social body. The call is that these people, as a corporate body (to write redundantly), take up their cross and follow Jesus to humiliating death among the thieves and outcasts of the world, and to embody the call that these thieves and outcasts, too, are to live and die among other thieves and outcasts, as Jesus, *the* thief and outcast of thieves and outcasts, did.
6. One last time: It's time to (continue to?) pull back the reins on preaching "entire sanctification" to solitary individuals and (instead) to give free rein to preaching it (and performing it liturgically) to entire bodies of people who gather as local churches.
Man, I hope that is clear enough. It's pretty much unheard of among Nazarenes, but I think it is the task that lies before them, before "us."
Questions?
Another installment in the growing treatise on the doctrine of entire sanctification.
1. Recap: There are two ways of discussing faithfulness to God. One involves a kind of (I'm tempted to say "either/or," but that would be a terrible distraction, I fear) "in this direction" or "in the opposite direction." That's the question of faithfulness or unfaithfulness. The question is, are we turned in the direction of the coming of God, moving into that coming, or, on the other hand, are we turned away from God, moving away from the coming of God? (I'm working at saying this as simply as possible. Of course, there is never a simple, black-and-white choice in a concrete, particular human life. But the abstract "this or that" is at least simple to say and imagine, if not simple to find in life. And fwiw I hate that this language has lost much of its power, having fallen into the vacuous world of clichés. If the matter at hand—what got Dee Kelley defrocked—were not so urgent, I'd take my time and use less familiar language.)
2. Recap: The other way of discussing faithfulness to God involves the *way* persons may be faithful. The language about this "*way*" in Wesley and much of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition is the language of "leaning," of "attitude" (think airplane navigation), of "inclination." The faithful may (1) lean *away* from the coming of God, while they nonetheless *move* toward the coming of God, or (2) lean *toward* the coming of God, while they, like the people (way too abstractly) described above as "(1)," move *toward* the coming of God.
3. Recap: The "entirely sanctified" are those who both (1) move toward the coming of God and (2) lean toward (lean into) the coming of God. It's that simple and may show itself with spectacle or be as mundane as taking a deep breath.
4. Recap: Since this stuff is about the manner of movement to the coming of God, it need not be imagined individualistically. A body of people are as available to be entirely sanctified as some particular human being. (My inclination is to prioritize the entire sanctification of a social body, not particular people, though I do not think there's any law of nature demanding such a thing.) In what I'm about to say, I'm going to think of the relationship between a little local church that is entirely sanctified (please, stay with me) and the particular people who show up when they gather.
5. Starting now the relatively new stuff, focusing on an "entirely sanctified" *little local church*, a truly little one, say, of fifty adults and a fluctuating number of children, of various ages (and surely dogs).
Imagine a church without a dedicated "church building." (It took centuries before the idea of a church building was even imaginable. Church buildings are a function of the domestication of the church, beginning with Constantine.) There are many ways of imagining such a little local church, but for the sake of simplicity (if not easy comparison with contemporary life in most of America), I'll imagine a little local church as a little village. (This appears to be the way it was in Galilee in the first century, so there's that.) Anyway, this is a "thought experiment," so I'm not looking for a program to implement, just a way to understand something quite important that has escaped the imagination of the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement, as far as I can tell.
6. The members of this village/church work all week long, here and there, providing help for each other, using each others' tools and other goods, notifying each other when somebody gets sick or there is danger of violence or village members are short on food or a stranger passing through needs a place to sleep, etc. They gather for a village assembly, say, at the start of the week, perhaps on Sunday to engage a performance of "the gospel," acted out by village storytellers. And they give voice to the history out of which the gospel emerged and what the gospel signifies for their coming week and they make tentative plans for how to be faithful, practicing to give their lives, if it comes to that, in imitation of the obedient death of Jesus among those they, too, love, contrary to the dictates of the pagan culture they too (perhaps) were raised on. (Their assembly is not held on "the Sabbath," but on Sunday, the day the crucified dead and buried Jesus was glorified and set to glorified work.) As they work all week long, they are engaged in a mundane, but holy, liturgy, since by definition these are people (lit-) at work (-urgy). They work as a prayer—sometimes of lament, sometimes of petition, sometimes of thanksgiving, sometimes of praise, but always as metanoia and intercession. They work, that is, as a way of traveling toward the coming of God, the coming of God's Reign. And they work leaning hard into that coming, that "Day of Justice/Righteousness."
7. Now, imagine that two strangers arrive, lonely and afraid. Imagine that they have had hard and lonely lives, but have found comfort in each others' company. Imagine that they immediately take to life in the village and inquire about working some land (or doing some other work) among these people and thus being their companions in life. Imagine that they do so and attend the weekly village assembly and find themselves drawn into the stories told there, especially the ones about "the gospel." Imagine that they, too, begin to live and work, praying as the other members of the village pray, working as the other members of the village work. And imagine that convention would classify them as being of the same gender. (I don't care which gender that is, just that their anatomy matches each other.) And imagine that they are not celibate, that their care for each other, their love for each other, their struggle with loneliness, and more, all lead them to intimacy with each other that from time to time involves sexual stimulation to the point of orgasm. They are like couples of different genders in that way. And they are faithful like couple of different genders, to the God of Jesus and to each other, as well.
8. Let us say that a member of the village objects to the commitment of the "same-gender" couple to each other, but that person objects as well to all commitments of that kind in the village, regardless of gender configuration: "Those who are couples in this way will experience distress in this life. The unmarried person is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married person is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please their spouse, and their interests are divided." But being kind, this village member says that people already united in this way need not separate, since that would make life too hard, especially for children they may care for, so that ,since we are all vulnerable in this unkind world, life lived in every way toward the coming of God's Reign among thieves and outcasts, among the poor and oppressed, may indeed be lived united in every way with another.
9. In this way this little entirely sanctified village is hospitable to strangers and, if a "same gender" couple were to enter the village not as strangers but as their children, with whom they have always lived, they would be hospitable to this novelty, as well, because they are not here to ex-clude, to close-out, but to live and die among the people among whom Jesus lived and died, among whom he became indistinguishable—and such things finally don't prevent such journeying to Golgotha.
10. And finally, let us imagine that the little local church/village so opened to one and all that from time to time all its members, one by one, gave themselves, severally, to take up their crosses (and our crosses are various) and follow Jesus to where his cross killed him, that is, as particular members of this entirely sanctified church, they, too, are for a time entirely sanctified.
That's it, unless I think I might need to say more on this doctrine.