Unraptured Page 3

  It may sound silly in retrospect, but in the beginning holiness was a very noble, if sometimes misdirected, pursuit. As I said, the emphasis on holiness predates the Church of the Nazarene. Our theology is that of the original Methodist John Wesley, who, during a service at the Aldersgate church in London, heard a reading from Martin Luther’s preface to his commentary on the book of Romans and felt his heart “strangely warmed.” People got excited about odd things back then. But who can blame them? Netflix was still centuries away. Anyway, with his heart strangely warmed, Wesley sought out to develop a form of Anglicanism—he was a member of the Church of England—that was methodical in its approach to Christian discipleship. He wanted a faith intentional in its discipleship so as to create disciples whose lives were more reflective of Jesus and were purified of all sin.

  To be clear, Wesley didn’t invent the idea of holiness or entire sanctification. The call to holiness is biblical. From almost the very beginning of the story of the people of God, God has called the people of Israel to “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy don’t just list random laws to make life for the people of Israel more difficult; they’re showing the people of God how to live holy lives. The cry of the prophets is a call to return to the life of holiness that God expected Israel to live out. Jesus picks up on this foundational call to holiness in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he calls his followers to love their enemies so that they will “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The apostle Paul continues this call to holiness (Romans 12:1; 2 Corinthians 7:1), as do the writer of Hebrews (Hebrews 12:14) and Peter in his first epistle (1 Peter 1:15-16).

  Holiness didn’t disappear after the early days of the church or remain in hiding until John Wesley came along in the eighteenth century, but Wesley did give holiness its shape as a distinctive doctrine in the modern era of the church, which led his theological heirs—folks like the great nineteenth-century revivalist preacher Phoebe Palmer—to declare it a second work of grace after salvation. The idea was that we are saved but still need to go through the process of purification from the sinful nature we have been saved from. The methods of Methodism were created to help make that process happen.

  As the doctrine of entire sanctification developed, crossed the Atlantic, and took hold in the fertile soil of the Third Great Awakening, the fervent atmosphere of the Awakening’s revivals transformed what was once seen as a lifelong process that may or may not reach completion in this life into something that could happen to a person, in an instant, down at an altar. All you had to do was say a prayer and in an instant you would be purified from sin. Forever. Again, if you think that’s an audacious claim, you’re not alone. Many Nazarenes agree.

  But not all. Once upon a time, a pastor friend of mine was sitting in his ordination interview when one of the board members asked him, “Are you entirely sanctified?” It’s a question every potential Nazarene pastor is asked. As have many in my generation of Nazarenes, my friend replied that he believed he was in the process of being entirely sanctified.

  That answer satisfied most of the board, but not all. One member spoke up and said, “Well, I still remember the exact day I was entirely sanctified. I was twelve years old. God sanctified me holy and I haven’t sinned since.” Without skipping a beat, one of the other board members looked over at him and said, “Well, you just did.”

  Holiness as service to the poor

  Holiness wasn’t always that wonky, at least not completely. When the Church of the Nazarene first began, it was led by a man named Phineas F. Breese. Breese was the pastor of the appropriately named First Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, California, just a stone’s throw away from where the famous Azusa Street Revival occurred, giving birth to modern Pentecostalism. The revivalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries certainly shaped Breese and other early Nazarenes, and Breese held fast to certain social rules that today we would probably label as legalism. But Breese’s understanding of holiness was very different from the caricature that holiness has become in the eyes of many people today.

  For Breese, the church existed for the least of these. For him, the gospel really was good news for the poor, not just an abstract list of doctrines or a magic prayer. Breese believed that holiness was to be lived out through a life of service to the poor, the lost, the least, and the dying. He famously described his vision for the Church of the Nazarene with these words: “Let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and wipe away the tears of sorrowing, and gather jewels for His diadem. . . . The gospel comes to a multitude without money and without price, and the poorest of the poor are entitled to a front seat at the Church of the Nazarene.”1

  It is for that reason that I’m still a Nazarene today. I’m not interested in legalism, but the idea that the Christian life should center on caring for the poor and the least of these isn’t just something I can get on board with; it’s something Jesus himself seemed to think was at the center of both the gospel and salvation itself. If that’s holiness, then sign me up.

  Be perfect or go to . . .

  Unfortunately, Breese’s approach to holiness wasn’t the only version of entire sanctification I was taught growing up. In fact, as I understood it, holiness was much more about what I didn’t do than what I actually did do for others. Holiness wasn’t something I celebrated for what it could be; it was something I was actually kind of terrified of. I was never explicitly taught that if I wasn’t entirely sanctified I would go to hell, but that always seemed to be the message. Not being entirely sanctified felt like being a second-class citizen, an outsider removed from the holy club. In a world where only those on the inside get to go to heaven, the math was easy even for a kid: be perfect or go to hell.

  That’s what I thought being a Christian meant: being perfect. Or at least trying every day to be perfect. It wasn’t an abstract theological concept to me. I took it literally—as in never make a mistake, ever, and if you do, run down to the altar, don’t pass go, don’t collect $200, and pray for forgiveness as soon as you can, literally. I typically got saved multiple times a year. Once in the summer at church camp, for sure; there was always a Wednesday night youth meeting that would do the trick; a visiting preacher could usually guilt me down to the altar; and if there was one of those big citywide Christian youth events, I was always the first one to the altar. Of the two million or so souls Billy Graham is said to have saved, I probably accounted for about half those professions of faith.2

  I’ve also been entirely sanctified quite a few times as well. The first time I ever fretted about it was right before I got baptized. I was in middle school, and the week before I was scheduled to be dunked under water, I had a spiritual panic attack. I wasn’t sure whether I should even be allowed to be baptized because I wasn’t sure I was entirely sanctified. I talked to one of my youth workers about it, because even though I had said a prayer and asked God to entirely sanctify me, I didn’t feel entirely sanctified. Thankfully, that youth leader assured me that it was okay to be in the process of sanctification. But when I gave my testimony to the congregation that had gathered in our church’s fellowship hall to witness the baptism, I made sure to let everyone know I had asked God to entirely sanctify me. I didn’t want anyone being baptized after me to think I had defiled the sacred water.

  But it wasn’t just baptism I was worried about. From a very young age I carried a deep sense of guilt about everything I did. Once, during elementary school, I accidentally walked out of a craft store with some small toy I had forgotten that I was still holding when my mom rushed us out of the store and on to the next errand. I had a spiritual panic attack before we even stepped off the sidewalk, because I was certain I was heading to jail and from there straight to hell. Thankfully, I was able to turn around, return to the store, and put the toy back on the shelf without being arrested and shipped off
to prison.

  A few years later I got my first pocketknife. I felt like such a grownup. I loved that thing. But, as every kid does with their first pocketknife, I soon cut myself while trying to whittle a stick into, um, a pointier stick. I still have the scar—both literally and emotionally. I was terrified of my mom taking away my pocketknife, so I lied and said I had cut my thumb on a jagged edge on the bathroom sink. My mom bought it, but my guilt consumed me—so much so that, while staying overnight at my grandmother’s house a short time later when my parents were out of town, I woke her up in the middle of the night to confess my sin. My grandma rolled over, confused, and said sleepily, “Okay, whatever”—or whatever the granny equivalent of “Okay, whatever” is. “I’m sure your mother doesn’t care,” she added, and promptly went back to sleep. But the situation wasn’t trivial to me. It was a big deal, dire even. I had sinned. I wasn’t holy anymore. I had to confess and re-up on my sanctification or Satan would come looking for me to drag me down into the abyss. So I woke her back up and insisted she tell my mom. I finally wore her down and she agreed.

  Cheating in school? Forget about it. I would rat myself out to my teacher if I even accidentally caught a blurred glance at an answer on a neighbor’s test—after I already had that answer filled out on my own test. Secular music? No way. That stuff was for heathens. Now, this wasn’t a family rule or anything. My mom listened to oldies in the car and loved Motown, but I didn’t want to take any chances. So I silently judged her and made sure my own music collection was composed of only godly Christian music. My first album? Steven Curtis Chapman’s Heaven in the Real World. I loved it. Had every song committed to memory within a week of first popping it into my Sony Discman. But Michael W. Smith’s greatest hits collection, The First Decade, was the best music in the history of the universe. To me, music didn’t get any better than his ode to country preachers, “Kentucky Rose.”

  Cigarettes and alcohol? Yeah, right. I would verbally accost smokers in public (behind their backs, obviously—I was too much of a coward for direct confrontation). The closest thing to alcohol I got was Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider. My Christian friends and I used to get a bottle of that stuff every year for the youth group’s annual New Year’s Eve party and pretend we were drinking champagne. We were so cool.

  Even my clothes had to be holy. If there was a Christianized version of a pop culture icon screen-pressed onto a T-shirt, I had the shirt. I lifeguarded throughout high school, and you best believe I had a “Jesus is my lifeguard” shirt. And “What would Jesus do?” bracelets—what color do you want? I have one in every shade of the rainbow.

  I had to have all my bases covered. Entire sanctification meant entire, and I didn’t want to take the chance that, come judgment day, Jesus would uncover an area of my life that wasn’t entirely sanctified and I would be cast out into the darkness. It was probably that scenario, more than anything else, that scared me the most.

  Like a lot of other conservative evangelical Christians, I grew up being told that on judgment day, we wouldn’t just stand before the pearly gates and be told either “Come on in!” or “See you never, sinner!” No. Instead, Jesus would call each of us up, one by one, in front of all humanity and the heavenly host. He would read out every single sin we had ever committed, and maybe even show them all on a giant video screen so everyone could watch and join the judgmental festivities. Billions upon billions of people would find out that I almost stole a toy from a craft store when I was eight years old. Hell seemed like a trip to Disney World by comparison.

  That’s not to say hell didn’t loom large in my mind too. It did. But my fear of hell didn’t come from my parents, or really anybody else in my family. My grandmother was probably the most sanctified among us. She didn’t drink or smoke, didn’t have pierced ears, and to this day has never even been to a movie theater; but even she never tried to scare me into loving Jesus

  My fear of hell came from others, preachers mostly, but concerned old folks at church, televangelists, and Christian media played a big role too. I don’t remember the first time I thought about hell, but I’ll never forget all the times after that. They happened all the time, but never more vividly than at that most sacred of evangelical childhood church rituals: church camp.

  Hearts and farts

  When you grow up in a conservative holiness tradition, even children’s camp is tinged with a bit of turn-or-burn theology. Not a lot, but nightly sermons reminded us that the alternative to not going down to the altar and asking Jesus into our hearts would be, well, not good.

  Altar calls were such a regular part of my youth that, like the salvation they offered me, they’ve become a bit of a blur—except for the altar call at church camp when I was in sixth grade. That one I will never forget. I was sitting in the back row with a friend, and we were laughing hysterically during worship time. The worship songs themselves weren’t funny. We had simply taken it on ourselves to change the words “Heart, heart, I’ve got Jesus in my heart” to “Fart, fart, I’ve got to fart.” It was comedy gold, at least to two eleven-year-olds. Not so much to our camp counselors, who kept telling us to keep quiet and pay attention. And we did, at least on the outside. They couldn’t keep us from singing about farts in our head!

  Eventually, the music stopped and the speaker took the stage. I don’t remember a word he said, but I do remember the overwhelming sense of guilt he laid on me. Or maybe it was the Holy Spirit. The speaker would have said it was the latter; looking back, I’m pretty sure it was just the former, but maybe it was a little bit of both. Either way, I was terrified that my emerging career as the Christian “Weird Al” Yankovic had me in danger of the fires of hell if I didn’t rush down to the altar immediately to get saved for the I-don’t-know-what time. By that age I had lost track.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever gone down for an altar call, at church camp or elsewhere. But there’s an unspoken awkwardness about all altar calls, and it has nothing to do with kneeling down in front of a bunch of strangers. It’s the matter of when do you leave. Sure, the obvious answer would seem to be whenever the preacher has stopped praying. But if that is the obvious answer to you, then either you have never been to an altar call or you pray a lot longer than I do.

  I’m just not a prayer warrior. Never have been. I don’t mean I don’t pray. I just mean that I have a hard time praying for longer than, say, a minute or two. I get down to the altar, say what needs to be said, and then I’m done. That night at church camp I found myself, as I so often did, stranded at the altar without anything else to pray about. I had gotten saved—again—and in my sixth-grade understanding of altar calls, that was all you went down to the altar to pray about—unless you needed to be healed from something. I was healthy and saved and stuck.

  So I started listening to what the preacher was talking about in his prayer. Holiness preachers tend to do that during altar calls—they’ll squeeze in a second mini sermon in hopes of either saving a few more souls or covering a few theological points they missed in their sermon. This guy had the nerve to suggest that maybe there was something more to Christianity than just being saved. Maybe being saved was just the beginning, he said; maybe God was calling us to do something more. Maybe God was calling us to devote our entire lives to service in the kingdom of God. Maybe God was even calling some of us to full-time ministry.

  Remember why I was down there in the first place: I was terrified I was going to hell for turning a praise and worship chorus into a song about farting. Even though I had just gotten saved—again—I was worried God was still mad and that eternal punishment awaited.

  This was it.

  Here was my punishment.

  God would punish me for singing about farts by calling me to be a pastor.

  As an eleven-year-old, I could think of nothing more terrifying than being a senior pastor. Scared out of my mind at the thought of having to wear a suit and tie for the rest of my life, I went into negotiation mode with God. For the first time in my ent
ire life I had something to pray about during the entirety of an altar call. I don’t remember the exact details of our negotiation, but I do know it was intense. And I know what we finally settled on. Or at least what I decided we had settled on.

  I would devote my life to God somehow—just not as a senior pastor. Oh, and not as a missionary to Africa, because that was just way too far away and did they even have a Chick-fil-A there? I mean, what was I supposed to eat in Africa if there was no Chick-fil-A? So obviously that was a no-go. We—and by we I mean I—settled on “Okay, I’ll do some kind of ministry someday probably, maybe.”

  That was the cycle of my childhood and teenage years: get saved, sin, go down to an altar, get saved again, rinse and repeat. The fear of going to hell consumed my every waking hour. I didn’t care how many times I had to go down to the altar. If it kept me from being poked with a burning pitchfork for all eternity, I would go.

  I had given my life over to Jesus out of love, but fear began to drive the relationship: fear of disappointing Jesus, disappointing my parents, getting either one of them angry, going to hell. And eventually, fear of being left behind.