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Ministry Focus Paper Approval Sheet
This ministry focus paper entitled
HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL FORMATION: MOVING BEYOND CORPORATE WORSHIP THROUGH ENGAGEMENT WITH THE LEAST OF THESE
Written by
BRADY J. BRAATZ
and submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Ministry
has been accepted by the Faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary
upon the recommendation of the undersigned readers:
______Tony Jones
______Kurt Fredrickson
Date Received: December 21, 2016
HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL FORMATION: MOVING BEYOND CORPORATE WORSHIP THROUGH ENGAGEMENT WITH THE LEAST OF THESE
A MINISTRY PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE MINISTRY DEPARTMENT FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY
BY
BRADY J. BRAATZ DECEMBER 2016
ABSTRACT
Holistic Spiritual Formation: Moving Beyond Corporate Worship Through Engagement with the Least of These Brady Braatz Doctor of Ministry School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary 2016
To be more holistically formed in the Christian faith, undergraduate students will be guided into regular engagement with the “least of these,” trusting they will encounter God, and with the hope that students will be shaped more fully into the image of Christ. The goal of this doctoral project is to propose a more holistic spiritual formation curriculum for the students of MidAmerica Nazarene University. While continuing the standard spiritual formation elements, (chapel, small groups, retreats), adding the requirement for students to serve the least of these will cultivate a more integrated, comprehensive spiritual formation curriculum. This thesis took place at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas. Through examination of the writings of John Chrysostom, John Wesley, and Jürgen Moltmann, a theological impetus develops for guiding students into regular engagement with the poor. In addition to theological considerations, a review of the historical roots of the Church of the Nazarene, as one of advocacy for the poor, substantiates service to the least of these as a faithful expression of the mission of the denomination. To support the goal of holistic spiritual formation, a review of the ideologies of bell hooks leads to reflection on the ethical complexities of obligatory service to the disenfranchised. Finally, the results of a case study provide insight into the spiritually formative nature of engagement with the least of these. The doctoral project concludes that mandating service to the least of these would provide a more holistic plan of spiritual formation for the students of MidAmerica Nazarene University. However, the possible relegation of the poor to the position of consumable good for the formation of college students requires further thought and exploration prior to the full implementation of the proposed curriculum as currently designed.
Content Reader: Tony Jones, PhD
Words: 288
To my wife, Kreisa, in your love I have found myself lost in the heart of God.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank MidAmerica Nazarene University for nurturing my life in ministry. Specifically, I am extremely grateful to Dr. Randy Beckum. You have painted the kingdom of God for me in the colors of love and compassion. Also, thank you to my family for their unwavering support. Darby, Simon, and Norah, you have been a source of joy that gave me the drive to persist on this journey.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv
PART ONE: MINISTRY CONTEXT
INTRODUCTION 2
Chapter 1. THE MINISTRY CHALLENGE 10
Chapter 2. THE HISTORY OF THE NAZARENE 27 DENOMINATION AND MIDAMERICA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY
PART TWO: THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
Chapter 3. LITERATURE REVIEW 53
Chapter 4. THEOLOGY OF THE NEW MINISTRY INITIATIVE 78
Chapter 5. CRITICAL REFLECTION ON COMPULSORY 111 SERVICE TO THE POOR
PART THREE: MINISTRY STRATEGY
Chapter 6. A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL FORMATION CURRICULUM 122
Chapter 7. NEW MINISTRY CASE STUDY 133
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 141
APPENDICES 152
BIBLIOGRAPHY 162
v
PART ONE
MINISTRY CONTEXT INTRODUCTION
Target Audience and Ministry Location
MidAmerica Nazarene University (MNU) is a liberal arts university with 900 undergraduate students, and a graduate and adult degree population of 1,028. Founded in
1966, MNU is the second youngest of the nine institutions founded by the Nazarene denomination in North America. MNU will serve as the context for this doctoral project, specifically the Spiritual Life Office (SLO). The university has two full-time chaplains who give oversight to chapel, small group ministries, service ministries, and retreats. In addition to the above responsibilities, the university chaplains lead a small team of colleagues who serve in part-time roles in the SLO, and adjunct courses for the School of
Christian Ministry and Formation when the opportunity presents itself.
The specific target audience for this doctoral project is the undergraduate student population at MNU. Of the students who claim a denominational affiliation, the
Nazarene tradition accounts for 34 percent of the student population.1 In addition to
Nazarene students, the university draws from a variety of different traditions that are primarily evangelical in nature.2 The next highest denominational affiliation is non- denominational, followed by Catholic.3 In addition to those who self-report a Christian
1 Patricia Walsh, “MidAmerica Nazarene University Fact Book 2015” (MidAmerica Nazarene University, Olathe, 2015), 15.
2 Despite a significant amount of Nazarene students, even students who have an extensive family history within this denomination are only loosely interested in claiming any denominational affiliation, including Nazarene. This pattern appears to be consistent with the millennial generation’s identification with denominational affiliations throughout North America. For more information on religious trends amongst millennial see, Stephen Hunt, ed., Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society, vol. 10 (Leiden, AN: Brill, 2015), 346-365.
3 Walsh, “MidAmerica Nazarene University Fact Book 2015” 20-21.
2 denomination, a significant portion of the student population would not identify themselves with any religious affiliation.
In contrast to some Christian universities, MNU does not require students to sign a statement of faith. However, undergraduate students are still required to participate in spiritual formation activities. As will be described in detail in Chapter 2, the impetus for all Nazarene higher education is that they should be intentionally Christian in nature.
MNU spiritual formation activities serve as the distinctive for why the university exists and form the central narrative that the institution rehearses both internally and externally.
Specific Ministry Need
From the inception of the institution, the only medium through which students could fulfill their spiritual formation requirements was chapel attendance. In 2009, the
SLO began incrementally increasing the opportunities available to students that would allow them to fulfill their spiritual formation requirements. Despite the expansion of the spiritual formation curriculum, the vast majority of students continue to self-select chapel as their primary means for meeting the university requirements.
The specific ministry need addressed in this project will be to reflect on the methods by which students obtain their required amount of Spiritual Formation Credits
(SFC) in a given semester. Consideration will be given to how corporate worship (in particular the glut of corporate worship) sends implicit messages about the Christian faith that are counter to the Christian tradition, the denomination’s theology and history, and the mission statement of both the SLO and the institution itself.
3 Why This Topic is Important
To begin, this is a significant topic because university students have demonstrated a growing tendency to equate corporate worship attendance with spiritual vitality.
Corporate worship has been a foundational component of the rhythm of life at MNU and will continue to be a staple of the university in the future. Chapel, in itself, is not the specific challenge. However, when corporate worship attendance becomes the primary rubric for assessing spiritual vitality, the formation of students into the image of Christ is distorted.4
A second reason for importance deals with ramifications of future denominational leadership. The university rightly identifies our students as current and future leaders of the Nazarene denomination. The practical implications of students as the current leaders are less than clear. It does acknowledge, however, the reality that in order for this tradition to persist in North America, students at Nazarene higher education institutions will be the denominational leaders in the future.
The faith practices that form the ecclesiological, theological, and hermeneutical imaginations of MNU students, echo forward in their lives long after their departure from this community. In this way and in far more substantial ways than any denominational source of authority, Nazarene universities are forming the laity and clergy of local
Nazarene churches. This project is important because it aims at reforming the broader
4 Fundamentally, the terms spiritual life and spiritual lives suggests that there is a dichotomy between what happens in a student’s life spiritually versus what happens in their lives physically or emotionally. While it is not the intention of the Spiritual Life Office to implicitly communicate that a student’s life should be compartmentalized into differing subcategories, these terms do provide for clear communication when engaging students and for the purpose of this project will be used with the understandings of the inherent weaknesses associated with them.
4 denomination by guiding the current and future denominational leaders into a more holistic understanding and practice of the Christian faith.
A third reason this topic has value is because for many students, their time at
MNU appears to be a crucible for further participation in the Christian faith in general. A segment of students come to MNU with very little knowledge about the Christian faith.
The Christian university experience is pregnant with the potential to be an individual’s first experience with a vibrant Christian community. Likewise, many MNU students who have encountered the Christian faith in their homes and in the local church are just now beginning to consider the validity of the faith they have experienced up to this point.5
Thus, this project is significant because the future direction of students and their willingness to continue in the Christian faith is a critical decision many students will make in their time at MNU. The faith practices prescribed by the SLO, for better and for worse, play a substantial role in students persisting in the Christian faith or regressing from it. In this way, this project does the meaningful work of engaging students with a vital faith that moves beyond the four walls of the church and offers a more integrated vision of the life in kingdom of God.
Finally, the importance of this project also grows out of its ability to question the often-touted establishment of a Christian worldview as the central purpose for Christian higher education. Many Christian universities differentiate themselves (in comparison to secular institutions) by promoting their presentation of academic coursework from a
5 I recognize that the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of these students, and the Spiritual Life Office does not bear the sole responsibility of guiding students to adopt the Christian faith. Yet, biblically, Christ compels us to go and make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:18-20). Further, Nazarene higher education has the explicit intention of creating space where those who are not familiar with the Christian faith can encounter Christ.
5 Christian epistemology stemming from a dedication to orthodox Christian belief. MNU presents the integration of faith and learning as fundamental to the ethos of the institution.
From this perspective, university education cultivates Christian discipleship when it utilizes orthodox Christian belief as a means by which to comprehend formal academic disciplines.6
A Christian epistemology is a critical component of how and why Christian higher education contributes to the kingdom of God. Indeed, what a person knows is difficult to divide from what a person consciously and subconsciously believes.
Unfortunately, too often Christian higher education never moves beyond cognitive belief into the realm of embodied practices when it promises a distinctly Christian education.
“The result is a talking-head version of Christianity that is fixated on doctrines and ideas, even if it is also paradoxically allied with a certain kind of anti-intellectualism.”7 An orthodox Christian worldview is not counter to holistic spiritual formation; however, in isolation, it is not substantial enough to bear the full weight of formation into the image of Christ.
This project centers its philosophy of anthropology in the broader realm of desire and ultimate love, rather than just in belief. By relying on James K. A. Smith’s articulation of liturgical practices, this work prescribes adopting kinetic practices as a vital pedagogical means for collectively shaping the kingdom of God in the MNU community. In presenting an alternative to the worldview philosophy, MNU can offer a
6 James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009), 43.
7 Ibid, 42.
6 Christian distinctive that moves beyond an Enlightenment-driven understanding of
Christian formation, while at the same time honoring the cultivation of orthodox belief.
Why I Am Personally Interested
Having spent the entirety of my vocational ministry working at MNU, the possibility for honest criticism of our current structure of spiritual formation is necessary for future longevity. This project provides the opportunity to address some of the mounting suspicions that have grown over the last thirteen years. In this way, the opportunity to develop a more holistic vision of spiritual formation, with the hope of bringing a healthier expression of the Christian faith to future generations, is an exciting prospect.
This topic is also enticing because of the potential to speak prophetically to the
Nazarene denomination. Historians regularly highlight how this tradition celebrates and honors the dateable moments of salvation and sanctification in the context of corporate worship gatherings. In addition to emphasis on evangelism, service to the “least of these” has also been central to Nazarene identity.8 Since the middle of the twentieth century, enthusiasm for corporate worship services has become the overarching means of measuring denominational effectiveness. This project challenges the Nazarene tradition’s current metric of assessing the vibrancy of Christian faith by recommitting to the original vision of a church that embodies the Christian faith by loving the poor. It is unlikely that
8 For the purpose of this project, the designation “least of these” will include those described in Matthew 25:31-46. This text describes those who, are literally hungry, thirsty, naked, and imprisoned. Additionally, Raymond E. Brown describes Jesus’ use of “the poor” in The Sermon on the Mount as those who are also spiritually and emotionally hungry, thirsty, naked, and imprisoned. In keeping with this broader New Testament understanding, this project will also include those in spiritual poverty under the designation of “the least of these.” Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997) 69-69.
7 the broader publication of this project will be the vehicle for swaying denominational leaders. However, MNU students could serve as an example to the denomination of embodied holiness, with the greater hope of sparking a renewal movement amongst other
Nazarene universities.
Thesis Statement
To be more holistically formed in the Christian faith, students will be guided into regular engagement with the least of these, trusting that they will encounter God in such opportunities, and with the hope that they will be shaped more fully into the image of
Christ. This project’s thesis will consider the theologies of John Wesley, John
Chrysostom, and Jürgen Moltmann. Using the insights of these theologians from three different eras of Christian history, a rationale for reallocating spiritual formation requirements will serve as the first step of the project. The final goal of the project will be to imagine a more robust spiritual formation curriculum for MNU undergraduate students.
Project Overview
Three major components will be included in this project. Part One offers an explanation of the ministry setting and a description of the ministry in order to provide context for the project. Further, a description of the history of the Nazarene denomination will provide a relevant subtext. Also, a history and current assessment of
MNU will give the project grounds for proposing specific corrections.
Part Two provides a theological rationale from which to generate a substantial renovation to the current spiritual formation curriculum at MNU. Several theologians,
8 both within and outside of the Arminian stream of thought, will clarify why this ministry need is worth addressing, as well as supply the rationale for the ministry solution. This section will also include the works of social theorists who have highlighted the complexities of power differential, with an eye toward considering the potential of the commodifying of the poor by upper-middle class university students.
Part Three describes a new ministry initiative and will invite student volunteers to participate in a case study through which a portion of their spiritual formation credits will be gained in service to the least of these. The case study will last for eight-weeks, and the population will be made up of students who have chosen to join one of the student led ministries at MNU. Before participating in the case study, students will attend a pre- engagement survey and evening of training. The conclusion of the case study will be marked by a post-engagement survey and debriefing.
In light of the pre and post engagement surveys, the development of patterns and themes will contribute to assessing the efficacy of the new ministry initiative. In addition to the case study, theological, historical, and ethical coherence will assist in determining the viability of requiring students to serve the least of these. Finally, the project will conclude by recommending further areas of potential study into the value of service as a means of spiritual formation, as well as by identifying any substantial insights garnered from the study of the new ministry initiative.
9
CHAPTER 1
THE MINISTRY CHALLENGE
Spiritual Formation Curriculum Summary
At MNU, spiritual formation is a co-curricular element of the student experience.
Spiritual formation activities are a required component of participation in the community.
When students apply to the university, the expectation is that there would be a desire (or at a minimum, an openness) to explore the Christian faith. In addition to the general core classes that survey the Old and New Testaments, it is common to find students (in the dorm or over a meal) engaged in dialogue about their faith. The quasi-monastic nature of the community creates an environment where students can encounter other Christ- followers, ask difficult questions of the Christian faith, and learn to practice their faith within the context of community. I serve as one of the chaplains in the SLO. The SLO
10 initiates all non-academic required spiritual formation activities on campus and holds students accountable to their specified requirements for each semester.9
Students earn SFC by attending various spiritual formation activities of the SLO.
At the conclusion of the semester, students’ aggregate spiritual formation credits are calculated. The majority of students need to receive forty SFC throughout a sixteen-week semester. Adjustments and reductions to a student’s spiritual formation requirements are relatively common. Primarily, they stem from academic circumstances, such as academic internships, education practica, nursing clinicals, and other academically relevant situations.10
Not unlike a church community, the broadness of the student body does not allow us to categorize all students as being at one particular point on the spectrum of the
Christian faith. MNU does not require students to a sign a statement of faith (professing faith in Christ) to attend the university. However, Nazarene higher education, and in
9 A brief note about required spiritual formation. A critique of MNU (and Christian higher education in general) is that forcing students to participate in spiritual formation is counterproductive to the process of spiritual formation. Theologically, we affirm that God, in humble love, does not force anyone into relationship. Further, propagation of the Christian faith through coercive or oppressive means does violence to the eschatological hope that, in the coming of the kingdom of God, all violence and oppression will cease. Jürgen Moltmann writes, "The freedom of faith therefore urges men on towards liberating actions, because it makes them painfully aware of suffering in situations of exploitation, oppression, alienation and captivity." The MNU tradition of required chapel is foundational to the identity of the institution. As noted in Chapter 1, an explicit concern of the university’s founders was that history has proven that the zeal for retaining an institution’s identity as a Christian university tends to dissipate over time. This concern was present at the inception of MNU and remains an explicit concern for the institution today. With these ideas in mind, it is unrealistic to imagine that the system of requiring spiritual formation activities will cease at MNU. Thus, the goal needs to shift from completely deconstructing required spiritual formation to making every effort to identifying the incongruities of the system and working to make the required spiritual formation curriculum as just as possible. An example of working towards generating greater freedom can be seen in the Spiritual Life Office’s decision to expand the spiritual formation curriculum to include more than chapel services as the sole means of spiritual formation. This act alone does not reconcile this theological incongruity, but it is a more congruent expression than the previous system. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, (Minneapolis, MN: First Fortress Press, 1993), 317.
10 For a complete description of all of the academic reasons for reductions in a student’s spiritual formation credits, as found in the MNU Spiritual Formation Requirements brochure, see Appendix A.
11 particular MNU, was fashioned for nurturing the faith of young adults in the Wesleyan-
Holiness tradition.11 The ethos of the Nazarene university system is that they would be colonies of education, spiritual growth, and transformation.
Thus, the goal of the SLO is two-fold. First, it is to facilitate a context where students can encounter Christ. Accomplishing this goal primarily happens by cultivating transformational spaces and experiences. This should not suggest that the SLO is a neutral observer, without the desire to offer a compelling vision of the love of God. Yet, the goal of curating a context implies that the SLO has no ability within itself to fabricate a student’s encounter with Christ.12
Second, within transformational spaces, it is the desire of the SLO that students be able to explore various methodologies for encountering Christ. The ultimate hope of exploring a variety of methodologies is that a student would develop patterns of spiritually nurturing practices that continue to shape them after they graduate from MNU.
It is not our desire to force the Christian faith on our constituents. However, it is our goal to be a community that points to the mercies of God in the world, and to serve as witnesses to the final consummation of God’s kingdom in the future.
With this goal in mind, below is an overview of the various means of spiritual formation at MNU. The summary is an outline of the opportunities that are available to
11 Donald S. Metz, Some Crucial Issues in the Church of the Nazarene (Olathe, KS: Wesleyan Heritage Press, 1994), 91.
12 Theologically, the Nazarene tradition has emphasized the idea of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is the grace that draws creation back to God’s self. Schubert Ogden says it well in his essay, Process Theology and the Wesleyan Witness, “Whereas God would still be God and would be a gracious God even if we had never existed, we could not so much as possibly exist, much less exist in faith, except for the radical prevenience of God’s grace.” Schubert M. Ogden, Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue, ed. Bryan P. Stone and Thomas J. Oord (Nashville, TN: Abington Press, 2001), 42.
12 students in the course of one sixteen-week semester. Further, the summary identifies how many SFC are available for each opportunity, along with a description of attendance trends for each event.
Small Groups as Spiritual Formation
Small groups led by faculty and staff members offer the possibility of earning up to ten SFC in a semester as students earn one credit for each time they attend a small group. Small groups study the Bible, read books together, meet for discussion around social issues, and practice corporate prayer. In the fall semester of 2015, an average of eighty-six students per week participated in a small group.
Spiritual Discipline Trial as Spiritual Formation
A subsector of our small group ministry is the opportunity for students to participate in a six-to eight-week Spiritual Discipline Trial. Each trial exposes students to a spiritual discipline, trains them in how to practice the discipline, and holds them accountable for practicing the discipline through self-reporting their experience. The self-reporting includes written reflection and challenges students to consider if the given discipline was personally formative over the last seven days. Each time a student reports their participation, they receive one SFC. In the fall semester of 2015, 180 students earned at least one SFC through the Spiritual Discipline Trial.
Retreats as Spiritual Formation
Each spring, the SLO invites students to attend a retreat that begins on a Friday evening and lasts until Sunday morning. Retreats typically include prayer (through
13 keeping the hours), times of dialogue, worship in song, and space to rest. In the fall semester of 2015, eighty students participated in the spiritual life retreat.13
Ministries as Spiritual Formation
Students can also earn SFC as they participate in university-sponsored ministry opportunities. Although it varies each year, the university typically offers between six and ten weekly ministries that address a variety of different needs in our Kansas City metro area. Students can visit the elderly in nursing homes, mentor students in the urban core, assist with the recycling program on campus, and participate in feeding the homeless. Students earn one SFC each time they participate in one of these ministries.
In the fall semester of 2015, an average of twenty-one students per week garnered a spiritual formation credit through a university sponsored student ministry.14
Short Term Mission Trips as Spiritual Formation
MNU sponsors six to ten domestic and international short-term mission trips annually. Students who participate in the training sessions (typically between four and six, hour-long trainings) and complete a mission trip earn six SFC. In the academic year of 2015-2016, sixty-one students earned a portion of their SFC by participating in a mission trip.
13 This retreat is the only component of our spiritual formation curriculum that takes place annually, rather than in the course of each semester.
14 More than any of the other options for earning SFC, this ministry option is the most unpredictable from semester to semester and year to year. Primarily this is because a student on the Associated Student Government is the main overseer of these ministries. Steps are being taken to bring more stability to this area of spiritual formation, but this is an area is that underdeveloped in our curriculum.
14 Chapel as Spiritual Formation
The final way that students earn SFC takes place in the corporate worship setting we call chapel. Amongst the student population, 34 percent of students self-identify with the Nazarene tradition, despite this being an educational institution of the Church of the
Nazarene (CotN). In an effort to accommodate the wide variety of traditions, differing levels of faith development, and academic schedules, the SLO offers four chapel services per week. Each chapel service has a different format and liturgy. The intentional variety of services is an attempt to contextualize the kingdom of God to our various constituents of the university.
Community Chapel
The name for our first corporate worship service each week is “Community
Chapel.” Very few academic courses take place during this time each week, with the desire of creating a space where the entire campus community can gather. Additionally, at this service the University President has asked that the entire campus would close their offices and gather for a time of prayer, worship in song, reading the Bible, and listening to a sermon. The university chaplains host special speakers, work through a series, and set the spiritual trajectory for the campus during Community Chapel. Students receive two SFC for attending this chapel with the result that it is the most well-attended chapel of the four weekly options. In the fall of 2015, an average 357 students attended
Community Chapel each week.
15 Midday Prayers
Midday Prayers is a service of word and table that practices a liturgy more reflective of a high church setting than is typically found in the Nazarene denomination.
During this thirty-minute service, prayer books guide participants in corporate prayer, three scripture lessons are read from the lectionary, a brief homily is given, and the service concludes with the celebration the Eucharist. This is the least attended chapel service with an average of sixteen students receiving one SFC on a weekly basis in the fall of 2014.15
Kairos
The Kairos chapel service is born out of a unique partnership with a Nazarene church that is immediately adjacent to the MNU campus. The young adult pastor from this church hosts the Kairos chapel service and serves as a liaison between the church and the SLO. This service features an opportunity for students to dialogue with one another and is the most interactive of the four chapel options. Students receive one spiritual formation credit for attending Kairos. In the fall of 2015, an average of fifty-five students participated in Kairos on a weekly basis.
Student-Led Chapel
Student-Led Chapel contains many of the same elements as Community Chapel, but the university students execute all of the components of this service. Various members of the student body lead the community in prayer, worship through singing,
15 The statistics for Midday Prayers are from 2014 because this service was discontinued in the spiritual formation matrix due to low attendance.
16 readings from the Bible, and the offering of a sermon or student testimony. Students receive one SFC for attending Student-Led Chapel, and on average 190 students attended this chapel service each week in the fall of 2015.16
Malformed Spiritual Formation Practices
The design of the current curriculum is that students would attend Community
Chapel each week, thus earning thirty-two of their forty SFC for the semester. This leaves the average student with eight remaining SFC to acquire through a small group, a ministry, a mission trip, a retreat, or one of the additional chapel services. On top of the four weekly chapel services, some additional corporate worship services are added to the curriculum calendar each semester. These added chapel services, combined with the four weekly services, increase the possible number of SFC that a student can earn in corporate worship services each semester to around seventy-five SFC per semester.
The intent of providing an overabundance of SFC opportunities is to encourage students to self-select the activities that are most meaningful to them. A student’s familiarity with the Christian faith, the traditions they have been a part of in the past, and their personal preferences are some of the circumstances the SLO attempts to address when considering the various components that influence a student’s commitment to the
Christian faith. In an effort to avoid completely acquiescing to simple preference,
Community Chapel is incentivized with two SFC per service attended. The intent of the
16 Students who earn thirty-nine of the required forty credits available are charged a fifty-dollar fine and are fined ten dollars for each additional missed credit. The maximum fine a student can accumulate in one semester is $440. In the fall of 2015, 26 percent of students received a spiritual formation credit fine, with an average fine of $187.36.
17 curriculum is to foster student responsibility, while still providing a map for spiritual formation within the Christian faith.
Figure One: Spiritual Formation Credit Opportunities
3% 5% Corporate Worship (Chapel) 5% Small Groups Student Ministries Mission Trips 10% Retreats 12% Spiritual Disciplines 65% Figure One represents the percentage of spiritual formation credits available to students by category in the fall of 2015.
Ministry Problem
The majority of students earn nearly all of their SFC through corporate worship services. Figure One reflects the reality that chapel is the most accessible option for students to acquire their SFC because of the various times, styles, and number of chapels each week. Further evidence of the over-saturation of corporate worship attendance by
Figure Two: Spiritual Formation Credit Opportunities 2% 3% Corporate Worship (Chapel)
Small Groups 10% Student Ministries
Retreats
Figure Two represents the percentage of 85% spiritual formation credits accumulated by students in fall of 2015.
18 MNU students is seen in Figure Two. Of the 11,806 hours spent engaging in the spiritual formation curriculum for the fall of 2015, 85 percent took place in chapel services.
Corporate worship has been a hallmark of MNU since the inception of the university. Compulsory chapel attendance has always been and it will continue to be a part of the fabric of the university in the future. However, corporate worship as the sole means of spiritual formation for the majority of students has the potential to create several theological, pedagogical, and philosophical incongruities.
Theological Concerns
Theologically, corporate worship as the sole means of spiritual formation has the potential of implicitly communicating several erroneous messages about the Christian faith. The first misnomer is that the Christian faith is primarily a passive experience.
Students can actively engage in chapel services as they participate in worship in song and times of corporate prayer. However, the sermon, in most chapel services, is the central event of the gathering. The sermon holds the place of honor as it commands the most time and accounts for the greatest financial investment in each chapel service. This format has the potential to imply that the Christian faith is essentially a transaction that happens as you gain new information.
19 In her book “Teaching to Transgress,” bell hooks suggests that a change in our
“consciousness” does not equate with genuine transformation.17 Quoting Antonio
Faundez,
...one of the things that we learned in Chile in our early reflection on everyday life was that abstract political, religious or moral statements did not take concrete shape in acts by individuals. We were revolutionaries in the abstract, not in our daily lives. It seems to me essential that in our individual lives we should day to day live out what we affirm.18
Although it is unintentional, the gnostic undertones of gathering more knowledge can lead students to believe that faith equates to the mental assent to biblical and creedal assertions, rather than an embodied discipleship.
A second, and connected, gnostic danger of the over-saturation of corporate worship is the notion that God’s love for all of creation is restricted to what happens during chapel, and thus, only to humanity. Overabundance of corporate worship suggests that what happens within the confines of chapel is the primary focus of the SLO.
Frequently, a “now and not yet” vision of the kingdom of God is communicated during chapel. However, the quantity of chapel services offered implicitly communicates that
God’s greatest desire is that we would gather for the movements of corporate worship.
A third implicit theological misnomer becomes evident as students begin to equate attendance at corporate worship services with the vitality of their Christian faith.
17 The author, whose given name is Gloria Jean Watkins, uses the pen name “bell hooks.” Within this work she does not explicitly explain the purpose for her pen name or the reasons she has chosen not to offer proper capitalization to her pen name. However, in Chapter Eleven of this work, hooks discusses how requiring compliance to proper grammatical use of the English language is a form of dominion laid on those who were, and are, suffering under the tyranny of white male oppressors. hooks, thus, declares her non-acceptance of the subjugation of her race and gender by white males via the subversive act of intentionally not complying to “proper English” standards. For more information see bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), 167-175.
18 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 48.
20 The sheer volume of chapel services subtly communicates what the SLO values in terms of spiritual formation. Executing chapel services requires a disproportionate amount of the budget, human hours, and emotional energy in comparison to all others areas of spiritual formation on campus. Tuesday’s Community Chapel and Thursday’s Student-
Led Chapel are given priority as hours free from class conflicts, and have been since the earliest days of MNU. This allocation of resources implies that corporate worship has been determined to be the most essential means of nurturing spiritual formation in the lives of students.19
Pedagogical Concerns
In addition to the above theological reservations, further questions concerning the pedagogical soundness deserve consideration. As students attend chapel, even the most participatory chapel service (typically the Kairos chapel service) is primarily a monological environment. This context can leave students with the impression that the experts, typically the chaplains or a chapel speaker, are the sole voices of authority. This has the potential to give students the impression that they can abdicate their responsibility to think critically about the Christian faith, in favor of passively receiving the content that the experts are presenting.
The mono-directional nature of the chapel services leans toward what hooks refers to as the “banking system” of education. She describes such a system of education as, “that approach to learning that is rooted in the notion that all students need to do is
19 For example, students, faculty, and staff commonly refer to their spiritual formation credits as “chapel points.”
21 consume information fed to them by a professor and be able to memorize and store it."20
The pattern of a monological transmission of information has been rooted in the Christian tradition, going back to the Old Testament. The SLO will continue to honor those who have a calling to lead and to preach within our community. Yet, assessing how much preaching students hear in a week’s worth of chapel could enhance the pedagogical efficacy of the SLO spiritual formation curriculum.
Philosophical Concerns
In addition to the theological and pedagogical points of friction, philosophical incongruities are also evident. The mission statement of the SLO reads: “We will strive to create an environment where God’s voice can be heard, His will can be discovered, and His mission in the world embraced.”21 All of the components for students to engage
God in those three elements appear to be in place, in terms of service opportunities, mission trips, and small groups. Unfortunately, an over-saturation of corporate worship services communicates the underlying message that hearing God’s voice, discovering your role in His story, and embracing God’s mission in the world happens primarily within the context of corporate worship.22
20 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 14.
21 Randy Beckum (University Chaplain) in discussion with author, September of 2003.
22 In an effort to sharpen the argument, the temptation is to suggest there are no opportunities to embrace God’s mission in corporate worship. The Desert Fathers and Mothers who lived in isolation from the world offer an example of active participation within the kingdom of God through prayer and asceticism, and modeled embracing God’s mission in isolation. Despite such radical examples, the presupposition of this project is that formation into the image of God requires the patterning of a Christian’s life after the example of Jesus, in explicitly going to the “other.” Invitations for students to be a part of mission trips, ministries to our community, and sermons about the missio dei are a regular part of our curriculum for chapel. However, the quantity of SFC offered in corporate worship services, in contrast
22 In addition to philosophical tensions, the MNU mission statement also conflicts with the current spiritual formation curriculum. The university’s mission statement reads: “A transformative university that nurtures Christ-like community, pursues academic excellence, and cultivates a passion to serve.”23 The spiritual formation curriculum, as it currently stands, does not adequately support the university’s mission statement. Sermons that highlight service as a means of responding to the love of God are a consistent component of the overarching curriculum in corporate worship settings.
With the two mission statements in mind, the primary means of cultivating a passion to serve remains at the level of an inspiring and heartfelt sermon. The heart of what MNU is attempting to form in students individually, and the community as a whole, is a passion for serving Christ and the world. Engagement with the world and service to others expresses the mission statement of the institution and is a frequent sentiment amongst the university’s leadership. In order to embody this public goal, the spiritual formation curriculum must reflect the university’s commitment to service.
Ministry Need
The ministry need is a restructuring of the spiritual formation curriculum that more holistically reflects the institution’s and the denomination’s theology of encountering Christ in service to the least of these. A more robust theology for restructuring the spiritual formation curriculum will take shape in light of John
Chrysostom’s, John Wesley’s, and Jürgen Moltmann’s theologies surrounding
to the amount of SFC offered in experiences that engage the world, reveals the incongruities in our mission statement.
23 “Faith at MNU,” MNU.edu, http://www.mnu.edu/about/faith.html. Accessed May 14, 2015.
23 encountering and engaging the least of these. This project will then compare the works of these three theologians with the history and inception of the Nazarene denomination.
Further, this project will offer thoughts considering the issue of power differential as it pertains to serving the least of these in our community. Finally, this project will synthesize the elements (theological, historical, and sociological voices) and offer a more holistic and vibrant spiritual formation curriculum for the students at MNU.
Project Thesis
As is true of every work of God, this project acknowledges that humanity is always set in the role of responding back to the initiating love of God. Thus, the thesis of this project is that holistically forming students in the Christian faith requires the SLO of
MNU to guide students into regular engagement with the least of these. Further, as students encounter God in such opportunities, MNU can cultivate an environment where
Christ’s image will take greater root in the hearts and lives of students.
Project Overview
The project will include a case study reflecting on the spiritually formative nature of serving the least of these. A sample group of students will voluntarily earn a portion of their spiritual formation credits through one of the university-sponsored ministries. To qualify as a case study participant, students must serve at least once in the course of the semester, but faithful engagement in a weekly student ministry will be the stated goal.
The hypothesis of the project is that students who participate in regular engagement with the least of these will develop a greater understanding of the mutuality that exists between service and the formation into the image of Christ.
24 The case study will take place over ten weeks and will include the following elements: recruitment of volunteers, pre-engagement survey, pre-engagement training, a post-engagement survey and debriefing. At the conclusion of the ten weeks, a comparison of the pre and post-engagement surveys will assist this project in looking for patterns of common formational experiences amongst the volunteer group. The final aim of the project will be to consider how serving the least of these is a spiritually formative practice that should be included as a required component of the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU. 24
Pre-Engagement Survey
The conducting of a pre-engagement survey with students will attempt to gather their current assumptions about spiritual formation and the role of service in Christian formation. Students will fill out a questionnaire that identifies their previous experience with serving the least of these, motivation for participating in service, and reflections on what Jesus means by the phrase, the least of these (Matt. 25:40, 47). The pre-engagement survey will include a series of short-answer questions, rating scale questions, and a question where students are asked to check all of the options that apply to them.
Pre-Engagement Training
An equally important component of this project is that students participate in service opportunities in ways that are considerate of maintaining the dignity and value of
24 In recruiting volunteers, there is recognition that students who would be willing to volunteer to serve the least of these are likely to be individuals who already find value in serving others. Having noted that, the authority to randomly select a test group of ethnically, religiously, economically, and socially diverse students is not a possibility for this doctoral project.
25 the people when they are serving. Pre-engagement training will foster a baseline for a shared theology for service and outline a set of best practices for serving others. Issues of power differential, a theology of service, and practical skills and guidelines will be included in the primary topics at the pre-engagement training. The pre-engagement training will take place over the course of one evening and will include times of teaching, discussion, and will culminate by celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
Post-Engagement Survey and Debriefing
At the conclusion of the case study, students will complete a post-engagement survey and debriefing. In light of the surveys, this doctoral project will assess the value of including service as a central component of the MNU spiritual formation curriculum.
Further, analysis of the case study results, in combination with the theological and historical motivations for new ministry initiative will conclude with an evaluation of the new ministry initiative.
26
CHAPTER 2
THE HISTORY OF THE NAZARENE DENOMINATION AND MIDAMERICA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY
Phineas F. Bresee and the Church of the Nazarene The CotN is a Wesleyan-Holiness denomination that began when several holiness sects came together to form one denomination. Unlike John Wesley’s formation of
Methodism, the Nazarene denomination credits several individuals for launching this new tribe in 1908. During the later portion of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, sectarian holiness bands and churches began to discover overlapping interests and desires. Those who united to form this new tradition did so primarily around several points of mutual theological and ecclesiological interests, but devotion to
John Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification was the compelling vision that brought this group together.1
In addition to the doctrine of holiness, a passion for evangelism, their pietistic heritage, and the common thread of the work of the Holy Spirit joined this tribe together.
1 The term “Holiness Church” can be difficult to categorize because of the variety of differing points of emphasis, ecclesial structures, and degrees of charismatic expressions in corporate worship. The definition for this project’s purposes will be, “those who proclaim the biblical doctrine of entire sanctification as a second definite work of grace subsequent to regeneration.” Gene Van Note, The People Called Nazarenes: Who We Are and What We Believe (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1983), 11.
27 However, the holiness sects had not yet found a unifying institution to lead them forward.
The history of the Church of the Nazarene is the story of the work of women and men who dreamt of uniting a holiness body through emphasizing their mutual interests and choosing charity in areas deemed non-essential to salvation.
Phineas F. Bresee and the Doctrine of Entire Sanctification
While the CotN has no one founder, the Nazarenes would not exist without the leadership and vision of Phineas Bresee. Bresee, a Methodist minister from the state of
Iowa, was the individual most responsible for bringing the various holiness sects under one governing body. This history of the CotN starts with a brief description of the theological convictions of Bresee, as well as a review of the events in his life that were critical in launching this small denomination into existence.
Phineas Bresee was the son of a modest family who lived in the mountains of
New York. At the age of sixteen, Bresee knelt at a mourner’s bench in a Methodist church and gave his life to Christ. Shortly after his conversion, he felt a call to ministry, and his life as a preacher began in earnest when he was only eighteen years old. By the time he was twenty-two years old, Bresee had been ordained as an Elder in the Methodist denomination.2
The Iowa conference of Methodists saw the leadership potential in this young minister from his earliest days in ministry. Bresee was involved with a variety of ministerial assignments while in Iowa, ranging from pastoring in rural contexts, to large urban congregations, to serving as a district superintendent. In his time as a district
2 Stan Ingersol, Nazarene Roots: Pastors, Prophets, Revivalists, and Reformers (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2009), 17-18.
28 superintendent, Simpson College, one of four Methodist colleges in Iowa at the time, made the invitation for him to serve as a trustee of the institution. History records that
Bresee was crucial in helping to salvage Simpson from the financial ruin that threatened to close the institution. Without question, Bresee was a person of influence and leadership.3
While the above information covers several of the biographical facts of Bresee’s first decade of ministry, it does not describe a turning point of his ministry in the
Methodist church. Throughout Bresee’s life as a pastor, genuine doubt was a constant companion, regardless of the vocational setting. Bresee reflected on his doubts, saying,
“I thought that probably I had gone into the ministry so early in life, that I had never answered the great questions of being, and of God, and of destiny and sin and the
Atonement, and I undertook to answer these great questions."4 Sincere effort to address his doubts with greater knowledge and apologetics only brought seasons of relief and comfort. Along with his successes in leadership, the overarching narrative of his first decade of ministry includes a persistent thread of uncertainty that followed him from assignment to assignment.
On a snowy evening in the winter of 1867, Bresee was preaching at his church in
Chariton, Iowa. His sermon that evening contained a typical strong evangelistic appeal, but Bresee found that he was the only one convicted by the Spirit of God. That night he received the “‘baptism of the Holy Ghost,’ though he admitted later that he did not know
3 Ingersol, Nazarene Roots, 17-18.
4 Timothy L. Smith, Called Unto Holiness: The Story of the Nazarene: the Formative Years (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), 94.
29 at the time what it was he received.”5 Despite an inability to clearly articulate the work of God that would propel his ministry forward, Bresee’s life took a decidedly different turn from that night forward.
Bresee’s experience of entire sanctification also entrenched him on one side of a growing divide within the Methodist denomination. In the nineteenth century,
Methodism bore the fingerprints of the denomination’s founder, John Wesley.
Methodists were people who emphasized the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, which gave this community a singular focus on seeing the kingdom of God come on earth, as it was taking place in heaven. Often this singular focus took the shape of pietistic rules (or methods), charismatic exuberance in corporate worship, and a desire to share the experience of entire sanctification with others.
It was during this same period that a division between Methodist ministers was growing. John Wesley had been dead for nearly 100 years, and the doctrine of entire sanctification was in decline amongst the denomination that he had founded. Within the
Methodist tribe, however, a resurgence of passion for the doctrine of sanctification was fueling the flames of a revival amongst Methodists and holiness denominations around the country. As Methodist circuit riders rode from rural community to rural community, emphasizing the experience of the second blessing, a renewal of Wesley’s vision of entire sanctification was growing within the denomination.6 As a result, this movement created separation between those who self-identified as having experienced a second work of
5 Ingersol, Nazarene Roots, 89.
6 For more information on the spread of Methodism and the doctrine of entire sanctification in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in America see: Darius L. Salter America’s Bishop: The Life of Francis Asbury (Nappanee, IN: Francis Asbury Press of Evangel Publishing House, 2003).
30 grace and those who claimed sanctification, but were not committed to additional works of the Spirit beyond the regenerating work of conversion.7
With the growing divide in Methodism, Bresee and his family moved to
California in 1883. Bresee faced many changes on the horizon. He once again found himself pastoring prominent urban churches. Yet his dedication to sanctification was still in its infancy. Upon later reflection, Bresee made the statement that it was not for several
“years did he learn how to expound the doctrine in such a way to lead others readily into the experience.”8 Unbeknownst to him, out of Bresee’s growing passion for the second blessing, a new unified holiness denomination was in the process of forming.
It was in 1890 that Bresee made entire sanctification the center point of his preaching ministry.9 Despite having the force of their founder’s doctrine on their side, ministers preaching entire sanctification were suspect in the eyes of Methodist ecclesial authorities. Just as the Methodist denomination had seceded from the Anglican Church, another rupture loomed as the tension over holiness came to a boiling point.
Two elements in the Methodist tradition made the eventual unification of the various holiness denominations possible. First, the Methodist denomination was in the practice of regularly hosting church revivals and camp meetings. As the doctrine of holiness became the centerpiece of Bresee’s life and ministry, he also became a frequent facilitator and speaker at revivals and camp meetings. These services were known for charismatic expressions in corporate worship, including shouting, running the aisles, and
7 Van Note, The People Called Nazarenes, 12.
8 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 94.
9 Ibid, 97.
31 mourners weeping on the altar over their sins.10 His participation and leadership at various camp meetings were crucial to networking Bresee with others who were equally resolute about the experience of holiness outside of Methodism.
Second, “Holiness bands” provided the context for interdenominational holiness to begin to forge new partnerships.11 Holiness bands were ecumenical groups that were a part of Wesley’s original method of discipleship within the Methodist denomination.
Such groups brought people together to discuss their experiences with the second blessing, to introduce participants to the doctrine of entire sanctification, and to keep one another accountable to their vision of the Christian faith. As revivals at interdenominational camp meetings and local churches were proclaiming the second blessing, holiness bands were once again the organizational strategy for nurturing the fruit that was born out of such revivals.
Ironically, holiness bands were not explicitly an effort toward unifying people in the holiness movement. Conversely, they were an attempt to foster a climate were individuals receiving the second blessing could remain in their own tradition and local church. The effect, however, was that people who came together found comradery both in their desire to propagate holiness, and in their experience of being thought of as
10 William M. Greathouse, “The Present Crisis in Nazarene Worship,” Grace and Peace Magazine, (August 29, 2013), accessed May 11, 2015, http://www.graceandpeacemagazine.org/component/content/article/116-articles/issue-summer-2013/354- the-present-crisis-in-nazarene-worship.
11 Holiness bands cannot bear the full weight of the formation of the Nazarene denomination. However, because holiness bands often brought together individuals passionate about the second blessing from various denominations, the birthing of a model for allowing the doctrine of holiness to be the central gathering principle was crucial for the conception of the Church of the Nazarene. For a more in-depth description of the purposes and practices of holiness bands, see John W. Wright, “Wesley’s Theology as Methodist Practice: Toward the Post-Modern Retrieval of the Wesleyan Tradition,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 35 (2000): 7.
32 suspicious by their own ecclesial authorities. Thus, in the midst of this tension, Bresee’s vision for a unifying work amongst the holiness sects was already finding fertile soil within the framework for making disciples in the Methodist Church.
Phineas F. Bresee and Ministry to the Poor
A consequence of the tensions over preaching entire sanctification left Bresee
(along with several others) with a growing desire to initiate a holiness denomination where emphasis on the second blessing would be an explicit goal. In addition to the second blessing friction, another issue festered below the surface. Bresee’s love for the poor, and his commitment to curating a corporate worship space where they would feel welcome, led to growing concern amongst the ecclesial authorities in the Methodist
Church. Wesley had a well-chronicled history of personally advocating for the poor.
Further, many of his sermons aimed at compelling the Church to regard the poor as Christ among them. Despite Methodism’s history with the poor, and not unlike Methodism’s drift away from entire sanctification, church work amongst the poor was developing into a contentious issue.
Bresee’s vision for spreading scriptural holiness always included people thought of as being beyond the scope of a respectable church’s reach.12 At the close of the nineteenth century, his work among the Methodists began coming into direct conflict with his commitment to working with the poor. While this was not universally true of all
Methodists, the voices of authority in California had a growing discomfort with an emphasis on ministry to the least of these.
12 Van Note, The People Called Nazarenes, 100.
33 Involvement in ministry to the poor came to its apex in Bresee’s ministry at the
Peniel Mission. Rev. and Mrs. T.P. Ferguson had done the difficult work of gathering financial support for the building of a mission in the Los Angeles area that would serve the disenfranchised of their community. As a mission, and in particular because it was not a church, it was to be free from the hindrances of denominational bureaucracy. While the Fergusons were gathering financial support, they began to recruit Bresee to serve as the pastor of the mission and director of the newly constructed Peniel Hall.13
Bresee attempted to remain within the Methodist denomination and submitted a request to his denominational authorities for a special consideration to go and serve at the new mission.14 After denying his request for a special consideration, Bresee’s next request was for an amicable release from his denominational affiliation. His tenure in
Methodism officially ended in the granting of his request by his ecclesial authorities.
On Sunday, October 21, 1894, the Peniel Mission was dedicated in Los Angeles,
California.15 The dedication, which unmistakably resembled a typical slate of Sunday church activities in evangelical Protestantism in the early twentieth century, was a joyful event, including preaching, singing, and charismatic enthusiasm. Bresee wrote of the motivations of Peniel Hall in the inaugural issue of the Peniel Herald:
Our first work is to try to reach the unchurched. The people from the homes and the street where the light from the churches does not reach, or penetrates but little. Especially to gather the poor to the cross, by bringing to bear upon them Christian sympathy and helpfulness.... It is also our work to preach and teach the gospel of
13 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 108.
14 Ingersol, Nazarene Roots, 89-90.
15 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 108.
34 full salvation; to show forth the blessed privilege of believers in Jesus Christ, to be made holy and thus perfect in love.16
Bresee’s calling to marry the work of Christian perfection to the ministry of loving and engaging the least of these was coming to fruition at the Peniel Mission.
Why the Methodists chose not to give Bresee the special appointment to the mission is unclear. By all accounts, Bresee was in good standing with the denomination and served several prominent churches within the conference. Likewise, while some within the tradition were moving away from work with the poor, this was not a publically stated goal or indicative of many ministries of the Methodist church in Southern
California. Two concerns appear to point to why the conference was unwilling to grant
Bresee’s petition for special assignment.17
First, interdenominational gatherings had the tendency to draw out the more fanatical members of the holiness movement. Some within the holiness tent had integrated their passion for the doctrine of holiness with theologies surrounding healing or the Second Coming of Christ.18 Bresee’s efforts at the Peniel Mission to draw people who were dedicated to caring for the poor, while still maintaining a commonality in their methods and motivations, became the modest goal of the mission.
16 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 50.
17 These two hesitations are pertinent to this project, because just as there was a drifting of Methodism from Wesley’s commitment to the poor, there has been a parallel drift away from the poor in the Nazarene denomination, despite Bresee’s commitment to the poor. Likewise, just as Methodism was struggling to embody the kingdom of God in the midst of growing affluence and social status, the Nazarene denomination’s willingness to be a church both of and for the poor is central to the issues over identity that currently plague this tradition. For more information on the current discussion on what it means to be a Nazarene see, “Nazarene Identity: A Panel Discussion,” Grace & Peace Magazine, (May 28, 2014), accessed August 13, 2015, http://www.graceandpeacemagazine.org/articles/21-issue-spring-2014/397- nazarene-identity-a-panel-discussion
18 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 51.
35 To this end, the creation of a seventy-four word statement of belief gave explicit guidelines to the mission. The statement of belief was specific enough to apply the guidelines when it was helpful, yet broad enough to be inviting to all who were of like heart and mind with the mission’s passion for holistic ministry to the poor. It is no surprise that this statement became the early archetype for the Nazarenes, as Bresee drafted the statement himself.19
Second, the nature of Peniel Hall, as with any mission, was that it existed to serve the poor of the community. The poor were often uninhibited in their charismatic expressions in worship. Unfettered shouting, weeping on the altar, running the aisles, and outbursts of gratitude were regular parts of services amongst this group of people.20
Some within Methodism found such public gestures of emotion to be uncomfortable at best and chaotic at worst. Thus, mission work had the tendency to go to the extremes in terms of exuberance in corporate worship. This was uncomfortable, to the point of intolerable, for many Christians with greater social and economic status.21
If the partnership with Peniel Mission was the crucible for Bresee’s departure from Methodism, it was not because the Peniel Mission would be a significant part of his future ministry. After leaving in the late summer of 1895 to study other missions across
19 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 51.
20 Ibid, 121.
21 It can be tempting to describe those who were uncomfortable with the emotionalism of the services as being less than spiritually attuned. However, these chaotic scenes became the identified reason why J.P. Widney, one of Bresee’s closest friends and fellow founder of the CotN, made his exit from the denomination just a few years after the inception of the new community. One historian writes, “Several were overcome completely, and a good deal of noise and confusion resulted. Widney, a quiet-mannered man, decided that he could not be happy any longer amidst such scenes.” Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 121.
36 the country and to preach at several holiness camp meetings, Bresee returned to the mission at the end of September to find a change in the direction of the mission. He found that he had been relieved of his leadership role.22 As a result of this clear message from the leaders of the mission, and having no financial stake in the institution, his employment with the mission dissolved.23
The Founding of the Church of the Nazarene
Having left the tradition of his youth to serve as a founder of Peniel Mission, and having broken ties with leadership of the mission, Bresee was unencumbered to launch a brand new work. Bresee’s next move was to join with his good friend, J.P. Widney, to announce that they would be holding a church service on October 6, 1895. The two individuals bonded through previous experience of spreading holiness amongst the poor, and two weeks after the initial meeting, eighty-two people gathered to serve as charter members of the Church of the Nazarene.24
In the formation of the new denomination, a degree of skepticism suggested that this new tribe would be just another sectarian holiness gathering.25 One holiness circulation noted,
22 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 108.
23 One historian has noted that the break between Bresee and Peniel Mission primarily surrounded differences over what people group was going to be the primary aim of their ministry. “The Fergusons wanted to minister primarily to transients. Bresee was convinced that the urban poor needed strong family churches in their midst to give stability to their lives and neighbors.” Ingersol, Nazarene Roots, 90.
24 Mendall Taylor, Handbook of Historical Documents of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Theological Seminary, 1969), 34.
25 To suggest that this was a new denomination is both true and misleading. It is true in the sense that it was the gathering together of a group of previously separated individuals (and groups) who were passionate about holiness and ministry to the poor. At the same time, it is misleading because its leader, Dr.
37 We deem the movement unwise. These brethren are no doubt sincere. They mean to do good. But the Methodist Episcopal Church is doing precisely the kind of work they propose in the new organization…Our people will not oppose this new organization in honest efforts to save men. But we cannot admit the necessity for such divisions of the church of Jesus Christ.26
It is true that Bresee’s new group was not markedly different from many other holiness denominations of his time. However, what was unique to this community was their dream of combining the doctrine of holiness of heart with a commitment to living amongst the poor.
To this end, “The first Manual announced the church’s determination to win the lost ‘through the agency of city missions, house-to-house visitation, caring for the poor, comforting the dying.’”27 With echoes of Wesley’s own commitment to holiness and the poor, the Nazarenes went forth to proclaim and to embody the transforming work of
Christ. If this movement was to be different, the core of the differences was in their staunch advocacy for least of these. The CotN, at its genesis, did not simply exist as a church for the poor, but instead identified themselves as a church of the poor.28
If 1885 serves as the inaugural date when the CotN began, many years would still pass before the establishment of this denomination as a national church. While part of the growth of the CotN came through the formation of new churches and missions on the west coast, the most substantial numerical growth came from establishing alliances with
Bresee, was already a primary voice in this stream of ministry and thought. Had the Church of the Nazarene never formally been established, Dr. Bresee’s impact would likely be a footnote in Methodist history rather than the founder of a denomination.
26 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 112.
27 Ibid, 34.
28 Taylor, Handbook of Historical Documents of the Church of the Nazarene, 2.
38 those who also believed strongly in the doctrine of holiness. Two primary mergers served as the critical connections that expanded the denomination to become a national institution.
The first major merger took place in 1907 with a group from New York. This alliance, known as the “east and west” merger, saw the CotN joining forces with the
Association of Pentecostal Churches. Denominational historians point to this union as the first General Assembly.29 The simplest of the major consolidations in the denomination’s history, the merger took place in the middle of the country in Chicago,
Illinois in 1907. The symbolism of meeting in the middle of the country evoked the metaphor that this denomination was fashioned on meeting on the middle ground of holiness.30
A second major union took place in 1908, but was not forged with the ease that characterized the east and west consolidation. The aim of this union was the enfolding of several holiness associations in Texas into the CotN. Eschatological convictions and a commitment to local governances for each church were two issues up for debate.31
Having made progress in other points of concern, the fears of the Texas holiness group came most passionately to the surface in issues pertaining to morality, modesty, and simplicity of dress. On the other side of the debate, Nazarenes such as H.B. Brown feared that legalism would suffocate the newly birthed denomination before it could mature past infancy. Through the proceedings, Brown repeated an impassioned speech
29 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 211.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid, 216.
39 multiple times asking the chairperson (Bresee) to let the southern holiness contingency go.
However, each time Bresee patiently responded, “We cannot let them go, Brother Brown; they are our own folk.”32 Ultimately, both groups were able to compromise, resulting in the formation of a national holiness denomination under the name “The Pentecostal
Church of the Nazarene.”33
With these two major mergers in place, Bresee’s dream of uniting holiness churches came to fruition. Other holiness sects and associations continued to join the denomination in the future. However, for the purposes of this project, this overview of the beginnings of the CotN is a sufficient background for considering MidAmerica
Nazarene University’s conception and educational objectives.
The History of MidAmerica Nazarene University
In the latter half of 1960, denominational leaders formed two new higher education institutions. In 1966, MidAmerica Nazarene College (MANC) was birthed as one of the two new institutions, charged with becoming a destination for students interested in a Christ-centered context for their college years.34 Olathe, Kansas, was the
32 Smith, Called Unto Holiness, 220.
33 I have given a cursory glance at the broader factors that grew the CotN in the early days of the denomination. The scope of my project does not allow me to focus on the additional nuances and subtleties that formed this national denomination as several holiness associations united to form the tradition that exists in North America today. For more information on the history of the CotN, see Stan Ingersol, Our Watchword and Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene, ed. Floyd Cunningham (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2009.)
34 MidAmerica Nazarene College (MANC) was the original name of this institution until it transitioned from being a college to a university in 1997, becoming MidAmerica Nazarene University (MNU). When this project speaks about the institution’s history, it will do so with the designation MANC. As this project speaks to the institution’s current status (or recent history), it will do so with the designation MNU.
40 location for the founding of the new college, which at the time was little more than farmland and open fields. Like other institutions, MANC had its own unique and complicated origin story. The first academic dean, Dr. Donald Metz, was one of the primary people responsible for the founding of the school. Metz also serves as the college’s primary historian for the first twenty years of the school’s existence.35
The establishment of MANC took place in the shadow of a tumultuous era of history in the United States. The post-World War II spirit of optimism was in full decline as the country began the 1960s. Concerns over the civil rights movement, the Vietnam
War, the unabated threat of nuclear war, and a bubbling anti-authoritarianism
(particularly visible on college campuses) were some of the broader issues that plagued the minds of North Americans during this period of history.36
If the epicenter of cultural shifts were happening largely in political and social arenas around the country, the aftershocks were rippling through Protestant Christianity.
The decade of the 1950s had brought a post-war spirit of revivalism and served as a source for religious optimism amongst Protestants and Catholics alike. However, just as quickly as revival had broken out in the 1950s, the 1960s ushered in a perceived decline in religious interest in the United States.37 Questions loomed over the growing erosion in
35 I am aware that the primary history of MANC is written by one of the men, Dr. Donald Metz, who helped to establish the institution. The chronicle of the college’s inception contains an underlying thread of triumphalism and selective accounts. An attempt is made to read the history with a critical eye, but the content cannot be divorced from the author who records the history from the perspective of both historian and stakeholder.
36 William H. Becker, "The 1960's and Today's Vision of America," The Christian Century 102 (1985): 558.
37 J. Tobin Grant, "Measuring Aggregate Religiosity in the United States, 1952-2005," Sociological Spectrum 28 (2008): 473.
41 morality amongst the youth around the country. The Nazarene denomination, with roots established firmly in the pietistic tradition, was not the only entity with concerns over the
Church’s ability (or inability) to maintain an influential voice amongst changing cultural landscapes. In 1965, the New York Times reported that the sweeping revivals of post-
World War II had dissipated completely. Further, religious leaders from North America believed, “that their institutions have lost both visibility and impact on public decisions.”38 The question of what role Christianity would play in the midst of the political and social unrest was a central narrative amongst many religious groups. The
Church’s enjoyment of public influence and numerical growth in the previous decade now appeared to be a nostalgic memory amongst several denominations.
In response to the social upheaval of the 1960s, the Nazarene tradition reemphasized the doctrine of holiness, with special attention given to the youth. From the early years of the denomination, higher education was a proven means of training individuals with a ministerial call on their lives in the theology of the tradition. In addition to educating ministers, higher education was the identifiable means for combating the erosion of morality in the nation. This led to the denomination identifying three objectives for Nazarene higher education: First, “to preserve the fundamentals of our faith.” Second, to establish the “right type” of Christian character. Third, to train women and men in spreading the Nazarene doctrine of “full salvation.”39 For the
38 Grant, "Measuring Aggregate Religiosity in the United States, 1952-2005," 473.
39 Donald S. Metz, MidAmerica Nazarene College: The Pioneer Years 1966-1991 (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1991), 51.
42 institutions to be successful, formation was central to the co-curricular task given to
Nazarene universities.
With faith formation as a primary aim of the denominational schools, they intended to accomplish the stated goals by focusing on a covenantal vision for education.
The covenantal vision centered around required chapel, a persistent spirit of revivalism on campus, and the primacy of the Word of God amongst faculty and students.40
“Nazarene colleges, to deserve their existence, must be uniquely Nazarene. The unique factor involves many things including a philosophy of life based on service to others and high standards of ethical living.”41 In addition to education, formation and transformation were the key characteristics of Nazarene higher education. This formula was a part of the ethos of the denomination from the very beginning; however, it reached a crescendo throughout the cultural unrest of the 1960s.
Amidst such societal shifts, an individual named R. Curtis Smith began to imagine that a specifically patriotic brand of Nazarene higher education had the potential to address the pervasive cultural tension. Denominational leaders approached Smith about the possibility of establishing another church-college in the Midwest. Smith, the
Assistant to the President at Bethany Nazarene College at the time, was open to the idea despite many unanswered questions. With undefined issues of location, significant financial support, or the pledge that other faculty members would join him in the endeavor, he agreed to launch the new university.42
40 Metz, MidAmerica Nazarene College, 53.
41 Ibid, 62.
42 Ibid, 85.
43 The story of how Smith established the new institution contains several miraculous moments. The founders of MANC lived under the conviction that the task ahead of them was a divine commission. At the first meeting of the trustees, the agenda included topics such as a plan for fundraising, acquiring land, establishing a name for the college, and recruiting faculty. The meeting notes, however, reflect the primary emphasis of the meeting centered on the devotional given by Dr. Smith and the time of
“impassioned prayer” offered by the trustees.43 The early leaders of this movement felt the gravity of what was at stake in establishing the new church-college, and proclaimed their dependence on the mercy of God to accomplish their goals.
With a divine commission at the forefront of their priorities, Smith was an excellent choice for President. Known amongst the Nazarenes for being a gifted speaker, his passion for the denomination and proficiency in preaching would be an excellent combination for launching the new movement. Smith was quoted as having said, “I love to do two things: give altar calls and raise money.”44 Smith’s previous vocational assignments honed the skills that would be critical to garnering the support necessary for launching MANC.
A component of what made Smith such a prolific fundraiser was his commitment to energetic preaching in the style of Nazarene revivalists from generations long gone.
His fervor for holiness and evangelism made Smith a trusted voice in local churches wherever he traveled. Early records give many details about the changing landscape of
43 Metz, MidAmerica Nazarene College, 78.
44 Ibid, 91.
44 the college, the addition of degrees, and timely financial gifts to the institution. However, the refrain of evangelism and spiritual vitality always eclipsed any celebration of the institution’s tangible progress. In an early report to the board of trustees, Smith wrote,
“Last Thursday with no preaching the Holy Spirit moved in our midst in chapel. The long altar and the first four rows of pews were filled with earnest seekers and happy finds.
This is our number one reason for being here. Without this the physical progress is meaningless.”45 From the very inception of the institution, the founders of the university were dedicated to prioritizing spiritual growth for MANC students.
If holiness and evangelism were ever-present themes in the infancy of the new college, a counter theme was the school’s dedication to the “American Heritage
Education.” In expounding upon the need for an American Heritage Education, Metz describes at length the state of higher education around the rest of the country. He writes,
Traditional values were scorned. Institutional priorities were replaced by individual preferences. Among the casualties were many national and patriotic values. The flag was burned; draft cards destroyed. Love and loyalty of country were often ridiculed. Campus dress across the nation was marked by long hair, short skirts, blue denim jeans, canvas shoes.46
For the founders of MANC, the social and cultural changes (especially as seen on university campuses) were an indication of the swift and frightening erosion of both patriotism and moral character amongst the nation’s youth. Protests, social action, long hair, and jeans were all signals of a generation of people who had lost their way, and they would not be welcomed at MANC.
45 Metz, MidAmerica Nazarene College, 90.
46 Ibid, 166.
45 Dedicated to the belief that MANC would offer an alternative to the disarray of other campuses, an American flag was the central image on the front of the literature that served to promote the new college. The flag prominently displayed on the front of the recruitment brochure echoed a description of the American Heritage Education philosophy contained on the inside of the brochure. Recent high school graduates received the brochure in the mail; contained inside was the unashamed invitation to
“Come and be a Pioneer.”47
In addition to the promotional material, the physical structures of the campus also reflected a patriotic spirit. A colonial theme to the campus buildings attempted to implicitly honor the founding of the United States. The still pictures and film of the groundbreaking ceremonies reflect the rural setting of Olathe at the time. Set amongst the vast expanse of farm fields, a prominently displayed American flag flew in the
Kansas wind.
There is no equivocation that the founders of the new college had two central pillars that would undergird the new institution: evangelism and patriotism. MANC, along with eight other sister Nazarene universities, exists at the request of the broader denomination. All centers for higher education were explicitly given the task to
“conserve our young people for our doctrine and service…”48 While evangelism is the expressed goal for the institutions, the cultural context out of which MANC was
47 Metz, MidAmerica Nazarene College, 127.
48 Ibid, 61.
46 conceived allowed for the institution’s second pillar of patriotism to become an additional unquestioned priority.
A Current Assessment of the Church of the Nazarene
The Church of the Nazarene is broken up into six world regions and is growing around the globe. In total, 29,395 local churches currently call themselves Nazarene.49
1.4 million people make up the average weekly attendance (AWA) for the denomination.
This total is down 4 percent from 2013, but represents an increase of 34 percent of AWA over the last ten years.
From the inception of the tradition, the sending out of foreign missionaries has been a part of the ethos of its commitment to evangelicalism and the proliferation of holiness. The region known as United States and Canada (USA/C) comprises the highest number of Nazarenes in AWA of the six world regions with 481,284, or a third, of the total worshipers on an average Sunday. The denomination overall is experiencing numeric growth (most notably in the world regions of Africa, Central America, and South
America), but the same cannot be said of USA/C region.
Last year the USA/C was one of two regions of the Nazarene Church to report a net loss in AWA. While USA/C is the largest region with 33 percent of AWA around the world, 49 percent of the denomination’s deaths also came from this region. By contrast, the region of Africa claims 22 percent of the tradition’s AWA, but only accounted for 15 percent of the Nazarene deaths. Considering the disparities in access to health care resources and health care education, these statistics begin to paint a very stark picture.
49 All statistics in this section are taken from the last annual statistical report produced by the Church of the Nazarene in the year 2014. “Latest Annual Statistical Report,” Church of the Nazarene, accessed August 10, 2015, http://nazarene.org/statistics.
47 Nazarenes in the USA/C are an aging population, and the trend points toward a continuing numerical decline for the area of the world that founded the denomination.
In addition to the reality of an aging population, 40 percent of people who transferred their memberships out of the tradition did so from the USA/C region. This exodus of individuals from the CotN is telling because the USA/C region only accounted for 25 percent of the conversions the tradition recorded in 2014. Of the six world regions, the USA/C had the highest percentage of AWA in contrast to the percentage of conversions recorded in the same region. The data reveals that while the denomination is expanding around the world, it is clearly in decline in the United States and Canada.
The above statistics unfortunately illustrate the erosion of this tradition in North
America. There are many opinions about why the CotN finds itself among the other evangelical denominations that are in decline in the Western world. The scope of this project prohibits an extensive reflection on all of the factors, but one reason for the attrition is the indecisiveness of the CotN as it comes to the denomination’s identity in the USA/C region. As this tradition moves into a second century of existence, “What is the core of what it means to be a Nazarene?” is a frequent question at denominational conferences and gatherings.
A self-stylized big tent denomination, the CotN often repeats Phineas Bresee’s maxim, “In the great essentials, unity; in non-essentials liberty.”50 These lubricating words were critical to the negotiations of several holiness denominations and sects
50 John Bechtold, “In All Things Charity: Love, Unity, and Incarnational Truth,” Didache Faithful Teaching: An Online Journal Exploring the Intersection of Christian Conviction, Culture and Education 14, no. 1 (Summer, 2014), http://didache.nazarene.org/index.php/volume-14-1/1045-didache-v14n1-20-all- things-charity-bechtold/file.
48 uniting under the banner of the CotN in 1908. Today, and for more than 100 years, this philosophy is generating acceptance for a variety of ideologies and theologies to be present within this small denomination. Conversely, it has also led to confusion over what it means to be a Nazarene.
In the last decade, two subgroups typify the polarization that is taking root within the CotN. The first group calls themselves the Concerned Nazarenes. This group includes Nazarene clergy and laity,a and engenders a fear of the emergent church and the spiritual practices that traditionally find acceptance within the Catholic tradition. Having identified itself as fulfilling the role of a prophetic witness, the group’s mission is to warn the denomination of the danger of apostasy. 51 Beyond the emergent church movement, this community has an evolving distrust of Nazarene universities, especially as it comes to mystical practices that have not been a part of the CotN historical expressions of prayer and corporate worship.52
In contrast, the second subgroup highlights the growing divide amongst the
Nazarene denomination in a Facebook group called, “I’m Nazarene, too.” A lengthy description of this group highlights a vast array of opinions found within people who self- identify as Nazarenes. In keeping with a big tent ideology, examples of how some
Nazarenes are theistic evolutionists and how others subscribe to a six-day creation narrative highlight the diversity of thought in the denomination.
51 “Our Efforts,” Concerned Nazarenes, accessed August, 10, 2015, http://www.concernednazarenes.org/ourefforts.htm
52 “Universities,” Concerned Nazarenes, accessed August, 10, 2015, http://www.concernednazarenes.org/universities.htm.
49 The description also includes several social issues where self-identifying
Nazarenes have a variety of theological convictions. Homosexuality and the consumption of alcohol comprise some of the social issues where divergent opinions arise amongst Nazarenes. Such areas of diversity are particularly contentious because the
CotN is unequivocal on many of these issues. The creators of this group write, “We may be criticized, we may someday be ostracized, but we will remain the radical and prophetic proclaimers of the Kingdom in which the Church of the Nazarene dwells.”53
The CotN is feeling the strain of growing pains, as concerns over the denomination’s identity in the USA/C region remain undefined.
It is not accurate to describe the Concerned Nazarenes as being representative of the broader denomination in USA/C. At the same time, this subgroup of fundamentalist leaning Nazarenes, are a vocal minority, tangibly reminding denomination leaders of the identity crisis that faces this tradition. The Concerned Nazarenes (and offsprings of this group such as Reformed Nazarenes) express one end of the conservative perspective in the denomination. However, summarily dismissing them as extreme does not take into account the pervasive anxiety amongst a segment of the CotN that is uncomfortable with the direction of the denomination.
Further, as “I’m a Nazarene, too,” (and groups like them) organize in response to the undercurrent of fundamentalism within the denomination, a looming conflict appears to be on the horizon for the USA/C region of the tradition. All indications suggest that the present tensions will be only further exasperated as the denomination finds a more
53 Evan Abla, Steve Fountain, Melissa Smith Waas, Mac Cansier, “I’m Nazarene, too.” Facebook (Group), August 12, 2015, accessed August 15, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1643301505904735/.
50 conservative expression in the world regions (Africa and Latin America) that are currently responsible for the majority of the numerical growth in the CotN. As other evangelical and mainline protestant denominations divide along the lines of social issues, the traditionally late-adopting Nazarenes appear to be walking a similar path.
51
PART TWO
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
CHAPTER 3
LITERATURE REVIEW
Desiring the Kingdom of God (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and
Cultural Formation
by James K. A. Smith
In this book, James Smith aims at reforming Christian higher education by emphasizing the formational role of chapel. The thesis of the book is that corporate worship is the counter-formational means that allows a university to be, in particular,
Christian. Chapel provides a venue for the campus community to embody the liturgical practices that serve to move these institutions beyond the pale of “Christian worldview” as their primary goal, and into the realm of molding of a university’s desires, in light of the kingdom of God.1
Smith roots his premise in a philosophy of anthropology, which identifies humans as creatures that animate their lives from their deepest desires. With this presumption, the first chapter critiques other philosophical anthropologies, (such as humans as creatures who generate motivation out of their knowledge or belief systems,) as being
1 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 17.
53 inadequate to the task of addressing the precognitive motivations of humanity. While largely unnamed by the individual, a person’s greatest desire directs them to pursue their ultimate desires.2 The primacy of desire does not dismiss the role of knowledge and belief in human motivation. Knowledge and belief have a role to play, but the author is unequivocal that a person’s imaginations (the pinnacle of what they love) are the epicenter from which their actions are motivated.
With this philosophy of anthropology in mind, the book then describes how the desires of humanity are the consequence of repetition within the realm of practices.
Some practices are less influential than others. Yet, practices serve to embed the cultural prescriptions of what is worthy of society’s greatest affection, worship, or what Smith calls a person’s narrative of what it means to live “the good life.”3 The description of what humanity’s ultimate love should be differs from one cultural institution to the next.
However, common to various visions of the good life, is the means for apprehending these ultimate goals, liturgical practices.4
Smith then contrasts how various institutions offer competing narratives of the good life from the Christian Church. In order to evaluate the competing cultural narratives, one need only ask, “What portrayal of the good life will the practices of these
2 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 51.
3 Ibid, 53.
4 Smith does use the term “liturgical practice” exclusively for practices that stem from religious institutions, rather liturgical avenues that assist a person in seeking after what is their supreme love. In this sense, “Secular liturgies don’t create our desire; they point it, aim it, direct it to certain ends.” Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 122.
54 cultural entities lead humanity towards?”5 With this in mind, the author then describes how the formational practices of corporate worship are the critical means for shaping the dreams of the students, staff, and faculty of a Christian university.
This book serves as an excellent starting point to this doctoral project because it particularizes the task of Christian higher education to the formation of a university’s imagination.6 The often-ambiguous synergy present between Christian higher education and the Church receives clarification by prescribing the university as an extension of what takes place within the realm of the Christian Church. While the author concedes that this is not a reality with all Christian universities, he nonetheless offers a robust telos for all Christian higher education driven by his philosophical anthropology of humans as desiring creatures.7
In addition to focusing the telos of Christian higher education, Smith’s identification of the potency of liturgical practices generates additional impetus for expanding formation from chapel into other arenas of campus life. Specifically, the emphasis on kinesthetic learning, in contrast to formation that resides at the level of cognitive comprehension, is consistent with embodied formation that happens as students serve the least of these.8 As the liturgical practices of chapel saturate the lives of students, service begins with a humble confession, corporate worship echoes forward beyond
5 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 25.
6 Ibid, 17.
7 The Greek term telos means an ultimate objective or goal.
8 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 60.
55 passive receptivity, and optimism that the Holy Spirit is shaping all of the moments of life is renewed.
The limitations of Desiring the Kingdom, to the ministry challenge of this doctoral project, are that it restricts the scope of formation of a community’s desires to the setting of corporate worship. Smith makes no specific prescription of service in molding Christian highest desires. A cursory mention of service appears at the end of the text, but the depths of the embodied movements of engaging the least of these is sparse at best.9 Nonetheless, service falls directly within the scope of Smith’s pedagogy for effective desire formation. Service has the potential to shape desire through kinesthetic movements that Smith describes as crucial for corporate liturgical practice.
Further, there is harmony with Smith’s description of the bodily participation in corporate worship in concert with his affirmation of the physical creation. To this end,
Smith makes the point that corporate worship misconstrues the value of the material creation if it implicitly or explicitly propagates escaping this world.10 Despite his stated convictions, he appears to constrain the liturgical practices of the chapel to the chapel setting, and lacks the imagination to forecast the value of the liturgical practices in the lives of God’s people in the world.
9 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 228.
10 Ibid, 44.
56 Recovering the Full Mission of God: A Biblical Perspective on Being, Doing, and
Telling
by Dean Flemming
Recovering the Full Mission of God is a work that explores how the missio dei is often truncated into a false dualism.11 The author’s aim is to deconstruct the dichotomy between the verbal proclamation of the gospel and an action-oriented compassion that models the gospel. To set these two components of the missio dei against one another is an oversimplification of God’s holistic agenda for the world.12 Flemming suggests that in order for the Church to genuinely share in the mission of God, a balance between verbal proclamations (telling), embodied holy love (doing), and an embraced identity as God’s people (being) is the biblical solution.13
Flemming makes the argument for this three-fold emphasis for the Church by reflecting on the continual theme of mission found in the Bible. Starting with the Old
Testament, insights into God’s consistent posture of humble love serve as the foundation of the work. Israel’s life together (as seen through acts of compassion, corporate worship and verbal proclamation) is the means of mediating God’s blessing to the world.14 From the Abrahamic covenant to the prophetic witness in Exile, God’s tangible mission of redemption is the central task of Israel.
11 As described in the title of this work, the missio dei is Latin phrase for the theological truth that is on a mission to renew all of creation.
12 Dean Flemming, Recovering the Full Mission of God: A Biblical Perspective on Being, Doing and Telling (Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 14.
13 Ibid, 277.
14 Ibid, 56.
57 While all three elements of the Church’s work in the mission of God are present in the Old Testament, the primary support for this text’s thesis comes through highlighting the elements in the differing genres of New Testament literature. Beginning with the Gospels, the expression of the three-fold role (being, doing, and telling) is on display in all four books. Yet, each account reveals a unique point of emphasis and serves to paint a broader picture of God’s great love for the world. Influential to this doctoral project, Flemming’s treatment of Mark offers a clear vision of Jesus engaging with the least of these. Intervention on behalf of the other is revelatory in the breaking of the kingdom of God, as Jesus is active for those on the margins. Mark’s perspective reveals that God’s mission is one of movement marked by healing, liberation, and God’s decisive action on behalf of creation.15
The argument proceeds as the book of Acts highlights the biblical injunction for
God’s people to participate in verbal proclamation. More than any other book in the New
Testament, Acts retains a consistent picture of the disciples verbally sharing the good news of Christ’s great sacrifice on behalf of the world.16 While several of the Apostles play a role in Acts, the author uses this section to introduce the reader to Paul’s theology and practice of mission.
Like Jesus in the Gospel accounts, Paul’s missiology embodies all three aspects of
God’s mission. In Philippians, the reader discovers that Paul sees the Philippian church’s financial gift (during his imprisonment in Rome) as a means of collaborating with him in
15 Flemming, Recovering the Full Mission of God, 89.
16 Ibid, 137.
58 spreading the gospel.17 The author’s exegesis of the book of Philippians is illustrative of his treatment of the remaining New Testament books addressed in this work. Unique points of emphasis for each book are brought to the forefront, while simultaneously emphasizing the common thread of the Church as the people who find their telos in sharing the gospel, embodying the gospel, and embracing their identity as God’s chosen people.
Flemming’s work contributes to this doctoral project in that it highlights the critique that guiding students into spiritual formation which is primarily focused on corporate worship (telling), fails to communicate the fullness of God’s invitation to join in the reconciliation of creation. Flemming writes, “Not only does an overemphasis on verbal witness lead to a distorted notion of mission as a whole. It can also result in a shrunken understanding of the church’s specific evangelistic calling.”18 Unintentionally,
MNU is drifting into corrosive practice of emphasizing just one aspect, while suppressing the other areas of a doctrine. Clear applications to this doctoral project show the identification of a robust biblical ecclesiology which is brought to fruition in a holistic description of telling, being, and doing.19
17 Flemming, Recovering the Full Mission of God, 191.
18 Ibid, 260.
19 An argument can be made that MNU should not be confused with the local church. The Spiritual Life Office recognizes that MNU is not a local church and questions how our spiritual formation curriculum actually serves to subvert students from connecting to the local church. While acknowledging that MNU is not the church, Christian universities are executing their purpose most effectively when they act as extensions of the Church. Further, the founders of MNU explicitly connected the telos of the university with its role as a “Church-College.” Dr. Metz, the college’s first Academic Dean, explicitly expresses fear that MNU would someday join the growing number of institutions that were initially Christian, but now serve as secular universities. For more information on the founders’ purposes in launching MNU, see Chapter 2, “The History of MidAmerica Nazarene University.”
59 Finally, this work substantiates the project thesis by invoking the authority of biblical theology. As outlined in Chapter 1, this project will use three theologians to compel the university stakeholders to consider the proposed changes. The President’s
Cabinet does not include any individuals with theology as their academic discipline.
Providing an argument for implementing change, stemming from a biblical perspective, frames the proposal from a source of authority familiar to the decision-makers.
A primary limitation of this work is that it develops from a Wesleyan theology.
As noted by the institution’s inclusion of the denomination in the name of the university,
MNU has substantial ties to the Nazarene denomination and the tradition’s Wesleyan roots. MNU serves at the will of the Nazarene denomination, yet only 34 percent of
MNU students self-identify as being a part of the Nazarene tradition. Thus, grounding this doctoral project in biblical theology from a Wesleyan perspective is consistent with the institution’s theological roots, but that does not imply it will provide coherence for all members of the institution.
Holy Trinity: Holy People. The Theology of Christian Perfecting
by Thomas A. Noble
Thomas A. Noble serves as a leading theological voice in the Nazarene denomination. The thesis of this text argues that the phrase “Christian perfection” is a doctrine worth retaining and updating by the Christian Church. Noble begins by offering a biblical summary to describe sanctification. The array of biblical texts includes the work of God as the One who sanctifies the church, as the One who initiates the growth of
60 holiness in the believer, and as the One who models holy love for creation through cross- shaped love.20
Having outlined a biblical theology of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, the author then cites the influence of theologians from differing eras of Christian history.
The Patristic Fathers, Augustine, and the utilization of theologians from the previous two centuries, emphasize that the concept of Christian perfection was not original to Wesley.
Wesley receives deference as a primary champion of this doctrine, but only after reviewing Wesley’s vision of the doctrine of entire sanctification is the heart of Noble’s premise brought to light. In consideration of the biblical and historical review of
Christian perfection, the author proposes exchanging the phrase Christian perfection for a more precise theological concept, Christian perfecting.
Support for the evolution of this term finds its foundation in the Church Fathers’ robust biblical analysis of the concept of perfection. According to Clement, the recently baptized believer was perfect, but was also in the process of maturing to greater perfection.21 Relying on a model of Christian perfection that creates space for degrees of perfection leads the author to suggest that a more appropriate term would be Christian perfecting. Thus, the final goal for the Christ-follower is not a static arrival, but an ever- developing journey into the heart and mind of God.
20 T.A. Noble, Holy Trinity: Holy People. The Theology of Christian Perfecting (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), 35.
21 Ibid, 24.
61 After establishing the dynamic nature of Christian perfecting, the author takes care to explain that John Wesley’s preferred description of this doctrine is simply love.22
Wesley was not alone in presuming that our internal desires (and the external execution of those internal desires), are born out of love. What we love, desire, and long for will shape what we give ourselves to apprehend. Noble, while acknowledging departures in the theologies of Wesley and Augustine, builds on Wesley’s vision of Christian
“perfecting” by accessing Augustine’s concept of concupiscentia and caritus as the locus of all of an individual’s motives and actions.
The second half of this text builds on the author’s thesis by articulating how
Christian “perfecting” is interwoven into the fabric of doctrines that are central to the
Christian faith. Through the works of Leonard Hodgson, Karl Barth, and Karl Rahner, he presents an analysis of how Christian perfection has implications for central Christian doctrine such the atonement and the incarnation. The work closes by explicating how a theology of the social Trinity moves Christian perfecting beyond the trap of anthropocentric Christianity, to a theology of love for the local Christian church.
The contribution of Noble’s work to this doctoral project is unearthed in the emphasizing of the dynamic nature of sanctification. First, Noble suggests that the atoning work of Christ on the cross serves to animate the Church as an embodied expression of Christian perfecting. The death and resurrection of Christ inaugurates the
22 Critical to Noble’s description of Wesley’s vision of this doctrine is the way in which Wesley defines sin as intentional defiance of God’s created order. Chapter 4 section entitled, “Wesleyan Holiness” offers a further review of the role of sin in Christian “perfecting” and the ways that Wesley imagines this doctrine as a theology of love.
62 age that is to come.23 The Christus Victor vision of the atonement liberates the Church from the slavery of sin, and projects that Christian perfecting is a daily victory over self, as made possible through the work of Christ’s victory over death. Yet, Christian perfecting, when coupled with the Christus Victor picture of the atonement, highlights the universal work of the cross as being effectual for all of creation, not simply the individual believer.24
Noble’s description of Christus Victor provides theological impetus to move beyond a corporate worship driven model of spiritual formation, in that it highlights the rescuing work of God for all of creation. Noting the eschatological implications of the atonement does not reduce corporate worship to unnecessary or counter to God’s desires, but it does sound a distinct call for the MNU community to join God in participating in the age that is to come. Christian perfecting, in acknowledgment and acceptance of the coming kingdom of God, requires engagement with the world, on behalf of the world
God loves so much.
The author, again in considering Christian perfecting in light of the doctrine of the atonement, discusses the validity of the Moral Influence theory. A critique of the Moral
Influence theory of the atonement is that it requires the response of the individual to the love of God (as expressed in Jesus on the cross), in order to make the atoning work of
Christ an active reality. Indeed, this atonement theory develops in tandem with the
23 Noble, Holy Trinity, 190.
24 Ibid, 137.
63 heightening of modernity and not surprisingly focuses on the empowerment of the individual to affect change in their own heart.25
However, the author also identifies that the Moral Influence theory contains one key to Wesley’s Christian perfecting. The Moral Influence theory affirms an active holiness of heart and life because in responding to the great love of Jesus on the cross, a model of cross-shaped holiness reverberates as worthy response back to God. “But the culmination of his revelation of the love of God was surely on the cross: 'But God demonstrates (synistei) his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Rom. 5:8).”26 If the heart of Christian perfecting is the perpetual shaping of our hearts after the heart of God, cultivating opportunities for the MNU community to emulate God’s mercy for the sake of the world becomes a legitimate avenue of participating in the perfecting work of God in the hearts of God’s people.
The primary limitation of this work, for this doctoral project, is that the chapter on the atonement did not include the newer developments within atonement theory.
Noble offers a footnote suggesting that there is no room to discuss these “currently fashionable atonement theories.”27 However, the choice to not include a section on the works of Rene Girard, Darby Kathleen, and J. Denny Weaver hampers the purpose of this work. In this way, the book accomplishes the task of rooting Christian “perfecting” beyond Wesley’s contribution by offering a more ecumenical description of this doctrine, yet it fails to expand the conversation to the relevant theological developments of today.
25 Noble, Holy Trinity, 151-152.
26 Ibid, 150.
27 Ibid, 134.
64 The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation of Criticism of
Christian Theology
by Jürgen Moltmann
The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation of Criticism of
Christian Theology states in its title the thesis of the book. Jürgen Moltmann, in the preface, declares that in order for theology to be truly Christian, it must be able to bear the weight of the crucified and rejected Christ in his death on the cross. Thus, words that name and describe God, and in particular a Trinitarian conception of God, must be true in the light of a God who suffers on behalf of creation.28
The author’s primary argument begins by examining how Christian theology’s nostalgic augmentation of the cross perpetuates an anemic understanding of God’s sacrifice, and is the source of the identity crisis in the Church. Evidence of the anemia of the Church’s Christology finds expression in the cultic version of the cross that mirrors a sacrificial system which requires ongoing propitiation for sin. The author warns that there is no repetition in the sacrifice of Jesus, but that the mass is a means of remembering.29
The Eucharist remembrance affirms that the cross allies God with everyone who experiences rejection and shame. Jesus, as a blasphemer (in claiming to be beyond the law, and thus equal with God) and a political rebel, dies in agony as an anathema outside of the city.30 Christ’s death liberates us from the legalism that retains the power of the
28 Moltmann, The Crucified God, X.
29 Ibid, 43.
30 Ibid, 129-130.
65 law as the salvation of God for men. Christ’s death additionally frees us from the worship of the politically potent deities that invite us to seek power and authority in religious observance.31 As a rebel and blasphemer, Jesus embodies everything that was an abomination in his culture. In the conjoining of God to the profane, and in the
Church’s participation in the mass, a renewal of our kinship with the rejected God expels
God’s people into the world as the sisters and brothers of the politically and religious profane.
Moltmann then moves to addressing the question of Jesus as both human and divine. This quandary centers on Mark’s account of Jesus’ utterance of Psalm 22 on the cross. If Jesus experienced “godforsakeness,” the validity of his proclamation of God as his Father becomes dubious. Further, in light of God’s abandonment of him, Jesus’ recasting of God as the God of steadfast love for those on the underside of society is a gross misunderstanding at best and marks him as a heretic at worst.32
The cross further reveals the Father’s abandonment of the Son, as Jesus is “given up” to death. In Jesus’ death on the cross, we discover the Father who allows the Son to sacrifice himself through the Spirit. Moltmann explains that the godforsaken moment of the Son’s voluntary sacrifice reveals the openness of the Trinity to suffering humanity.
“Thus, the delivering up of the Son to godforsakenness is the ground for the justification of the godless and the acceptance of enmity by God.”33 In this ultimate act of love, and as a radical expression of God’s power, God’s response to the alienation and suffering of
31 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 69.
32 Ibid, 150.
33 Ibid, 242.
66 creation is to take suffering into God’s self. Rather than suffering being incompatible with deity, cross-shaped love is the pinnacle of God unveiling the depth and breadth of
God’s self.
Without doubt, the godforsaken Christ is revelatory of God’s commitment to creation. However, in addition to a theology of atonement, the resurrection of the crucified Christ marks the launching of the life that is to come. Resurrection from the dead was a part of the Jewish messianic vision for the future. In this understanding of the future, (with its emphasis on the glorification of the righteous and the damnation of the unrighteous), the final consummation of God’s universal reign will become a reality in heaven and on earth.34 Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is a radical departure from the anticipation of a public inauguration of God as Lord of the universe. The resurrection in the midst of history, rather than as the consummation of history, inaugurates the final judgment of humanity in light of the universal reign of God’s kingdom in the law of grace.
Moltmann’s work contributes to this doctorial project in a variety of ways. God’s willingness to suffer for and with humanity, the inauguration of the new creation in the resurrection of Christ, and faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ as a response to the despair of the human condition are all theologically potent motivations for guiding students to serve the least of these. The author’s biblical, historical, and systematic theology will be a critical means of developing the theology of the new ministry initiative in Chapter Four.
Despite all of the rich theology that serves to fortify this project, the eighth
34 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 174.
67 chapter offers a disquieting critique of political theology that is implicitly at work at
MNU. Moltmann describes how a desire arose for Christian apologists (pre and post-
Constantine) to articulate a vision of the faith that bolsters the state, rather than serving as an avenue for critique of the state. The result of this effort was the intermingling of the peace of Christ with the peace of Rome, thus offering a monotheistic version of God inherent in state religion.35 The author reminds the reader that state crucifies Jesus as a political rebel for his subversion of the Roman practice of coercion and violence. Any coercion or force in the propagating of the kingdom of God is incongruent with the crucified and risen God.
The Christian university that serves as the ministry context for this project is far from paralleling the Roman Empire. The focus of this project is to reimagine how a more holistic spiritual formation curriculum would move MNU students beyond the domineering motif of corporate worship as their primary means of spiritual formation to an engagement with the least, that is consistent with the revelation of the crucified God.
While movement towards a more comprehensive curriculum is a worthy goal, this project fails to address the imperialism that remains in “requiring” spiritual formation in the first place.
Requiring spiritual formation through coercive means creates the potential of divorcing the goal of spiritual formation at MNU (to become like Christ as a community and as individuals) from revelation of God as the crucified Christ. Moltmann writes,
“The memory of the passion and resurrection of Christ is at the same time both dangerous
35 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 325.
68 and liberating. It endangers a church which is adapted to the religious politics of its time and brings it into fellowship with the sufferers of its time.”36 This work contributes to the topic when considering that it is crucial for the Church to align itself with those who are on the outside of Christian and secular culture. At the same time, it speaks an extremely critical word to the “religious politics” of substantiating the Christian faith through anything other than the God who suffers as the ultimate expression of power. Spiritual formation that contains an undercurrent of coercion, even when MNU is utterly forthright in communicating the practice of required spiritual formation, runs counter to the liberating sacrifice of God on the cross.
The limitation of Moltmann’s work for this doctoral project lies in the comprehensive interpretation of the atoning work of Christ for all of humanity. The
Wesleyan commitment to a grace that is “respond-able” highlights humanity’s freedom to embrace or reject God. This theological difference does not undermine the implications of a God who suffers and calls the Church to bear the marks of suffering on behalf of humanity. However, contextually, it has the potential to draw criticism from the decision-makers within the Nazarene tradition as to the validity of incorporating service to the least of these as a component of spiritual formation at MNU because of the theological claim of universal atonement.
36 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 326.
69 Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
by bell hooks
According to this book, traditional models of university education stem out of oppressive and ineffective educational theory fortified by a system that substantiates those who retain authority within university settings. With the aim of reforming higher education, this text offers evidence of the ways in which institutions fundamentally work to maintain their own existence, but in so doing, become unprofitable. As a corrective to standard university education, bell hooks’ offers the thesis that “engaged pedagogy” offers a more holistic education for students because of the emphasis of uniting foundational theories to applications and practices.
The author initiates her argument by contrasting engaged pedagogy and the typical university setting that prescribes to a “banking system” of education. This concept develops from Paulo Freire and identifies the standard pedagogical method of lecture as the transmission of content from professor to students. Students listen to professors with hope of gaining new levels of awareness from the content in the lecture.
Ultimately, however, this educational practice fails to curate space for the student to apprehend the new information to the degree that it can inform their actions outside of the classroom.37
The author supports her critique of traditional education by speaking from her life as a black woman, raised in the racially segregated south, whose expertise lies in feminist studies in English literature. The inclusion of this biographical note serves as a precursor
37 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 51.
70 for the author to propose that students bring with them the weight of their own life experiences into the classroom setting. In bringing a student’s whole self (racial, social, economic, and religious experiences) to their academic endeavors, the potential for a creative and formational educational experience is born.
The remainder of this text dedicates itself to describing how the philosophy of engaged pedagogy animates the classroom setting. hooks explains engaged pedagogy by describing how she invites students to be a part of a learning community, rather than just a class. Participation, openness to transformation, and a commitment to struggle with differing theories are the hallmarks of this pedagogical theory.38 While admitting that completely eliminating the power differential inherent in the professor to student relationship is impossible, her earnest attempt to imbed herself within the learning community as a co-learner acknowledges the power dynamics without generating despair that leads to withdrawing from the tenuous relationship.39 In this way, in addition to the unconventional classroom setting, the author describes an educational environment with the potential for students to learn from her life as a whole and share in the responsibility of curating the learning environment.40
If pedagogical revision is the purpose of this work, such critiques carry their greatest weight as hooks communicates them through her experience and expertise in race and gender inequality. Throughout the book, she prophetically speaks to the inherent sexism, racism, and classism present in higher education. Pragmatically, the
38 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 5.
39 Ibid, 187.
40 Ibid, 198.
71 author identifies the challenging components of practicing an engaged pedagogy.
However, hooks convincingly helps the reader to see that much of the resistance to the execution of engaged pedagogy stems from the systematic oppression by white males who find the empowerment of minority and feminine voices threatening.
Teaching to Transgress is a work that speaks to this doctoral project because of the recurring theme of uniting cognitive awareness with embodied practices. In the description of the “banking system” of education, the author gives an articulate critique of the primary means of formation in use in the Christian Church. Further, MNU spiritual formation curriculum adopts the traditional university model of information transference, but with the expectation and aim of spiritual transformation. Engaged pedagogy provides an alternative methodology to these long-unquestioned practices and describes a pedagogical theory for more effective spiritual formation.
This work also serves to remind the institution that discomfort is not only appropriate in an academic classroom, but it is a component of growth and transformation into the image of Christ as well. hooks transcribes a conversation with a colleague where he stated, “And sometimes it’s necessary to remind students and colleagues that pain and painful situations don’t necessarily translate into harm. We make that very fundamental mistake all the time. Not all pain is harm, and not all pleasure is good."41 While students may hear something that makes them uncomfortable during corporate worship, the
“banking system” does not provide the adequate structure for further exploration and discussion of disconcerting ideas. Furthermore, the idealization of serving the least of
41 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 154.
72 these has the strong potential to be discombobulating for MNU students. The confrontation of broken governmental systems, internal racism, and the unearthing of issues of theodicy are common experiences as students serve. Yet, as noted above, discomfort and pain, though unpleasant can assist a student in exploring the realities of systemic racism and poverty more deeply.
The drawback of this work is the author’s total unwillingness to recognize any value in a mono-directional offering of ideas or theories. Further, the roles of silence and meditation appear to have no credence in her pedagogical practices. While sole reliance on a lecture-style sermon is too extreme, there is value in creating spaces for those who have training and education to communicate without insisting that there be engaged pedagogy in every setting. The value of this resource for this doctoral project is limited as it fails to consider how the integration of the educational practice of lecture can also contribute to the holistic learning environment.
Where We Stand: Class Matters
by bell hooks
The contributions of bell hooks, in the areas of gender and race inequality, provide accessible critiques for the both the scholar and laymen alike. In this work, the author reveals how racism and sexism generate a third area of discrimination, the oppression of the poor. The thesis of this book is that the American obsession with consumerism transcends previously held lines of solidarity with race and gender, and now constitutes a culturally acceptable discrimination against those with low economic means.
73 Support for the thesis of this book, in standard hooks’ style, comes through a combination of reflecting on her own personal experiences, coupled with a broader social critique. The author begins by establishing that the decades of 1960 and 1970 were fraught with social norms (in relation to poverty) that were akin to the determinism often seen before the Enlightenment.42 Like chastising a child for being prepubescent, looking down upon the poor would have been both unbiblical and irrational because of the presumption such circumstances were a person’s destiny in life. The author lays the foundation for this text by noting the shift in the broader culture’s narrative concerning the genesis of poverty amongst the economically vulnerable. Once considered out of the control of the disenfranchised, hooks claims that it is now socially acceptable to lay the entire responsibility for their hardship at the feet of the vulnerable.43
Building on the emergence of this cultural shift, hooks identifies a sociological turn that began in 1980, which measured a person’s value by assessing their ability to acquire and consume goods.44 She writes, "At the end of the day the threat of class warfare, of class struggle, is just too dangerous to face. The neat binary categories of white and black or male and female are not there when it comes to class."45 With the movement towards consumerism in North America, the cultural narrative of labeling the poor as lazy or criminally deviant became politically and socially in vogue. Thus, the
42 bell hooks, Where We Stand: Why Class Matters (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 3.
43 Ibid, 121.
44 Ibid, 44.
45 Ibid, 6.
74 decade 1980 established poor people as the one subgroup that could be universally- socially distained.
After articulating the above argument, hooks then deepens the complexity of the problem.
Along with the revamped myth that everyone who worked hard could rise from the bottom of our nation’s class hierarchy to the top was the insistence that the old notions of oppressor class and oppressed class were no longer meaningful, because when it came to the issue of material longing, the poor, working, and middle classes desired the same things that the rich desired, including the desire to exercise power over others.46
The culture of consumerism is a self-sustaining system, fostering competition and tension between classes because the poor and the wealthy function in adversarial roles. Only in striving and apprehending items of social status can the poor receive dignity. Hoarding wealth has evolved into a virtue, as the rich and the poor alike both agree that human worth is derivative of economic capital.
As a response to the ubiquitous consumerism, the author offers a vision of solidarity with the poor. If rewriting the narrative of the disenfranchised in American culture is to come to fruition, hooks suggests that engagement with differing economic classes is essential.47 Misconceptions leading to prejudices are the inevitable result of an individuals or communities insulating themselves from other economic classes of people.
In a moment of transparency, hooks’ confesses that such engagements are a risk, and that
46 hooks, Where We Stand, 66.
47 Ibid, 157.
75 crossing socio-economic boundaries is a part of the complex work of confronting systemic-economic injustice.48
hooks’ writing contributes to this project because many Christian institutions traffic in the cultural narratives of consumerism. The acceptance of this broad plotline takes on differing forms at a Christian university such as MNU. Despite a subtle difference in the message, the refrain that students are customers purchasing the education and skills to expand their economic freedom is pervasive and implicit.
If serving the least of these is going to be a component of the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU, a necessary first step is developing the critical thinking skills to deconstruct the notion of acquiring consumer goods as the path to fulfillment. MNU chapel is the natural and appropriate context where a prophetic critique can be made of the liturgies of consumerism. MNU students come from a variety of economic stratospheres, which has the tendency to veil the reality that attending a four-year, private, liberal arts institution places students in a higher category of class identification in
America.
hooks’ prescription of engagement with individuals (and communities) of other economic means, without proper articulation, can easily degenerate into the simple promotion of our students trying to show the least of these what they too can hope to be someday. This pervasive danger would only serve to further entrench the American ideal of consumerism. Furthermore, it would inject the added pathology of sanctifying greed through engagement with people of lower economic status under the guise of Christian
48 hooks, Where We Stand, 151.
76 love and the acquisition of Spiritual Formation Credits. This text is applicable to this project in that it prescribes a mode for addressing oppression of the poor, while identifying the veneration of consumerism as the root cause of class oppression in
America.
The reservation of the text, for this project, is in applying it to the conservative
Christian context of MNU. First, MNU is primarily led by the people group the author critiques most strongly: white males. Likewise, this works aims at subverting the power of those who currently hold the bulk of economic influence. Second, questioning a part or all of free-market capitalism is akin to questioning the United States. Questioning the
United States is not a common practice for most Christian liberal arts universities, unless it surrounds liberal legislation on abortion or homosexuality. Third, unbridled consumerism is not a value the majority of students would champion, but their implicit commitment to radical individualism finds expression in their buying practices. For nearly all students, questioning the way they exercise personal freedom is a relatively new exercise. This text offers a compelling argument, but beyond the practice of sharing a person’s individual wealth, it fails to offer a solution that is as potent as the pervasive ideology of consumerism inside and outside of Christian institutions.
77
CHAPTER 4
THEOLOGY OF THE NEW MINISTRY INITIATIVE
John Chrysostom, John Wesley, and Jürgen Moltmann are the three primary theologians that this project will access to form the theological impetus for the new ministry initiative. None of these theologians was a contemporary of another. Their lives have unfolded within differing theological streams, in differing locations around the world, and during differing eras of history.
For example, Chrysostom had no sense of the Reformation or of the possibility of a religious sect called the Methodists. The life of Wesley was very different from the place of prominence that Chrysostom held as Bishop of Constantinople. Moltmann contributes from the perspective of professional theologian, while Wesley and
Chrysostom both offer their insights from their title of Pastor. Despite a lack of historical overlap between the three men, their mutual affinity for the least of these and the disenfranchised draws their lives together.
78 John Chrysostom and the Poor
In 386, in the city of Antioch, Chrysostom began his public ministry after being ordained into the priesthood.1 Chrysostom’s preaching ministry was his primary tool for evoking compassion and advocacy for the least of these in Antioch. Set amidst a culture of patronage, in the name of God and on behalf of the world, Chrysostom voraciously pleaded for God’s people to share their financial and social capital with the poor. His dramatic advocacy for the poor made him a friend to those without social or economic power, marking him as a pioneer amongst the church fathers in championing the cause of the least of these. 2
Chrysostom’s expertise in homiletics brought with it an increase in responsibility, with an eventual appointment to the post of Bishop of Constantinople. Despite his influence and ecclesial authority, his willingness to speak prophetically against the opulence of wealthy Christians did not dissipate. In one sermon, he recounted the exasperated complaint of a wealthy congregant who asked him, “How long will you not cease from continually introducing poor men and beggars into your sermons, prophesying disaster to us and our own future impoverishment, so as to make beggars of us all?"3
1 St. John Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions, trans. Paul W. Harkins (New York, NY: Newman Press, 1963), 3.
2 Rudolf Brandle, "The Sweetest Passage: Matthew 25:31-46 and Assistance to the Poor in the Homilies of John Chrysostom," in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church in Society, ed. Susan R. Holman (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 129-130.
3 Ibid, 128.
79 Undeterred by the criticism of wealthy parishioners, Chrysostom is considered one of the greatest advocates for the least of these in all of Church history.4
The passion that Chrysostom exhibited for the least of these developed from his biblical hermeneutics. As seen in his sermons, the gospel accounts of Jesus’ teachings and interactions with the poor led him to believe that the crucified and risen Christ is present in the world in tangible ways. As individuals engage the poor, they are engaging
Christ himself. In serving the poor, one is not just serving a fellow member of creation, but they are serving Christ, the Creator.
If the four gospels led this saint to be the patron of the poor, the heart of his convictions originated from his interpretation of the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Chrysostom’s literal interpretation of this parable left little room for debate; whatever is done (or undone) for the least of these is what is physically done (or undone) for Christ.
Despite the parabolic nature of the Matthew 25 text, the tangible reality of Christ in the poor was the compelling force that drove his compassion for the least of these.
In one of his most famous sermons, Chrysostom translated the calamities described in Matthew 25 from the perspective of Jesus, specifically directed to the
Church,
For it is no costly gift I ask, but bread and lodging, and words of comfort....Be softened at seeing me naked, and remember that nakedness with which I was naked on the cross for you; or, if not this, then that with which I am now naked through the poor....I would like to be a debtor to you, that the crown may give you some feeling of confidence [parresia]. This is why, though I am able to support myself, I come around begging, and stand beside your door, and stretch out my hand, since my wish is to be supported by you. For I love you
4 Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions, 3.
80 greatly, and so desire to eat at your table, which is the way with those who love a person. And I glory in this.5
If parishioners were lacking the imagination to see Christ in the downtrodden, he was comfortable assisting them by speaking on behalf of God, as God. With little equivocation, Christ’s presence in the poor echoed in Chrysostom’s sermons and always with the goal of compelling God’s people to action.
The people of means in his communities often responded to his preaching.
Generous contributions to the church building and the vestments and vessels were a common response to Chrysostom’s plea for financial stewardship. However, giving to the church was an impenitent act if it did not include esteeming the poor. “Let this then be your thought with regard to Christ also, when He is going about a wanderer, and a stranger, needing a roof to cover Him; and you, neglecting to receive Him, decorate pavement, and walls and capitals of columns, and hang up lamp by means of silver chains, but Himself bound in prison you will not look upon?”6 For Chrysostom, provoking generosity included more than simple giving. Generosity was paradigmatic of how Christians began to see and respond to the image of God in their fellow man.
Chrysostom took the vision of literally encountering Christ in the poor to the highest end when some parishioners presumed that lavishly decorating the communion table was a means of giving directly to the Lord. Parishioners gave the church beautifully ornate communion vessels, intended as an expression meant to honor the earthly receptacles of God’s holy body. Yet, even in Christian tradition’s most mysterious
5 Holman ed., Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society, 137.
6 Philip Schaff, ed., John Chrysostom: Best Works (New York, NY: Minerva Classics Publishing, 2013), Kindle: Chapter 14, Homily L.
81 means of encountering Christ, Chrysostom pointed his congregants to the living body of
Jesus that surrounds them everyday. “For what is the profit, when His table indeed is full of golden cups, but He perishes with hunger?”7 There is no denigration of the Eucharist in acknowledging the presence of Christ in the poor, but neither does the holiness of the
Eucharist replace the physical presence of Christ in the least of these. Beautifying the church altar magnifies that which contains the Lord’s body, but generosity to the poor is the magnification of Christ, himself.
Central to Chrysostom’s theology is the reality that God’s own people did not recognize God’s Son when he came to earth. The gospel accounts point toward those who were most familiar with God as the people responsible for crucifying Jesus. The ignorance of God’s people results in the failure to address the sufferings of Christ, but further leads to God’s people as participants in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Chrysostom proposed that God is affording the church a second chance to alleviate the suffering of Christ by acting compassionately toward the least of these among them. In this way, present day nakedness, hunger, and isolation are echoes of all that Jesus experienced at the hands of the religious elite and the Roman political system.
God’s willingness to suffer rejection for humanity was an event that took place three centuries before this saint’s life. Yet, in the disenfranchised, God continues to suffer for the sake of humanity so that the church may respond in generosity and love.
Chrysostom described God’s persistent presence in a sermon on Romans 8. “For since we have not the right feeling of desire after Him, He keeps putting diverse other
7 Philip Schaff, ed., John Chrysostom, Kindle: Chapter 14, Homily L.
82 things before us, so as to hold us to Himself.”8 In sacrificial love, God is manifest in the world through the poor. Despite God’s elect contributing to the suffering of Jesus, through the poor God renders the Church a second chance. In this sense, the potential to alleviate the anguish of Christ is a present-tense possibility for the Church.
A potential critique of Chrysostom’s theology of the poor is the danger of propagating a transactional model of salvation. By addressing the needs of the poor, humanity is able to negotiate with God for their salvation. Without question, Chrysostom did not hesitate to bring to the forefront the eternal ramifications of failing to respond to
God. The reward of heaven and the despair of hell were overt and regular topics in his sermons.
Yet, reducing the theology of Christ in the poor to a negotiated transaction fails to appreciate the subtlety of Chrysostom’s vision of the transformational nature of engaging the least of these. Embodying compassion for the economically and socially poor does not change God’s mind about an individual. Instead, advocacy for the poor calibrates the individual to reflect the image of God amongst creation in ever increasing ways. As
God’s people grow in grace, the dynamic work of salvation leads to greater depths of love and participation in the kingdom of God.
As a means of cultivating growth, Chrysostom encouraged people to cease evaluating the worthiness of the person receiving kindness. Assessing whether a person is worthy of effort often leads to stifling the believer from emulating Christ. Chrysostom was convinced that, “He is God's whether he is a heathen or a Jew; since even if he is an
8 Philip Schaff, ed., John Chrysostom, Kindle: Chapter 14, Homily XV.
83 unbeliever, still he needs help.”9 The fact that Jesus drew no firm boundary around who was deserving of his love, liberates his followers to disentangle their own compassion from the assessment of merit.10 Practicing the rhythms of grace was a means of germinating the kingdom of God in the life of God’s people, not a means of entering into a contractual agreement that concludes with God’s acceptance of the believer.
Thus, despite occasional transactional language, and despite the liberal references to heaven and hell, for Chrysostom, the point of salvation was to be fully engrossed in the love of Christ. In a sermon over Romans 8, Chrysostom marveled at the Apostle Paul’s passion to know and love Christ above all other things.
This he says not as if the Angels attempted it, or the other Powers, far from it, but as wishing to show quite to the utmost the charm he had toward Christ. For Christ he loved not for the things of Christ, but for His sake the things that were His, and to Him alone he looked, and one thing he feared, and that was falling from his love for Him. For this thing was in itself more dreadful than hell, as to abide in it was more desirable than the Kingdom.11
To meet Christ in the poor is a means of shaping one’s heart into the image of Christ.
Embodied love was his highest goal of every action, thought, and movement in the life of a believer.
9 Holman ed., Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society,130.
10 The criticism that Chrysostom’s theology of the poor reduces serving the poor to a transactional event between the believer and God is unfounded. Yet, a critique can be made that Chrysostom commodified the poor when he described them as a means of becoming like Christ. One scholar writes, “Because types train the gaze and define what is seen, they make it dangerously possible to ignore the reality of actual rich and poor people and to see them instead as means to an end.” This criticism is valid and could also be made of this doctoral project as a whole. This critique, specifically issues of commodification and power differential, will be addressed in Chapter 5. Francine Cardman, "Poverty and Wealth as Theater: John Chrysostom's Homilies on Lazarus and the Rich Man," in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church in Society, ed. Susan R. Holman (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 174.
11 Philip Schaff, ed., John Chrysostom, Kindle: Chapter 14, Homily XV.
84 Chrysostom’s Contribution to the New Ministry Initiative
The preaching and leadership of John Chrysostom affirms the spirit of this new ministry initiative in three primary ways. First, Chrysostom’s ardent belief that Christ is physically present to the believer in the poor offers a biblical theology for guiding students into engagement with the destitute. Second, Chrysostom’s dynamic orientation to faith development allowed him to encourage his congregants to minister to the poor without first evaluating the worthiness of the poor. Third, Chrysostom’s advocacy for the poor was a means of pointing to God’s great love for the disenfranchised. The following is an explanation of how these three elements of his theology offer insight into the spiritual formation curriculum of MNU.
First, John Chrysostom’s dedication to the least of these was a counterintuitive vision that sparked tension in the hearts of wealthy congregants of his day. Earnest attempts to mitigate feelings of guilt and conviction, through financial contributions to the church, rarely quenched the passion of St. John. Chrysostom’s conviction that giving financially to the church does not placate God germinates from his belief that Christ is literally present in world in those who are economically and spiritually impoverished.
Adopting a similar belief provides a theological lens through which to assess the implications of MNU prioritizing chapel services. The centrality of chapel, as a critical means of forming students, has been a foundational component of the ethos of this institution for the entire fifty years of its existence. The university faithfully invests in chapel by employing a university chaplain, dedicates financial resources for paying chapel speakers, and prioritizes the chapel hour by freeing it from most academic course offerings.
85 Likewise, Chrysostom’s communities gave golden cups and plates for serving communion, highlighting the value of gathered worship as a space where individuals could encounter the grace of God. Such efforts to emphasize the mysterious and sacred nature of corporate worship are a part of Christian tradition, and are not explicitly problematic in and of themselves. Yet, adorning the communion table and prioritizing chapel services have the potential to incite a malformation of God’s people, as the means of worshiping God become the focal point of the worship itself.
Chrysostom’s relentless pursuit of guiding his congregants into acts of compassion and mercy is a paradigmatic vision for reforming the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU. Recognition of the presence of Christ in the poor invites the SLO to shape students through times of corporate worship, but also to foster a climate where faith is animated and embodied as an expression of worship to God. The conviction that
Christ is present in the least of these confesses that the Holy Spirit is transforming students in chapel, just as the Holy Spirit is at work transforming students as they encounter God in the world.
Without question, the frequent chapel services at MNU are an effective narrative for communicating with the institution’s conservative constituents, who long for the revivalistic era that birthed the university. The narrative of Nazarene universities serving as centers for revival is not counter to the new ministry initiative of this project.
However, a reduction of the work of the Holy Spirit to the confines of a chapel setting is unintentionally undermining the belief that God is present in the world and prominently on display amongst the poor. John Chrysostom’s theology of the tangible presence of
Christ amongst the least of these contributes to this new ministry initiative by affirming
86 the value of corporate worship, while at the same time infusing value in the embodied worship of compassion and mercy to the socially and economically destitute.
Second, the incorporation of tangible acts of compassion into the spiritual formation curriculum of MNU, affirms the dynamic orientation of Christian formation espoused by Chrysostom. Encouraging congregants to suppress the desire to evaluate the worthiness of the poor person, points to the transformational power of joining God in acting in mercy. Rather than delaying until the perfect opportunity to show compassion presented itself, the very practice of showing compassion was a conduit through which the Holy Spirit worked in the life of people.
Subsequently, the liturgical elements of chapel can seem odd to those unaccustomed to evangelical corporate worship services. Chapel is often one of the most divisive hours of the week on a Christian campus, because it draws both those inexperienced with the Christian faith and those who are deeply entrenched in the
Christian faith. Intentional measures to alleviate as much of the discomfort as possible are the responsibility of the SLO, one of which is the propagation of additional spaces for spiritual formation.
Inclusion of service as a means of hospitality (for those who do not follow Christ) on a Christian university campus is a spiritually formative endeavor because it propels students into the rhythms of the kingdom of God. Chrysostom’s dynamic orientation to faith development, coupled with his belief that Christ is present in the poor, substantiates this new ministry initiative as a potential ground for students to encounter the grace of
God in a setting that is free of some of the unfamiliar elements in a corporate worship context.
87 Third, in Chrysostom’s preaching of God’s great love for the poor, the revelation of what God values is communicated to his parishioners. In one sermon, Chrysostom expressed this thought, “For this end God gave us speech, and hands, and feet, and strength of body, and mind, and understanding, that we might use all these things, both for our own salvation, and for our neighbor’s advantage.”12 Intentionally working “for our neighbor’s advantage” reveals God’s valuation of humanity writ large. This insight into Chrysostom’s belief about God’s disposition toward human creation pulls his listeners into the heart of a God that is fundamentally on the side of the oppressed. It further offers the pedagogical reminder that as an authority speaks on behalf of God, their values become de facto values of God.
The inclusion of service to the other, as a component of the required spiritual formation curriculum, fortifies the holistic intentions for spiritual formation at MNU.
Requiring students to engage in service is a means of implicitly affirming what the SLO values as critical to shaping students into the image of God. The presumption that all students equate the actions of the SLO to be actions that are cohesive with the kingdom of God is inaccurate. Yet, in negative and positive ways, the spiritual formation curriculum is an expression of the theological convictions of who God is and what matters most to God by those in leadership in the SLO. A spiritual formation curriculum
12 Philip Schaff, ed., John Chrysostom, Kindle: Chapter 14, Homily LXXIII.
88 that incorporates service to the poor elevates all of humanity to the status of being valuable in the eyes of God.13
John Wesley and the Poor
Like Chrysostom, Wesley grew up with a devoutly Christian mother. However, in contrast to Chrysostom, Wesley’s conviction and advocacy for the poor were born primarily out of the conditions of the community around him. In the eighteenth century in England, diseases like typhoid, smallpox, and cholera were rampant sources of suffering. In bigger cities, large common graves, called “poor holes,” were kept open all day for people dying in destitution.14 Poor health care, economic instability, and the social stigma of poverty confronted Wesley daily, and served to ignite a passion in his heart for the least of these.
Throughout the arc of Wesley’s work as a minister and evangelist, the common element of cross-shaped love for the poor appears as a persistent theme. His sermons and personal discipleship of his congregants continually addressed issues of poverty and injustice. In a letter written to a parishioner, Wesley warned the wealthy concerning the subtle lure of hoarding resources, “How hard for them not to think themselves better than the poor, base, uneducated herd of men! How hard not to seek happiness in their riches,
13 Reservations over the manipulative nature of required spiritual formation is an ongoing concern of this doctoral project. As has been noted, a Wesleyan theology that emphasizes some degree of free will is counterintuitive to compulsory participation in the Christian faith. The inclusion of service to the least of these in this new ministry initiative does invite the potential hazard of reducing the poor to a consumable spiritual good. Yet, even in the midst of the incongruity of requiring spiritual formation, exposure to God’s great love for the disenfranchised is revealed. This possible benefit does not resolve all of the tensions of this doctoral project, but exemplifies how this new ministry initiative seeks to be as holistic as possible within the confines of the context in which it is being presented.
14 Wesley D. Tracy, "Economic Policies and Judicial Oppression as Formative Influences on the Theology of John Wesley," Wesleyan Theological Journal 27, (1992): 32.
89 or in things dependent upon them; in gratifying the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life!”15 Like Chrysostom before him, Wesley was unafraid of confronting Christians who preferred comfort and ease rather than sacrificial love for those afflicted by poverty.16
In addition to preaching and teaching, he modeled fidelity to his convictions by personally caring for the least of these. At the age of eighty-two years old, Wesley recorded in his journal that he stood in ankle deep “snow-water,” to beg on behalf of the poor, from morning until night.17 Wesley’s passion for the poor and his desire for
Methodism to break down the walls between the classes compelled him to embody the love of Christ for the world. Individuals impacted by his resolve were not only the poor of his day, but also those who would join his burgeoning denominational sect. To be a person identified with the Methodist holiness of heart movement, was to be a person committed to advocating on behalf of the least of these. 18
15 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 7 (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1986), 368.
16 While the words of Wesley ring with an air of triumphalism, and while Wesley himself put into practice his convictions about sanctification and the poor, it should be noted that history has shown this work to be unsuccessful as a whole. “That Wesley failed, on his own terms, is indisputable. The movement he launched in the hopes of spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land did not escape the snare of material prosperity.” Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Good News to the Poor: John Wesley's Evangelical Economics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 157.
17 Ibid, 100.
18 A criticism can be leveled against Wesley that he did not do enough to address the systemic issues that kept the impoverished in poverty. For example, several times Wesley noted the despicable nature of slavery in his society. Despite acknowledging systemic injustice, there does not appear to be evidence that Wesley attempted to deconstruct the systems that kept the oppressed in a place of oppression. Despite this criticism, no one is able to question Wesley’s personal willingness to both preach about the least of these and exercise a cross-shaped love that required personal sacrifice of his own finances, social influence, and personal health.
90 While Wesley’s passion for the suffering of others developed through his encounters with the poor, it is inaccurate to suggest that this was purely a pragmatic or emotional response to the poor in his day. His motivation for championing the disenfranchised found its fuel from his passion for the theology of heart-holiness.
Wesley’s emphasis on acts of mercy became a critical component of nurturing the formation of Christ in the heart of the believer, because his vision of holiness was encompassing of the person’s entire life.
Wesley’s vision of holiness, as the utter abandonment of one’s life to God, was inclusive of his understanding of a person’s individual resources. A theology of stewardship, woven into his sermons, personal letters, and essays, revealed his hope for a life that was endlessly open to God. If a person professed to having experienced entire sanctification, they could no longer consider themselves owners of their possessions. His theological convictions of stewardship were the direct result of his zeal for the doctrine of entire sanctification.
The doctrine of entire sanctification was thus formational for Wesley in developing an understanding of what it meant to be a steward of the resources of God. In one journal entry he wrote, “As to yourself, you are not the proprietor of any thing; no, not of one shilling in the world. You are only a steward of what another entrusts you with, to be laid out, not according to your will, but his.” 19 Serving as stewards of what
God has given acknowledges that God is the king of both heaven and earth, and everything in heaven and on earth is God’s possession. Because a Methodist is then the
19 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 100.
91 steward of God’s gracious provisions, God’s telos for creation establishes the distribution of a person’s resources.20
Wesley’s passion for holy living, while inclusive of monetary stewardship, went beyond sharing money with those in need. The social status of wealthy Christians was another avenue by which God desired to bless those who suffered the stigma of poverty.
In response to one woman’s objections to engaging people of “lower character” Wesley writes, “Go and see the poor and sick in their own poor little hovels. Take up your cross, woman! Remember the faith! Jesus went before you, and will go with you. Put off the gentlewoman; you bear a higher character. You are an heir of God and joint-heir with
Christ!”21 Stewardship of resources incorporated the redistribution of personal wealth and the redistribution of an individual’s time.
The demand to personally engage the poor was a critical step in practicing heart- holiness in Wesley’s mind. An unwillingness to encounter the poor was an indication that issues of social status, rather than authentic compassion, were the guiding motivation for a person’s life. Sincere advocacy for the plight of the least of these began by extending relational capital to the stigmatized poor. Further, the potential for a mutual friendship to be born was contingent upon the reality of interpersonal engagement.
Wesley’s theology of stewardship was not a simple stewardship of what was quantifiable, but it was the utter abandonment of one’s resources in the name of Christ and on behalf of the world that he loves so much.
20 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 100.
21 Richard P. Heitzerater, The Poor and People Called Methodists, 1729-1999 (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Press, 2002), 78.
92 In addition to a theology of stewardship, Wesley’s theology of entire sanctification prescribed that caring for the poor was a means of shaping the believer into the image of Christ. In his personal journal, Wesley suggested that there was indeed value in solely giving monetarily to the poor. However, the hope of the holy life rests in the desire to become like Christ in ever increasing ways. Limiting the stewardship of resources to money had the effect of sanitizing the devastation of poverty and likewise stunted the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the giver.
Formationally, sharing life with the least of these would serve to nurture humility, patience, and genuine empathy. The relational element of his theology aimed at subverting social class norms with the hope of participating in a fuller expression of the kingdom of God. In this way, according to Wesley, personal acts of mercy both exhibited the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification and offered a means of grace to transform the life of the Methodist.22 The pitfall of pietistic traditions is the lure of presuming God’s disposition toward a person is dependent on their behavior. Avoiding the hazards of pietism is only possible when stewardship is driven out of a theology of holy love.
In the vast array of Wesley’s sermons and essays, his seminal book on the nuances of the holy life is A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. This book strives to clarify the common misconceptions of the doctrine of entire sanctification. One of the greatest critiques of Wesley’s vision of heart-holiness was the potential for a believer’s passion for holy living to devolve into the abyss of spiritual pride. The solution to overcoming
22 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 54.
93 the temptation to focus on achievement or piety is to allow love to reign in the heart.
Wesley writes,
There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else; if you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, 'Have you received this or that blessing?' If you mean anything but more love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them upon a false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing more, but more of that love described in the thirteenth chapter of the Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried into Abraham's bosom.23
The persistent temptation to measure the value of a Christian’s life based on acts of piety is present not only within terminology of entire sanctification, but also in the call to engage the transient and disenfranchised. Yet, when love of God and love of others are the center of a person’s imagination, their actions and motivations are free to flow out of the faithful love that comes from God.
Finally, Wesley developed a theology of engagement with the poor out of his convictions that holiness of heart is a dynamic and expulsive movement of the Spirit of
God in the life of a believer. Like an advancing infection that slowly takes over more and more systems of the body, Wesley taught that Christian perfection was an on going process meant to grow in the life of the believer. A leading Nazarene scholar on Wesley writes,
For Wesley, Christians could be perfect in one way only, perfect in love. But even that meant only whole-hearted, undivided love and was not a static final perfection so that they floated two feet off the ground with some esoteric spirituality which made them inhuman by losing contact with practical daily life. Quite the contrary, it meant that they were immersed in the practicalities of living
23 John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, ed. J. Fred Parker (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1966), 99.
94 and were so filled with an all-consuming love for God, and therefore a practical love for neighbor, that they developed an integrity and maturity in character. In short, it made them more truly and compassionately human.24
Holiness of heart was the animating force that propels the Christian out into the world. In perpetually evolving ways, and always as an expression of the love of God, engagement with the suffering world was a natural outcome of the work of God’s Spirit in the heart of
God’s people.
Wesley’s Contribution to the New Ministry Initiative
Wesley’s contribution to the new ministry initiative is three-fold: first, he provides a theology of stewardship. A liberal distribution of monetary resources, done as an altruistic expression of compassion, is not devoid of value, either in the kingdom of
God or to the persons giving or receiving the merciful act. Yet, a theology of stewardship conjoins tangible expressions of mercy to the greater expression of compassion that invites the suffering of the poor to become personal within the context of relationship.
Practically, Wesley’s theology of stewardship offers ample justification for the
SLO to assist students in considering how the Christian faith shapes more than simply the time spent in corporate worship. The inclusion of service to the least of these is a means by which the university can practice stewarding its resources. In this sense, faculty and staff members from a variety of differing disciplines could lend the value of their expertise in addressing the systemic issues of injustice in the Olathe and Kansas City areas. Likewise, an embodied theology of stewardship would allow the athletic teams, choir students, and band students at MNU to steward the talents God has given them to
24 Noble, Holy Trinity, 45.
95 minister to the least of these in underserved areas of Kansas City.
As students practice stewarding the gifts of God, the rhythmic movements of the kingdom have the potential to flow in and through them. In Wesley’s perspective, generosity and love serve as the evidence of God’s love in the world. At the same time, acts of mercy also cultivate the transforming work of the Holy Spirit that leads to greater depths of maturity and love.
A theology of stewardship substantiates the inclusion of service as a spiritual formation requirement at MNU in that it is inclusive of the entire community. Wesley understood acts of compassion as both indicative of the holy love of God coming to fruition in a person’s heart and generative of growth in grace into the heart of God. As noted in Chapter 3, Christian universities frequently subsume the task of formation and discipleship into the process of the cognitive transmission of orthodox Christian theology.25 The narrative of developing a Christian worldview relies heavily on corporate worship to accomplish the necessary transmission of information.
Further, a broader adoption of Wesley’s vision of holy stewardship has the potential to initiate a university-wide movement. Embracing a vision of stewardship amongst the faculty and staff would model the university’s desire that student would develop a passion to serve during their time at MNU. Wesley’s theology of stewardship expands the emphasis of this new ministry initiative to include spiritual formation for
25 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 17.
96 faculty, staff, and coaches, in addition to the student population.26
Inclusion of engagement with the least of these would fortify the spiritual formation curriculum of MNU by emphasizing that nurturing holiness of heart encompasses an individual’s whole life. As students engage the poor, the liturgical movements of the chapel settings can find even greater coherence. Further, by increasing the emphasis on these practices as expressions of worship, there is the potential to dissolve the dualistic thinking of the Church building as sacred and the world as profane.
In keeping with Wesley’s vision of holiness, fostering holy love in the lives of students identifies the reality that holiness is a saturating work of the Holy Spirit that aims at the entire life of the believer. A spiritual formation curriculum infused with opportunities to express a Christian’s tangible love for God, is a more authentic expression of Wesleyan theology than an over-emphasis on corporate worship, because it reinforces holy living in the public sector.
Jürgen Moltmann: The Crucified God
Chrysostom’s contribution to this project stems from his hermeneutical conviction that the literal presence of Christ is found in the poor. Likewise, Wesley’s work supports this project by describing engagement with the least of these as a means of embracing the all-encompassing work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Jürgen Moltmann
26 Establishing a theology of stewardship provides an initial starting point to address a theology of vocation. As students progress in their college experience, issues of calling and career consume a large portion of their thoughts and conversations. Biannually the Spiritual Life Office hosts a weekend retreat dedicated to developing a theology of vocation by reflecting on how students could consider the stewarding of their education and careers as an expression of their love for God. The scope of this project does not allow for the inclusion of a full articulation of a theology of vocation, but Wesley’s theology of stewardship, as set within the context of the doctrine of holiness, can bring greater cohesion to the task of spiritual formation at MNU.
97 adds to the theological coherence of this project by proposing that Christ crucified and resurrected is the core of the Christian foundation for a theological hope.
To discover why the cross and resurrection serve as the foundation of Christian hope, the motivations and implications of the categorical rejection of Jesus must be taken into consideration.27 “It is the suffering of God in Christ, rejected and killed in the absence of God, which qualifies Christian faith as faith, and as something different from the projection of man’s desire.”28 The crucifixion reveals the degree to which the God that Jesus claims to represent was an affront to those in positions of religious and political authority. Jesus’ willingness to embrace people on the outside of society, to suffer rather than exercise authority through force, and to announce an alternative kingdom was unlike any cultural prescription of what it meant to be a god.
Likewise, the death of Jesus also allied the oppressor to the oppressed. Israel’s desire to suppress the message of Jesus developed from their vocation as God’s chosen people. In contrast, the Roman Empire’s suppression of Jesus stemmed from a commitment to protect the empire from the sedition of radicals and terrorists. Common to both Israel and Rome was the resolve to eradicate the threat Jesus posed to the systems and places of authority that the two entities both enjoyed. Israel and Rome became unlikely partners in their mutual opposition of the kingship of Jesus.
27 The extent of what Jesus suffers at the hands of humanity often emphasizes the degree of physical torture he endured. In Christian theology, the cross is indicative of more than excruciating pain. “To suffer and to be rejected are not identical. Suffering can be celebrated and admired. It can arouse compassion. But to be rejected takes away the dignity from suffering and makes it dishonorable suffering. To suffer and be rejected signify the cross. To die on the cross means to suffer and to die as one who is an outcast and rejected.” As further reflections are presented, the terms suffering, cross, and rejection will be used interchangeably to include the physical suffering of Jesus, but also the inclusion of the rejection of Jesus on the cross. Moltmann, The Crucified God, 55.
28 Ibid, 37.
98 The Roman Empire’s abhorrence of Jesus originated from his profession that there is just one God, and that this God’s kingdom was eminent in the coming of God’s
Son to earth. Amidst the array of cultural deities, the imperial cult required the non- negotiable loyalty of its citizens. The facade of religious pluralism was a profitable tool of the state in that it served as a litmus test for the true allegiance of the Roman people.
To pay homage to the deity of the state was a religious act that was revelatory of a citizen’s political loyalty to the Emperor.
Jesus’ announcement of the in-breaking kingdom of God was quite obviously religious declaration. The religious nature of the proclamation did not erode the reality that his message was also unmistakably political. Evoking the name of God categorized
Jesus’ announcement of his kingdom as religious. The political orientation of his kingdom found expression in that it called for the undiluted loyalty of his subjects. In contrast to the Roman system of polytheism, with an ultimate allegiance to the imperial cult, the kerygma and ministry of Jesus pointed to one God as the center of worship.
Jesus’ description of his kingdom being of another world had the potential to imply that his kingdom was solely of a spiritual orientation. Instead, it was an affirmation that his kingdom stood as a stark alternative to the present kingdoms of the world. 29 The hostility between these competing kingdoms came to a climax, because the citizens of the kingdom of God lived within the confines of the Roman Empire. Thus,
Jesus suffered the death of a political rebel because the Roman Empire rightly identified
29 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 140.
99 him as a threat to the state’s social and political order.30
Jesus’ death as political rebel serves as the ground of Christian hope because it subverts every empire’s propaganda of the sacrifice required to enter into the polis.31 The obstinate Christian witness that the clearest revelation of God lies in the willingness of
Jesus to suffer the humiliation of the cross, and that his suffering was actually the most explicit expression of God’s power, was a direct attack to the state’s narrative and polity that led to prosperity for the Roman Empire. Honorable Roman citizenship meant sacrificially paying taxes, serving as a benefactor to build status, and offering sacrifices at the temples of the imperial cult.
In the case of the Roman Empire, Jesus’ proclamation of a kingdom that exists for the powerless was utterly counter-intuitive. “Between faith in Christ and the deified rulers of the world, the personal cults and the social and political fetishes of society, Jesus himself stands.”32 Jesus’ kingship offered a jarring alternative to the Empire’s (and empires past, present, and future) demand of veneration and sacrifice as the price of entrance. The cross and the resurrection are the ground for all Christian hope because they reallocate the burden of inclusion in the kingdom of God onto the king, rather than on the king’s subjects.
Moltmann points to the early Christian martyrs’ faithfulness to Jesus as evidence of this new reality. “The worship of such a 'crucified God' contained a strictly political
30 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 136.
31 Polis is the Greek word for city, but in this context is referential of the social and cultural norms of acceptance of various empires.
32 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 143.
100 significance which cannot be sublimated into the religious sphere.”33 The continual veneration of something other than the imperial cult was a seditious act that led to the death of many in early Christendom. However, the willingness of Christian martyrs to surrender of their lives in worship of a god suffering under the shame of crucifixion was far more confounding.
Casting Jesus out of the city, and onto the cross was the natural end for a political rebel. In light of his identification as a political insurrectionist, the Roman Empire executed the role of violent oppressor perfectly. Yet, Jesus’ death also came at the hands of those most familiar with the movement of God in history: God’s own people.
Israel’s identification as God’s chosen people did not insulate them from working against the purposes of God in the incarnation. As a Rabbi, Jesus was a part of the longstanding tradition of articulating God’s vision for creation, as mediated to Israel through the Torah. Discrepancies between various Jewish sects over the interpretation of the law were common within Judaism. Uncommon amongst other Rabbis, and the locus of Israel’s revulsion towards Jesus, was his claim that he was God.
Jesus’ claim to divinity put him radically beyond the pale of standard rabbinic tradition. The dynamic divisions between various Jewish schools of thought took place in the arena of public debate. Jesus publically proclaimed to be greater than both the law and the temple (Mt 12:6). The relegation of the Mosaic Law to the realm of subservience to his mission categorically placed Jesus amongst the heretics who had departed from traditional belief in Yahweh.
33 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 144.
101 The subversion of the Mosaic Law was most explicit as Jesus extended grace to those presumed to be the enemies of God. “By so doing he abolished the legal distinction between religious and secular, righteous and unrighteous, devout and sinful. He revealed
God in a different way from that in which he was understood in the law and the tradition and was perceived by the guardians of the law.”34 Issues of Sabbath received a fresh interpretation (Mark 3:1-3), as did the conferral of grace without proper sacrifice (John
8:1-11), and the response of religious outsiders was highlighted as the model for embracing the in-breaking kingdom of God (Matt. 8:5-13). The comfort of Israel’s ability to identify the enemies of God dissolved as Jesus recasts God’s disposition toward creation.
Jesus’ willingness to reconstruct the law moved him into the worst of all categories: blasphemer. The proclamation of the law of grace was the ratification of the boundary lines that categorized member versus non-member. God’s posture of grace, as proclaimed in the life and preaching of Jesus, initiated the erosion of the dualism between neighbor and foreigner. The religious elite erupted in conflict with Jesus because of their role as the keepers of the binary system of the Mosaic Law. The discernment and the application of the law enabled Israel to delineate between the righteous and unrighteous, and thus who was worthy of compassion or indifference.
The law of grace, as expressed through Jesus’ identification with the God- forsaken, also shifts the eschatological vision of judgment. The weight of the law’s efficacy resides in the damnation of the unrighteous and the exultation of the faithful.
34 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 128.
102 The law of grace subverts the force of final judgment by exposing God’s unmitigated posture of love for the world.
The dilution of the fear of eschatological judgment has the consequence of making God vulnerable to the rejection of creation. If God has already spoken the final word of grace over creation, God abandons every other compelling resource but love.
Fear, as the motivation to follow the law, dissipates in the suffering of Jesus, and God now stands vulnerable to creation indisputably reliant upon love.
Consequently, in proclaiming the law of grace, God is not the only stakeholder who relinquishes the power that fear formerly provided. As the fear of eschatological judgment diminished, so too did the power of Israel’s authorities as the adjudicators of the law. The religious elite, previously charged to speak on behalf of God, experienced disarmament. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus rendered the weapon of eschatological fear impotent in light of the law of grace.
Thus, the cross is the ground for all Christian hope because it reorients God’s plan away from eschatological fear and into the realm of unfettered love as the sole means of motivating and compelling creation. “If indeed Christ on the Cross is the decisive revelation of God the Creator-the great historic parable of God's own suffering and vulnerability in relationship to the otherness of creation-then the Creator truly is love, and divine power is not a ruling fist but an open, bleeding hand.”35 Jesus’ willingness to embrace the agonizing humiliation of the cross on behalf of condemned rejects is God’s final word over rebellious creation. King Jesus has rendered a final verdict over creation,
35 Michael E. Lodahl, The Story of God: Wesleyan Theology and the Biblical Narrative, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1994), 60.
103 and the final judgment is grace.
Moltmann’s emphasis on the cross stems from his convictions of what the utter rejection of Jesus did on behalf of creation. In Jesus’ abandonment on the cross, all players in the cosmic drama of creation disavowed Jesus. The orthodox Israelites condemned him as a blasphemer, the ruling Roman elite condemned him as an insurrectionist, but the most damning rejection of Jesus came as God the Father was silent during the agony of the cross.
In the silence of God, God the Son is bound together with all god forsaken of human history. Moltmann describes the historical crucifixion as the eschatological judgment of God on creation, on those who are without recourse or hope.36 Further, the death of Jesus renders his proclamation of the law of grace (the central theme to the new kingdom proclaimed in his ministry) as being without merit. For his disciples, the potential to be the next victims of the Empire may have been part of the impetus to flee at the moment of his suffering. Yet, to presume that this was only an issue of fear and self- preservation misses the weight of their conspicuous absence. The execution of Jesus rendered the final verdict that Jesus was wrong about the God that he proclaimed as his
Father and that his closest followers were likewise wrong about him.37 In this light, the disciples’ desertion of Jesus on the cross served to signal God’s affirmation of the religious elite’s interpretation of the law and Jesus as a fraudulent messiah.
36 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 163.
37 Ibid, 132.
104 Jesus’ solidarity with the God-forsaken was also evident, as Jesus appeared to die in utter agony. The Roman Empire’s execution of rebels attempting to inaugurate the kingdom of God in force frequently led to the execution of martyrs. Moltmann points out that in these circumstances, the tortured received their deaths as further affirmation of the righteousness of their cause. In addition to their personal righteousness before God, the martyrs also hoped in the resurrection of the dead, which would bring about the judgment of God on their enemies.38
In contrast, the gospels paint Jesus as enduring his death in visible agony, rather than righteous endurance. The cross thus brought about the end of his own life and issued the final deathblow to his entire understanding of the God he proclaimed.
Moltmann writes,
In the words 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Jesus is putting at stake not only his personal existence, but his theological existence, his whole proclamation of God. Thus ultimately, in his rejection, the deity of his God and the fatherhood of his Father, which Jesus had brought close to men, are at stake. From this point of view, on the cross not only is Jesus himself in agony, but also the one for whom he lived and spoke, his Father.39
Jesus’ death on the cross did graft him into humanity’s long line of people who have suffered indescribable agony-past, present, and future. Often this suffering has come because of righteousness or, at the very least, through no fault of the victim. Yet, Jesus, in the silence of God at the historical crucifixion, united with humanity’s unrighteous: those outside the law, those perpetrating injustice, and those subverting the purposes of
God for creation. Only in God’s rejection of Jesus can God the Son stand with and as
38 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 145.
39 Ibid, 150-151.
105 one who is damned as God-forsaken.
The crucifixion, in isolation, does not serve as the center of Christian hope. If the narrative ends with the utter isolation of Jesus, the cross becomes not the center of
Christian hope, but the ultimate despair to which all suffering leads. In the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the hope of Christian theology proclaims final victory over death, oppression, suffering and God-forsakenness.
The resurrection of Christ from the dead inaugurates the reign of the hopeful future of God as Jesus’ ministry and kerygma received ultimate vindication. The law of grace was the foundation of the case that convicted Jesus as a blasphemer. “If God raised this dishonored man in his coming righteousness, it follows that in this crucified figure he manifests his true righteousness, the right of the unconditional grace which makes righteous the unrighteous and those without rights.”40 The resurrection is the ground for all Christian hope because it confirms the audacious claims of Jesus. The graciousness of
God, as the fullest expression of God’s disposition toward creation, initiates the restoration of creation in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus also serves as the center of Christian hope because it reconstructs the anxious uncertainty of the coming final judgment. The crucifixion of
Jesus commences the prescribed final judgment to which all creation was heading “…and by his death has already been decided in favor of the accused.”41 The damned that have no reason to anticipate grace, receive hope. The resurrection of Jesus is the ground for
40 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 176.
41 Ibid, 169.
106 Christian hope because final judgment is no longer based on the righteousness of those being judged, but is now exclusively derived from the judge whose righteousness has been revealed as grace.
Furthermore, all Christian hope rests upon the resurrection because it reimagines the chronology of God’s redemption of the world. Final consummation of the kingdom of God on earth was to be the prescribed end of creation history. The resurrection of the dead, and thus final judgment, was the final signal of God’s concluding act of restoration through the compensatory judgment of the rebellious creation.
In the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the new creation ceases to be a static conclusion. Rather, Jesus’ resurrection launches the new creation in the midst of creation history. As the epicenter of Christian hope, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead moves from being solely defined as a future movement of God to an act of God that is a present reality.42
Moltmann’s Contribution to the New Ministry Initiative
Moltmann’s understanding of the cross and the resurrection as the center of
Christian hope offers sound theological fortitude for the new ministry initiative of this doctoral project. For a university to be specifically Christian, the telos of the institution must stem from God’s revelation of love for creation. In the three-fold rejection of Jesus by the Roman Empire, by the Israelites, and by God the Father, God’s disposition toward the world is revealed and a pattern for Christian engagement in the world is set forth.
Moltmann’s description of the Roman rejection of Jesus originates from the
42 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 171.
107 reality that Jesus was propagating a kingdom built on the sacrifice of the king, rather than the king’s subjects. Throughout the gospel narratives, the kingdom of God finds its most vibrant expressions when people on the margins receive the welcome of honored guests and friends. Jesus’ reign of kingship was an anathema to Rome because it offered an alternative reality to earning acceptance through expertise, social standing, and respectability.
In guiding students toward engagement with the least of these, MNU has the potential to connect students with the present day movement of God that is at work in the world. The declaration of a kingdom that is for all people, regardless of social status, is as counter-intuitive today as it was in the time of Jesus. A Christian version of the
American Dream is a subtle narrative that is difficult to question, and bolsters our natural desires for comfort and the accumulation of social capital.
Engagement with the least of these is a means of pledging allegiance to the kingship of Jesus. As students encounter those previously considered an “other,” the hope of the SLO is for an erosion of the intrinsically held presumptions that human worth is measured by an individual’s ability to contribute to the empire. As formerly adopted narratives are scrutinized in light of the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit, corrosive ideologies can be discarded in favor of practicing new narratives that reflect God’s dreams for creation. In this way, an invitation to side with the kingdom of God is manifested in deliberately aligning the MNU community with those on the margins of acceptable culture.
Moltmann’s description of the law of grace gives theological coherence to this new ministry initiative because it eliminates any categorization of who is neighbor and
108 who is an outsider. In the law of grace, as modeled and declared in the inclusive love of
Jesus, everyone is worthy of sincere compassion and generosity. The firm boundary line between neighbor and stranger is erased as Jesus touches the unclean, forgives without adherence to the proper sacrifice, and engages with the very people responsible for oppressing God’s people.
A misunderstanding of the Nazarene denomination often reduces their theology down to issues (and at times people) that they stand against. As students serve the disenfranchised, the law of grace eradicates the need to assess issues of worthiness and entrenches students in the practice of identifying all as the elect of God. MNU students will enter into the stream of Christian formation with the hope that the law of grace will be both an embraced reality for them, but also an embodied practice in the name of Christ and on behalf of the world.
Finally, Moltmann’s description of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead offers a biblical theology that provides present-oriented repercussions for the MNU community.
In the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the launch of the restoration of creation begins within the confines of creation history. As with God’s design before the resurrection of
Jesus, God continues to invite creation to participate in the reconciliation of the entire world in the inauguration of Jesus as the resurrected king.
Moltmann’s insight in this area generates critical theological motivation for the new ministry initiative because it casts the MNU community in the role of witnesses to
God’s ultimate goals for the world. Engagement with the poor not only provides a tangible means of participation in God’s restoration of the world, but it also casts the
MNU community in the role of active announcers of God’s redemption plan. In joining
109 with God, as witnesses and participants, the MNU community is bound to the Christian church throughout history and in the world today.
110
CHAPTER 5
CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON COMPULSORY SERVICE TO THE POOR
A critique of this doctoral project is the inherent danger of requiring students to engage with the disenfranchised as a component of fulfilling their required amount of
SFC. As noted in the Introduction, the system of requiring spiritual formation has its own set of potential hazards for malformation.1 As a vulnerable people group, the insertion of the poor adds a further layer of complexity to the equation. Unintentionally, those who are already at risk of oppression become a means to an end, as students serve them in order to fulfill an external requirement. The aim of Chapter 5 is to consider the insights of bell hooks’, in an attempt to develop a robust spiritual formation curriculum for MNU that is in keeping with the ethics of the kingdom of God.
Three primary dangers appear to be present in requiring students to serve the least of these: commodification of the poor, tokenism, and issues of power differential. All three of the dangers are particularly challenging in that they involve issues of motivation.
1 When explicating a plan for spiritual formation, the SLO acknowledges that the transformation of individuals and communities into the image of Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. Attempts to prescribe a means or method of holistic spiritual formation is done with the humility that we can no more prescribe transformation into the image of Christ than we can prescribe that the wind should blow.
111 Discerning an individual’s motives is difficult, but even more complex given the compulsory element of engagement with the poor.
The first hazard of guiding students into serving the poor is the potential to commodify the poor as a consumable resource. Rather than serving the poor as an expression of a student’s faith in Christ, the suffering poor become a means to an end.
The result is that service to the least of these becomes a dehumanizing act of oppression.
Objectifying the least of these as a means of fulfilling a requirement fails to give deference to their humanity as people created in the image of God. This oppressive act
(even committed in ignorance) then further victimizes the disenfranchised, and trades the malformation of an overemphasis on corporate worship for the malformation of service that commodifies people.
In her work in the university setting, hooks notes that her students occasionally at times misused perspectives meant to create greater equity. “Students who considered themselves socialists were not so much interested in the poor as they were desirous of leading the poor, of being their guides and saviors.”2 Commodification of others is an implicit danger in academic settings where people become objects for observation or analysis. Objectifying the poor, as a means of gathering SFC, essentially uses them merely to reach an external goal, and is antithetical to the Christian faith.
A second probable danger of including service to the least of these as a means of students earning their required SFC is that of tokenism.3 The intention of broadening
2 hooks, Where We Stand, 42.
3 Tokenism is the strategy of selecting an applicant on the basis of race and gender to give the impression that the employer is using ethical hiring practices. For the purposes of this project, the application of this term will be inclusive of the economically poor.
112 spiritual formation to include service to the poor is to develop spaces where students can practice the ethics of the kingdom of God. However, the potential implicit message is that caring for those who are suffering is simply one option among many used to become more like Christ. Tokenistic efforts can fulfill university requirements, relieve personal guilt over the suffering of others, and relieve spiritual guilt over disobeying God’s command to love the least of these.
The above forms of tokenism are counter-productive to Christian spiritual formation because they fail to identify the self-serving nature of compassionate acts.
Failing to consider the animating purpose behind a compassionate act germinates a transactional theology. Guiding students to engagement with the least of these invites the danger of tokenism that runs counter to the purpose of the SLO aim of the students growing into image of the risen Christ.
Tokenism is not only counter to the formation of the image of Christ in Christians, but it also opposes the kingdom of God that is marked by justice. An apt comparison is the racial oppression of blacks working as servants in white homes in the mid-twentieth century. Even under the best of circumstances, without addressing the systems that enculturate racism, the kindness of wealthy white households reinforced the contexts that allowed for a palatable form of racism. hooks writes, “The servant may be ever mindful that no degree of affection or care altered differences in status— or the reality that white women exercised power, whether benevolently or tyrannically."4 As seen through the lens of this doctoral project, the tokenism of college students serving the poor has the
4 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 98.
113 potential to maintain the economic injustice that has been a part of fostering systemic poverty in the first place. Requiring students to participate in service to the least can actually bolster the subjugation of the poor that the kingdom of God is in the process of reconciling.
Third, guiding students into serving the least of these, as a component of the mandatory spiritual formation requirements of the university, is rife with issues of power differential. Decisions such as when students will serve, what they will do on behalf of the least of these, and the longevity of ongoing engagement with the poor are some of the questions that determine the context for relationship between the disenfranchised and students. Either the university or the student is making each of these decisions. As students make the vast majority of the decisions, as it pertains to engagement, there is further affirmation of the powerful and the system receives credence. Compulsory service highlights the issue of power differential present between the SLO and students, as well as the power differential active between students and the disenfranchised poor.
The Pedagogical Philosophy of bell hooks as a Mandate for Risking Engagement
with the Poor
As noted in Chapter 3, bell hooks is a feminist scholar and social activist whose work analyzes the systemic racism, sexism, and classism of Western culture. hooks’ commentaries on these forms of injustice are pertinent to society, but can also address matters of oppression in the Christian Church. While sermons about such forms of evil are a critical part of assisting the Church in faithfully responding to injustice, the
114 pedagogy of bell hooks suggests that practical engagement in treacherous forms of oppression is crucial. 5
In her work, Teaching to Transgress, hooks describes a pedagogical philosophy that demands more than passive receptivity of information. Quoting Paulo Freire, she writes,
That means, and let us emphasize it, that human beings do not get beyond the concrete situation, the condition in which they find themselves, only by their consciousness or their intentions— however good those intentions may be. The possibilities that I had for transcending the narrow limits of a five-by-two-foot cell in which I was locked after the April 1964 coup d’etat were not sufficient to change my condition as a prisoner. I was always in the cell, deprived of freedom, even if I could imagine the outside world. But on the other hand, the praxis is not blind action, deprived of intention or of finality. It is action and reflection. Men and women are human beings because they are historically constituted as beings of praxis, and in the process they have become capable of transforming the world— of giving it meaning.6
Formation requires that individuals do more than just apprehend new ideas and concepts.
Insightful content and thoughtful praxis combine to form a potent pedagogy that leads to education as a means of liberation.
hooks further bolsters the need for praxis by asserting that many political movements fail to have longevity because they lack a tangible means of expressing the convictions of the movement.7 Without a model for animating the convictions prescribed in corporate worship, a student gathers new insights, but without much hope of
5 The goal of this doctoral project is to create a curriculum from which students at MNU can participate in a holistic and embodied spiritual formation that expands beyond the experience of corporate worship. Christian orthodox teaching is not the antithesis of Christian spiritual formation. At the same time, neither is only the communication of proper content enough to capture the imagination of students in the hopes of inviting them into the kingdom of God.
6 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 47-48.
7 Ibid.
115 embodying their new understanding of God. In this way, curating a variety of corporate worship experiences gives the impression that MNU is fulfilling its mandate for Christian higher education, but does so without considering the longevity of a curriculum that only includes an anemic understanding of praxis.8
This doctoral project acknowledges the inherent risk in structuring the spiritual formation curriculum to include engagement with the least of these. Yet, in order for education (spiritual formation) to be more than just the reception of content, guiding students into practices that require actionable engagement with the poor is non-negotiable.
With the conviction that praxis is critical to holistic formation, a plan for engagement will be offered, in hope of mitigating the potential for oppressive behaviors as much as possible.
Solidarity with the Poor as a Map for Ethical Engagement
With an eye toward the possibility of dehumanizing the poor, hooks suggests that it is necessary to adopt a posture of solidarity with the least of these. Solidarity is a posture of the heart and stems from a relational approach marked by humility and sincere interest. In her classroom settings, hooks describes the necessity of students genuinely
8 Chapter 5 relies heavily on the work of bell hooks’ vision of an educational process that has its highest end as liberation. The work of James K. Smith also prescribes a vision of education (formation) that is more than simple passive receptivity of Christian content. The work of hooks and Smith find commonality in that both of their pedagogical methods include embodied practices and participatory formation. The works of both authors are the genesis for this project’s convictions for student engagement with the poor, despite neither author explicitly prescribing service to the least of these as a means of formation.
116 desiring to hear the perspectives of their peers in order for the educational process to have a space to thrive.9
Without humility, empathy, sincere curiosity, and consideration of another person’s point of view, a context for transformation is severely stifled. The first step in moving toward solidarity is more than the physical presence inherent in engagement.
The birth of solidarity demands sincere esteem for the other. Within the posture of deferential solidarity, an education that liberates has the potential to foster genuine transformation.
Intentional solidarity demands acknowledging the synergistic relationship between all parties involved. “Only through such praxis— in which those who help and those who are being helped help each other simultaneously— can the act of helping become free from the distortion in which the helper dominates the helped.”10 Fostering experiences marked by mutual respect aims at honoring the image of God in all humans.
The continual desire for, and practice of, reciprocity in relationship is foundational for nurturing solidarity.
An additional aspect of intentional solidarity with the least of these is a commitment to discretely share resources. hooks’ experiences in church, particularly as a child, fostered a conviction that the poor amongst the community were just that, a part of the community. “Sharing resources was commonplace in our world— a direct outcome of a belief in the necessity of claiming the poor as ourselves.”11 Sharing financial
9 hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 8.
10 Ibid, 54.
11 Ibid, 39.
117 resources neither drew attention to the giver of the gift or the receiver of the gift.
Solidarity with the poor presumes a sharing of resources because the poor are fully embraced members of the community.
In addition to sharing financial resources, hooks describes solidarity with the least of these as an opportunity to redistribute relational influence. The wealth of many individuals provides them a platform to speak to the powerful not often afforded to the poor. The sharing of financial resources is a critical step, but does not address the systems that allow some lives to flourish while others remain in a perpetual state of fragility.
hooks describes active solidarity with the least of these as a call to advocate for the muted voices of the poor and disenfranchised. Well-intentioned, tokenistic responses to the suffering of the poor frequently end with acts of kindness, but according to hooks, this is not indicative of genuine solidarity. “Despite their good deeds, this silence maintains their class solidarity with those who exploit and oppress, as they are best situated to challenge their peers, to offer new ways of thinking and being in the world.”12
Advocacy on behalf of the poor moves engagement with the least of these beyond personal gratification and works to confront the sources of oppressive systems.
One component of challenging oppressive systems is the reshaping of the narratives of poverty. Presuppositions concerning why people find themselves in poverty allow for the dismissal of the least of these. “To be poor in the United States today is to
12 hooks, Where We Stand, 78.
118 be always at risk, the object of scorn and shame.”13 Without question, the pervasiveness of racism and sexism is a present reality within Western culture. However, no subgroup receives more socially accepted vitriol than people seen as poor by choice.
In response to the ubiquitous disdain for the poor, hooks prescribes the integration of economic classes. “Without mass-based empathy for the poor, it is possible for ruling class groups to mask class terrorism and genocidal acts.”14 The use of the term “empathy” denotes a personal engagement with persons who currently suffer in the chaos of poverty. The pervasive narrative that they remain in poverty because of their self-serving criminal behaviors exasperates the culturally embraced oppression of the least of these. The platform of those with social capital must confront the accepted cultural practice of contempt for the poor, and the inception for the protest of this oppression begins with empathy born out of relationship.
In her work as a professor and social theorist, hooks describes the complexity of a society that lives with a growing economic divide. Relational engagement with the least of these, as a solution to issues of power differential, is not without the potential for critique. Relational engagement could appear to be little more than a kind sentiment that ultimately betrays a depth of ignorance that refuses to acknowledge the realities of tokenism and power differential. hooks’ admits that engagement across economic class lines is difficult under the best of circumstances. “This has not been a straightforward or an easy task. There is little theoretical or practical work written about how we must
13 hooks, Where We Stand, 46.
14 Ibid.
119 behave and what we must do to maintain solidarity in the face of class difference." 15 The real danger lies in the potential to unintentionally nurture the system that keeps those who suffer under the weight of classism.
On the surface non-engagement between economic classes could reduce the potential for the wealthy to oppress the poor. This presumes, however, that transcending economic classes (through relational engagement) is the lone circumstance where oppression takes place. Oppression is less overt by avoiding class integration. At the same time, avoidance generates a parallel oppression through a segregation of economic classes that reinforces the status quo. Fear of propagating the system cannot lead to inaction, because inaction only germinates deeper acceptance of the systems that keep economic classes isolated in the present quagmire of power differential and classism.
While the blame for the despotism of the poor advances from a variety of sources, hooks describes the solution as genuine engagement and relationship with the least of these.
15 hooks, Where We Stand, 150-151.
120
PART THREE
MINISTRY STRATEGY
CHAPTER 6
A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL FORMATION CURRICULUM
The aim of this doctoral project is to design a more holistic approach to spiritual formation for the students of MNU. The centrality of corporate worship, as the primary means of spiritual formation, has unintentionally truncated spiritual growth into the confines of chapel. Chapter 6 will outline a preferred ministry future, marked by engagement with the least of these, while still maintaining the MNU tradition of corporate worship gatherings.
Consistent Engagement with the Poor
Engagement with the poor is the central aim of this doctoral project, with the goal of addressing the contextual challenges of the MNU community. Service to the poor is a biblical value and is a mark of the Christian tradition, both past and present. However, by expanding service as both a response to the gracious love of God and a spiritually formative practice, this project anchors the spiritual formation curriculum of the university to a theological foundation that is consistent with the history of the Nazarene denomination and the patriarch of the tradition’s vision of heart-holiness, John Wesley.
The theology of John Wesley is the framework that gives this new ministry initiative a teleological starting point. The theologian’s vision of heart-holiness
122 emphasizes the total abandonment of one’s life to the mission of God in the world. Out of his conviction that holy living is inclusive of a believer’s entire life, a theology of stewardship offers a paradigm for participation in the world. Wesley invites Christians to imagine that their vocation, in light of the holy love of God filling their hearts, is that of generous distributor of God’s resources.
The emphasis on engaging the least of these is not exclusive to Wesley. Christian history provides a wealth of Church Fathers and theologians capable of providing the theological underpinnings for the new ministry initiative.1 Wesley, however, is critical to the viability of this doctoral project because his work and terminology are familiar to the university stakeholders who will be making decisions concerning the implementation of the new ministry initiative.
An additional benefit of tethering the new ministry initiative to an ethic of compassion for the poor is that it returns MNU to the historical roots of the Nazarene denomination. The practical implications of requiring students to serve incite a variety of challenges and problems. Considerations such as training students, the tracking of attendance, safety of volunteers, and the administration’s support of mandated service are some of the reasons to doubt the viability of this proposal.
Ironically, a dogmatic commitment to advocating for the poor, in spite of the complexities of relational engagement, is one of the factors that led a group of men and women to secede from Methodism and launch the Church of the Nazarene. With humility, this project acknowledges the significant challenges of service to the least of
1 For further consideration of the work of the Church Fathers amongst the poor see, Susan R. Holman, Wealth and Poverty in Early Church Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Press, 2008).
123 these. Yet, guiding students into regular opportunities of service echoes the Nazarene ethic of cross-shaped love and compassion for the socially and economically poor that founded this denomination.
Service to the least also adheres the university to the theological convictions of the broader Christian Church. Drawing from Chrysostom’s biblical theology highlights the motivation for this new ministry initiative as developing from a passion to allow the revelation of scripture to shape and form the practices of the MNU community. Likewise, consideration of Moltmann’s theology of a God who suffers amongst the disenfranchised, fortifies this project by connecting it to a contemporary theologian’s work that is influencing the Christian Church writ large.
Finally, engagement with the poor tethers this project to the social theorist bell hooks. The social criticism of hooks sheds light on the potential harm of requiring students to serve the poor. Naïvely launching this program, without preparing students to consider the root causes of injustice, runs the risk of unintentionally bringing credence to the systemic oppression of the economically vulnerable. The work of hooks cannot resolve all of the tensions of required service, but it does provide a starting point for considering how fostering reciprocity and dignity is a non-negotiable component for engaging the least of these.
With the above historical, theological, and social considerations in mind, this doctoral project proposes that each semester, fulfillment of a student’s spiritual formation requirements will include service to the least of these. The spiritual formation curriculum will continue to include chapel services, small groups, mission trips, and retreats. On par with the gathering for corporate worship, MNU will now mandate engagement with the
124 poor in order for a student to comply with their spiritual formation requirements for the semester.
Proposed Spiritual Formation Requirements
MNU will now require that students earn twenty-four SFC over the course of a semester. Of the twenty-four mandated SFC, ten credits must come from chapel and five credits must come through student ministries. Students can acquire the nine additional spiritual formation credits through any of the remaining spiritual formation opportunities.2
The SLO will provide a schedule of spiritual formation opportunities, an intranet page for monitoring an individual’s progress with completing requirements, and a system for student accountability. While the curriculum will require students to receive only a specified number of SFC from two particular categories, it will still allow individuals to self-select which types of spiritual formation activities are most nurturing for their own personal growth. The following is a description of the spiritual formation opportunities that will be available over the course of a semester:
Spiritual Formation Activity SFC Available SFC Requirement The Gathering Chapel Seventeen SFC Ten The Growing Chapel Twenty-One SFC None The Going3 Nineteen SFC Five Mission Trip Six SFC None Spiritual Life Retreats Three SFC None
2 Students can earn their remaining spiritual formation credits by attending any other of the additional opportunities, but may choose to fulfill the remainder of their requirements via chapel or one of the student ministries. This is to say, there is a minimum amount of chapel and student ministries that students need to attend, but no maximum amount of credits that can be earned in either of these categories.
3 Up to this point, this project has used the terminology of “service to the least of these” or “engagement with the poor” to describe ministering to the poor. However, amongst the MNU community, the comparable phrase is “student ministries.” Student ministries will be used in Chapters 6 and 7 in effort to align the new curriculum to the terminology that already exists at MNU.
125
Of the nineteen possible credits available in student ministries, several different service opportunities will be available. Regular student ministries include: mentoring students from the urban core, volunteering at local elementary schools, serving meals to the working poor, visiting the elderly at nursing homes, and participation in a ministry that works to address human trafficking. These weekly opportunities will allow students to receive one spiritual formation credit each time they attend. Fifteen out of the nineteen spiritual formation credits available in a given semester will come from the ongoing student ministries.4
The purpose of directing students to an ongoing student ministry is to develop the long-term practice of service as an act of worship. MNU students, rather than university employees, lead all of the student ministries. Ongoing student ministries fulfill the university’s mission of empowering students to serve the world and explicitly affirms that service to the least of these is not a task only given to individuals preparing for professional ministry.
In addition to the fifteen credits through weekly student ministry activities, four additional credits will be available in one-time student ministry events. One-time ministry activities offer another venue of service to students who have difficulty fitting an on going student ministry into their schedule. Further, one-time ministry activities provide space for the spiritual life office to respond to local and global needs that arise throughout the year. On occasion, an MNU faculty or staff member will initiate a service
4 A reduction in spiritual formation credits may be appropriate in some circumstances. For further details around reductions of requirements, see Appendix C.
126 opportunity that fits within the SLO paradigm of service to the least of these. The inclusion of one-time student ministry opportunities gives the SLO the flexibility to respond to needs as they arise and to empower other university employees to play an active role in the university’s spiritual formation curriculum. Each semester four of the nineteen spiritual formation credits available in student ministries will come from one- time service opportunities.
In addition to requiring students to fulfill five credits in a student ministry, students will also need to procure ten SFC through a chapel service called “The
Gathering.” During The Gathering, the entire MNU community meets for a time of prayer, worship through singing, reading the Bible, hearing a message from a speaker, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The Gathering chapel service is the context where the whole MNU community rehearses the language of faith through the practicing of our community liturgy. Students will need to complete ten SFC for the semester at The
Gathering chapel services.
To complete their spiritual formation requirements for the semester, students will garner nine additional SFC. The Gathering chapel services and The Going student ministry opportunities are both means by which students may fulfill their additional nine
SFC for the semester. However, other SFC are available in “The Growing” chapel services.
The Growing chapel services include a combination of events aimed at deepening the faith of MNU students. Services will involve chapels that focus on culturally relevant topics such as immigration, human sexuality, and politics. Growing chapels will also incorporate the faith stories of various faculty and staff of MNU. Such faith-filled stories
127 offer students greater perspective into the lives of those leading the MNU community, and they exemplify the reality that everyone faces challenges in the life of faith.
Finally, The Growing chapel service also sets aside seven weeks for small groups.
Small groups will take place during the normal Growing chapel time, and aim at offering contextual content for students at various places in their experience of the Christian faith.
The goal of incorporating small groups within the SFC structure is to invite students to join with a smaller band of Christians on their faith journey. Each of The Growing chapels is worth one SFC.
Cohesion through a Spiritual Formation Liturgy
One potential challenge in prescribing a variety of different spiritual formation opportunities is that the various avenues appear to have no connection to one another.
Particularly amongst students who have participated in a church in the past, there is often a failure to connect what happens in corporate worship with the other areas of their lives.5
In an effort to bring cohesion, all of the spiritual formation opportunities will include the rehearsal of common liturgical elements typically executed in the context of The
Gathering chapel.
For example, at the beginning of each Gathering chapel, the MNU community offers The Prayer for Understanding. The telos of The Prayer for Understanding is to corporately confess our deep need for God and to ask that the Holy Spirit would heighten our awareness of God’s desires for the individual, the MNU community, and for the world. Previously, the execution of The Prayer for Understanding only took place in
5 An example of this idea is the use of the term worship. Rather than worship denoting how their entire lives are a response back to God, there is a relegation of worship to only include the singing portion of a church or chapel service.
128 chapel settings. Now, as students meet to participate in one of the student ministries, they will first begin with The Prayer for Understanding, before engaging the least of these.
The goal of incorporating common liturgical elements into all areas of our spiritual formation is that the MNU community would intentionally recognize that small groups, student ministries, and chapel services are all opportunities to respond to God in worship. Further, in reference to student ministries, offering The Prayer for
Understanding also reinforces that the efforts of those serving are not the primary conduit that will redeem the brokenness of the world. Rather, the movement of the Holy Spirit is the source of transformation for the world and for MNU students alike.
The Prayer for Understanding is one example of the integration of a common spiritual formation liturgy. The inclusion of other elements, such as offering the peace of
Christ and the community benediction, is a means of cultivating a deeper sense of synthesis throughout the spiritual formation curriculum. MNU often communicates that chapel is a sacred time set aside for the entire community to attune their hearts to the leading of the Holy Spirit. By integrating a common liturgy into small groups, student ministries, retreats, and mission trips, this new ministry initiative aims at molding a campus-wide conviction that God is active among us in all areas of spiritual formation, as well as our whole lives.
Spiritual Formation Accountability
The identification of spiritual formation as a co-curricular component of a student’s experience at MNU requires that the university hold students accountable to fulfilling the university requirement. If a student does not accrue their twenty-four SFC for the semester, they will receive a fine. Completing twenty-three of the required
129 twenty-four SFC will result in a fifty-dollar fine. Students will receive an extra ten-dollar fine for each additional missed SFC, with a maximum fine of 200 dollars.
If a student fails to garner their spiritual formation credits a second time, the student will receive the appropriate fine and be enrolled in a seven-week small group.
The SLO will facilitate the small group with the intent of drawing students into the community, rather than simply leveling a punitive action for failure to comply with the spiritual formation requirements. The small group will emphasize dialogue, invite student feedback about the spiritual formation curriculum, and include various voices from the campus community.
A third failure to accrue the proper amount of SFC will render a student ineligible for extra-curricular activities for which they receive a scholarship. The Dean of Students will also meet individually with a student in this category. The purpose of this meeting will be to discern why there is a repetition of non-compliance to the spiritual formation requirements. Further, the meeting will also consider if the student is integrating into the community academically, all in an effort to discern if MNU is a good fit for the student.6
Communication of the New Spiritual Formation Curriculum
Communication of the new spiritual formation requirements will take place through a variety of resources. The MNU website will host two videos describing the new spiritual formation requirements. The videos will be similar in nature, with one emphasizing specific details of the new curriculum, and the other focusing on the theological impetus for changing the spiritual formation requirements. Both videos will
6 Note that this is not meant to infer fines in consecutive semesters, but is inclusive of the reception of fines over the course of a student’s time at MNU.
130 also direct students to links containing the following information: a brochure with an overview of the curriculum, a “frequently asked questions” page, a page outlining the accountability and fine component, the website for tracking students’ progress with SFC, and the spiritual formation calendar.7
In addition to the online videos and resources, the University Chaplain will present the new ministry initiative to various campus stakeholders. The President, the
Provost, the Deans Cabinet, the Athletic Office, and the Admissions Office will each participate in presentations. Each meeting will involve a keynote presentation of the new curriculum, a hard copy of the brochure, and the videos that provide clarification of the new curriculum for students. The goal of the stakeholder presentations is to gain the support of the broader campus community and inform those who serve as conduits of information for the student body.
Finally, the new spiritual formation curriculum will be explained in a chapel setting in April of the spring semester, prior to its implementation in the upcoming fall semester. The goal of this presentation will be to communicate the details of the spiritual formation requirements for the upcoming year, but also to provide a vision of why the
SLO is implementing changes. The University Chaplain will offer a keynote presentation, and students will have the opportunity to ask questions at microphones placed around the auditorium.
Upon the conclusion of the chapel service, a reception will follow to allow for more specific questions and opportunities for clarification. In addition to the SLO staff,
7 To view a copy of the spiritual formation brochure see Appendix C.
131 several faculty and coaches, trained in the intricacies of the curriculum, will be available to assist in answering questions and clarifying details. The goal will be to empower a variety of authoritative campus voices to assist in the explanation of the new curriculum.
The description of the communication strategy aims at assisting a current student’s transition to the updated curriculum. The University Chaplain will also present to prospective students and new MNU students. Presentations will take place at junior and senior visit days, with the intention of sharing what the university values and expects of students who attend MNU. Likewise, a presentation of the curriculum will be explained at both the fall and spring New Student Orientation events.
Lastly, an annual presentation to all new faculty and staff will assist the SLO in integrating new members of the MNU community into the rhythms of spiritual formation on campus. In addition to outlining the purpose of the spiritual formation curriculum, the details of the university’s requirements will enable new faculty and staff to accurately communicate this aspect of MNU to current and prospective students. Most importantly, emphasis on how faculty and staff can take part in spiritual formation activities, such as chapel schedules, accessing class devotional content, and facilitating mission trips will be included.
132
CHAPTER 7
NEW MINISTRY CASE STUDY
To bring credence to the potential of requiring students to serve the least of these as a component of the spiritual formation curriculum, this doctoral project conducted a case study. The purpose of the case study was to gather information about how MNU students perceived the biblical phrase, “the least of these.” Further, the case study also considered in what ways students saw engagement with the poor to be a spiritually formative practice.1 Chapter 7 is a summary of all components of the case study.
Sample Group Recruitment
The first step in beginning the case study was the recruitment of volunteers for the student ministry options for the semester. The recruitment process took place during a
Tuesday evening chapel service called Kingdom Come.2 The chapel service included a
1 The possibility of executing an exact replication of the prescribed new ministry initiative was beyond my authority. Ideally, a random group of students with various equal class and gender representation could have yielded information more indicative of how the proposed new ministry initiative could impact the broader MNU campus.
2 Two distinguishing elements of this chapel service influenced who participated in the case study. First, Kingdom Come takes place at 9:00 PM and is unencumbered from academic classes starting immediately after the chapel service. The result is that it tends to last longer than the normal sixty-minute chapel and features an extended time of worship through singing. Second, this chapel service generally attracts students more established in the Christian faith. For these reasons, the SLO has discovered that signing up for spiritual formation activities, such as small groups or student ministries, has met with the most positive responses when presented at this chapel service.
133 time of worship in song, a promotional video for the various student ministries, a homily focused on serving others as an act of worship, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
After reciting The Community Benediction, students were encouraged to sign up to be a part of a student ministry.
Recruitment for student participation in the case study was an integrated piece of gathering volunteers for student ministries. As students volunteered for one of the six student ministries available for the semester, they were also strongly encouraged to participate in the pre-engagement training event. This training event served the dual purpose of launching the case study and preparing the volunteers to engage in service to the least of these.
Of the sixty-five students who signed up at Kingdom Come, fifty-two consented to be a part of the case study. Thirty-eight women and fourteen men completed the initial pre-engagement survey and training.3 Freshmen accounted for 62 percent, sophomores
23 percent, juniors 18 percent, and seniors made up 8 percent. The breakdown of participants, particularly in reference to the over-representation of women and underclassmen, is consistent with campus-wide volunteerism for mission trips and small group ministries.
The parameters for participation in the case study required that individuals be
MNU students and that they serve in one of the established student ministries.
Enrollment in the case study only required student attendance at the pre-engagement training event. Consistent participation in a weekly student ministry was the stated goal,
3 To access a copy of the pre-engagement survey, see Appendix D.
134 but volunteering for all of the eight weeks was not a pre-requisite for case study participation.
The semester timeline for the case study aligned with the established rhythm of sign-ups for student ministries. The presentation of the student ministry opportunities took place in week two of the sixteen-week semester. The pre-engagement training event took place in the third week of the semester. Execution of the various student ministry options took place from the fourth to the eleventh weeks. Case study participants received an invitation to a post-engagement reflection meeting, held in the twelfth week of the semester.
Student attendance at the pre-engagement training earned two SFC for participating. As has been the practice for the last two years, the SLO incentivizes participation in a weekly student ministry by offering one SFC for each time they attend a ministry. Further, at the conclusion of the eight-week case study, students who participated in the post-engagement survey and debriefing received two SFC. In addition to motivating students through the distribution of SFC, food provided further enticement for participation in the pre-engagement training and post-engagement debriefing.4
Resources for Pre-Engagement Training and Post-Engagement Reflection
4 A critique of this case study is the liberal distribution of SFC to entice student participation in the student ministries as well as training and debriefing. Students who participated in all aspects of the case study and student ministries had the potential of garnering twelve SFC, or just over 25 percent of their required SFC for the semester. While this may appear to be a lot, the twelve SFC available are consistent with years past as the Spiritual Life Office typically offers a fall student ministry retreat for three SFC, and had previously offered credit for participation in a weekly student ministry. Further, the debriefing and the post-engagement survey took place during a regularly scheduled Community Chapel, thus not adding any additional SFC to the regularly scheduled spiritual formation opportunities available to all students. The SFC available for those participating in the case study versus non-participants was an equal amount.
135 College Church of the Nazarene (CCN) was the location for both the pre- engagement training and the post-engagement reflection. The selection of CCN stemmed from the building’s close proximity to the MNU campus. Further, the primary sanctuary at CCN, though not the location of either event, is the site of one MNU weekly chapel service and is a familiar building to students.
In addition to the usage of the facility, CCN provided access to a microphone, sound system, and a projector. The use of the facility and all provided amenities were free of cost because of the long-standing relationship between the two institutions. The
MNU SLO provided the Mac computer, the keynote program used to format the training, and covered the expense of printing the pre-engagement surveys. Likewise, the SLO paid for all of the food provided for the pre-engagement training and post-engagement debriefing.
The human resources needed for the pre-engagement training event included the following people: the University Chaplain, the Director of Spiritual Formation, four
Student Chaplains, and one staff member of CCN. The above individuals assisted in pre- paring for the event by enrolling the students at the Kingdom Come service, gathering the dinner orders for the pre-engagement training, and purchasing the food for the event.
Additionally, they helped to execute the event by leading an icebreaker activity, assisting in the formal training, distributing the surveys, leading the worship in song, leading in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and the cleanup of the facility at the end of the event.5
Student Ministry Participation Survey and Pre-Engagement Training
5 No additional human resources were accessed at the post-engagement reflection.
136 Before the teaching component of the pre-engagement training, students filled out a survey. The goal of the survey was to gather information about a student’s previous experiences and current practices of service to the least of these. In addition to describing previous service practices, students completed five short-answer questions. These questions centered on what the phrase “the least of these” meant to individual students, and asked them to self-report why they had chosen to serve in the past. Upon the completion of the short-answer questions, ten rating scale questions asked students their opinions over a variety of topics that concerned serving the poor.
After filling out the pre-engagement survey, two training sessions pressed students to consider how Christians can most faithfully serve the least of these. Session 1 focused on God’s disposition toward the poor. This session made use of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats found in Gospel of Matthew. The strong familiarity of this scripture text for this group of students made it difficult to broaden whom Jesus might be referring to as the least of these.
In an effort to dislodge formerly held presumptions, this scripture was read aloud as various images were shown on the screen. A portion of the images on the screen literally depicted the elements of the parable such as a glass of water or a piece of bread.
Other images depicted scenes common to affluent areas of Kansas City and Olathe, not typically associated with people in monetary need. Both the familiar images and the words of the text were largely common to the students. However, in contrasting the familiar images of affluence against the familiar biblical depiction of the poor, the result was an uncommon portrayal of whom the least of these may include. The collision of images with the text, thrust students considered to be most aware of the disenfranchised
137 at MNU into the category of those whom were also asking the question, “Lord, when did we see you…” (Mt 25:37, 44).6
After discussing how the familiarity of this text can prevent people from recognizing the least of these among us everyday, the training then moved toward addressing issues of power differential. This portion of the presentation set aside time for students to break up into groups and consider two examples of power differential.
Having discussed two abstract examples, students were challenged to consider where they had, however unknowingly, participated in unhealthy power differential issues while serving the least of these in their past experiences.
The concept of power differential was unfamiliar to the majority of students.
Having introduced the concept, the focus of the training shifted toward the development of student awareness and sensitivity to the realities of power imbalance. Students were broken into smaller groups and given the task of brainstorming how they could identify and mitigate the power differential issues present in their service to the least of these.7
After several minutes of small group dialogue, the group reconvened to report what their smaller group discussions had generated.
6 Many of the volunteers for this case study program would not self-identify as experts on the least of these. Yet, the composition of this group was students who were previously serving, students universally familiar with the descriptive nature of the phrase “least of these,” and those who all self- reported that they anticipated serving after they graduated from MNU. Taken together, this group of volunteers was on the high end of the spectrum of students likely to be able to see and identify people who were presumed examples of the least of these.
7 As was clarified in Chapter 5, this project acknowledges that there is no way to eliminate the reality of power differential as students serve. However, awareness of the power dynamics, in concert with intentional steps to actively confer dignity on all participants, does cultivate the space for the type of engagement with the least of these that is most helpful for all parties involved.
138 At the conclusion of the larger group discussion, a presentation of four practical considerations provided students with tangible habits to incorporate into their service to the least of these. Practical consideration number one encouraged students to be aware of physical touch and spatial considerations. A volunteer’s physical gestures, eagerness to intrude on another individual’s personal space, and physical contact can all be a means of asserting power. Expressions of how physical contact presents issues of power imbalance cannot be categorically defined for all the student ministries. Yet, examples of how an individual’s physical gestures and proximity affect issues of power increased awareness of how their authority and privilege find expression through physical touch.
The second practical guide for engagement was the mandate that students avoid providing monetary gifts to individuals at the various student ministries. 8 Retrenching the unequal relational dynamic with the exchange of money only serves to further complicate the power dynamics. Issues of precedence, indebtedness, and dependence are the natural outcroppings when money is given.9
The third practical consideration encouraged volunteers to share from their own experiences, rather than being too inquisitive toward the people they serve. Intuitively,
8 The mandate for students not to share monetary gifts with people served at a student ministry is counter to the suggestions of bell hooks in her work. hooks writes, “Those among us who are progressive, who are democratic socialist, know that wealth can be redistributed in ways that challenge and change class exploitation and oppression. As individuals we promote and perpetuate this process of redistribution by both unorganized and organized sharing and giving of resources.” bell hooks, “Where We Stand,” 158. In principle, the generous practice of sharing financial resources is an expression of Wesley’s theology of stewardship. However, the vast majority of student ministries take place in group settings where several MNU students are ministering to a group of individuals. Issues of inequity and sustainability have too much potential to exasperate issues of power differential to make allowing the giving of financial gifts a possibility.
9 Steve Corbett, Brian Frikkert, and John Perkins, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009). 284.
139 students frequently attempt to form relational connections through natural curiosity and relentless questions. Ministries set in contexts where ethnicity is also a component of the relational dynamics often highlight that this well-meaning practice asserts dominance in the relationship.10 The individuals receiving the volunteer’s questions often sense a degree of scrutiny, rather than sincere curiosity.
Rather than offering a barrage of questions, volunteers should share from their own lives and experiences. Modeling a willingness to be vulnerable, to laugh at one’s self, and to give a window into their lives are the first steps towards building rapport.
Having built rapport, sometimes over several months or years, students can establish the relational capacity to ask more questions in return.
The fourth practical suggestion was less tangible, but is crucial for dissolving issues of power differential. Suspending judgment is a fundamental practice for volunteers in student ministries. Potentially the most nebulous of the four practical suggestions, the act of suspending judgment enables students to develop the critical skill of empathy.11 Encouraging volunteers to suspend their need to assess creates space where they can dilute their desire to play the role of hero in the relationship. Further, empathy also has the positive effect of giving the student permission not to determine the degree of influence their volunteerism has at a particular ministry. Abandoning the need to calculate the efficiency of the ministry allows engagement with the least of these to
10 Lindsey Jacobus, “MidAmerica Nazarene University Training for Volunteering at the Kansas City Urban Youth Center” (presentation, MidAmerica Nazarene University training for student ministry leadership in the urban core, Olathe, KS, September 14, 2010).
11 Corbett, Frikkert, and Perkins, “When Helping Hurts,” 285.
140 move to greater relational levels, rather than the relegation of people into the category as a problem to solve.12
At the conclusion of this training session, students ate dinner and socialized with one another. After dinner, students gathered into groups based on their chosen ministry for the semester. During this time, each student leader was encouraged to share their passions for their ministry, remind participants of important ministry details, and begin to establish a rapport with their volunteers.
Following the specific ministry group discussions, students participated in a second training session aimed at reminding students of God’s great love for all people.
This session featured a tactile exercise and a group discussion that led students to consider the uniqueness of each individual person, set in contrast to the universal love of
God for all people. This time of training, while light-hearted and fun, reinforced the previous session’s description of the nebulous nature of pre-determining who could be considered the least of these.
At the conclusion of the second training time, students joined in a time of worship in song. Singing then transitioned into a time of corporate prayer, which focused on offering prayers on behalf of the student volunteers and people at the various ministries.
Following the time of prayer, a brief homily led into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
The training event concluded with the corporate proclamation of The Community
Benediction, used in all MNU chapel services.
Student Ministries Post-Engagement Survey and Debriefing
12 Tim Suttle, Shrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church Growth Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 23.
141 At the conclusion of the eight-week case study, students completed a post- engagement survey. In effort to avoid the majority of academic conflicts, the post- engagement reflection meeting took place during a Community Chapel service for students enrolled in the case study. As noted, fifty-two students completed the pre- engagement survey, and thirty of those same students completed the post-engagement survey. Freshmen accounted for 27 percent of the surveys, sophomores accounted for 20 percent, juniors accounted for 40 percent, and seniors made up the remaining 13 percent.
Of the thirty to complete both the pre-engagement and the post-engagement surveys, seven were men and twenty-three were women.
The post-engagement survey began with five short answer questions. The purpose of the short-answer component of the survey was to encourage students to demonstrate their current understanding of student ministries, and to contrast answers with their initial responses prior to the eight-week case study. A secondary goal of the short-answer questions was to assist them in debriefing their eight-week engagement with the least of these.
After the completion of the five short-answer questions, ten questions provided students further opportunity to express their opinions using a rating scale from one
(strongly disagree) to ten (strongly agree). The rating scale questions were identical to the questions on the pre-engagement survey. The purpose of this section was to consider if actually serving the least of these influenced how students thought about the biblical phrase, “the least of these,” and how engagement with the poor might become a part of their spiritual practices in the future.
142 Having completed the survey, volunteers participated in a large group discussion designed to foster reflection on their experiences in student ministries over the previous eight weeks. First, the moderator invited volunteers to reflect on one or two moments that appeared to them to be particularly memorable or shaping. The group discussion continued by asking students to reflect on why they chose to incorporate student ministries as part of the fulfillment of their spiritual formation credits. The final question presented to the group asked if incentivizing students to serve the least of these was necessary in order to motivate the MNU campus to serve.
143 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The final analysis of the vision for a new spiritual formation curriculum for MNU incorporates both affirmation for the curriculum and the need for further consideration.
The following is a description of the findings from the case study. Included in this section is the calculation of the average change in the rating scale questions from the pre- engagement to the post-engagement surveys. Further, several of the short-answer questions provide additional insights into the validity of the case study and the requirement of service as a means of spiritual formation. In light of survey results, an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the new ministry initiative will lead to concluding recommendations concerning the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU.
Survey Results
The average ratings from the pre-engagement to post-engagement surveys reflect only a modest difference in the case study participants’ commitment and understanding of ministry to the least of these.1 The intent of the case study was not to provide proof of the spiritually formative value of service to the least of these. Likewise, by reflecting on the volunteers who regularly engaged in service, this project was under no illusion that the information gathered would be compelling enough to bear the entire weight of changing the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU. Yet, the marginal growth reported by students relegates the case study component into the realm of a vote neither for nor against requiring service to the least of these as a means of spiritual formation.
1 To access the average rating for each rating scale question, see Appendix E.
144 Question 4 of the survey was designed to measure how service to the least of these assists students in developing intimacy with God. When questioned if students felt closer to God when serving the poor, the estimated degree of their perceived closeness to
God decreased by 9 percent. The initial score of 9.7 was an indication that service was an established means of experiencing the presence of God for these students. At the conclusion of the survey, despite their level of agreement receding to an average score of
8.8, their answers still showed a commitment to service as a means of developing intimacy with God.
Volunteers also gave short answers in reference to sensing the presence of God when engaging in service. Students often articulated that God was present to them as they participated in a student ministry. When asked to elaborate on how they experienced God through serving the least of these, one student who ministered at a nursing home wrote down, “When at SMILE, and talking to the elderly patients, I could sense that God was putting us there at just the right time, when they needed him the most.”2 A common response to this question dealt with experiencing moments of joy, because they felt that God had led them to a particular moment of engagement with the least of these.
Likewise, a student who mentored underserved children described sensing the
Lord speaking through her to a child. She wrote, “Sensing his presence came in the form of God giving me the words he would have me say when I was asked questions from kids that I had no answer to.” Another consistent thread in the volunteers’ responses to the
2 SMILE stands for Students Ministering In the Lives of the Elderly.
145 question referencing an awareness of the presence of God was that God’s presence was at work through the volunteers, as a blessing to the people at the student ministry. The anthropocentric nature of their responses is common amongst students, but was affirming of their mindfulness that God was indeed present. Of the thirty completed surveys, only one student gave an articulation of an awareness of the presence of God amongst the least of these, rather an awareness of the presence of God moving through the volunteer.
The locus of God’s presence primarily resting on the student helps to explain the
9 percent decrease in their overall agreement of feeling close to God as they serve, from
Question 4. Experiencing God’s presence appeared to be dependent on a student’s perceived self-efficacy in ministering to people. Further exploration of how students determine the effectiveness of their time spent volunteering is a necessary follow-up to guiding MNU students in deepening their understanding of how God is present in humanity, and specifically the poor.
Question 2 (of the rating scale questions) revealed the greatest area of change in students’ understanding of service as an act of worship. This question stated, “I can easily connect serving the least of these as an expression of my worship of God.”
Students increased their level of affirmation of this statement by an average of 8 percent.
Further, 77 percent of participants reported either an equal amount of affirmation, or an increase in agreement with the statement.
In conjunction with rating scale Question 2, the post-engagement survey asked students to offer a short answer to a question along the same lines. “As you served the least of these this semester, how did it shape your understanding of spiritual formation practices?” One freshman wrote, “It helped me realize that to be formed spiritually does
146 not mean to just sit in a church pew and pray. It means to go out and serve the world and community, as well as pray and worship.” Other volunteers reported a similar expansion of their opinion of what qualifies as a spiritually formative practice, even to the extent of expressing that serving others, “…is sometimes better for my walk than a chapel service.”
Analysis of the New Ministry Initiative
The final evaluation of the new ministry initiative reveals strengths and weaknesses in the prescribed spiritual formation curriculum. Consideration of the project’s theological coherence, denominational continuity, the degree that it leads to a more holistic spiritual formation for MNU students, and the pragmatic realities of prescribing service will be factors for critiquing the new ministry initiative. The above avenues of critique do not have equal weight, but each component has a role to play in a thoughtful response to the vision presented in this project.
The theological cohesion of the new ministry initiative meets with the most positive evaluation when God’s compassion and love for the least of these is considered.
Chrysostom, Wesley, and Moltmann each present a compelling case of God’s love for the oppressed, downtrodden, and disenfranchised. As the MNU community joins God in acts of compassion and mercy, the motivation for embodying a fuller expression of discipleship and participation in the kingdom of God stems from God’s love for the least of these.
A theological tension arises in requiring students to serve, in the inherent danger of students commodifying the least of these as a means of apprehending SFC. Issues of power differential reinforce systems that intentionally, or unintentionally, dehumanize the
147 poor, and are incongruent with God’s eschatological vision. The relegation of the poor to a spiritual product, for the consumption of upper-middle class college students, is the most damning theological critique of the new ministry course of action.
The new ministry initiative also receives a positive evaluation in terms of denominational continuity. Serving the least of these affirms the desire of MNU to be a coherent expression of the Church of the Nazarene. The initial purpose of MNU grew out of a desire to isolate Christian college students from the influences of the world.
Requiring students to engage the world in compassion and love establishes a method for reorienting MNU to the historical roots of the denomination.
Essential to the telos of this new ministry initiative is the desire for the spiritual formation curriculum of MNU to be more holistic in nature. The infusion of the liturgical elements of chapel into the practice of serving the least of these is an intentional endeavor to expand the narrow delineations of spiritual formation as primarily participation in corporate worship. The inclusion of corporate prayers, confessions, and blessings offers a continuity that echoes throughout all areas of campus spiritual formation.
The new ministry initiative also succeeds in developing a more holistic spiritual formation curriculum through the expansion of the embodied nature of serving the least of these. Physical participation in most chapel services includes many kinesthetic movements. However, as students engage in various student ministries, the embodied nature of their spiritual formation will exponentially increase. This demonstrates a more vigorous holism in the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU, as physical engagement with the poor deconstructs internal narratives of formation into the image of Christ as a primarily spiritual endeavor.
148 Finally, the pragmatics of prescribed service is fraught with challenges.
Requiring 900 students to serve brings a complexity to this vision not experienced in a case study of thirty volunteers. Issues such as site locations, training and preparation, and recordkeeping are a few of the challenges of mandating service. While these challenges are not insurmountable, they need to be taken into consideration before the SLO would make service a compulsory element of the spiritual formation curriculum.
Future Consideration for the New Ministry Initiative
In light of the above critique, further exploration of requiring service as component of the spiritual formation curriculum at MNU is the recommendation of this doctoral project. Continued strategic planning on how to identify and reduce issues of power differential at MNU as a whole, and as MNU students serve the least of these, is critical. One potential avenue for identifying and reducing this problem includes developing a general core class that would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the issue. Mandated service is a significant step that fits within the scope of the institution’s mission statement, theological framework, and denominational history. However, in order to avoid devolving into simplistic tokenistic efforts, requiring service demands a robust strategy for thoughtful pre-engagement training that is accessible to the entire campus community.
An additional point of consideration is the ability of the SLO to facilitate service opportunities or to track student compliance of required service, for the entire student body. The current staffing in the SLO does not include an individual whose primary responsibility is to oversee the mobilization of MNU students in service. A plausible
149 solution might include assigning facilitation and accountability to each academic school.
The benefit of this solution is the potential to contextualize engagement with the least of these to the vocational interests of students.
A final avenue of continued exploration resides in how requiring service fulfills a role that the local church traditionally executes. Meeting with pastors could help to discern the role of the local church in providing service opportunities for students, and would be a starting place in considering the implications of this curriculum on the local church itself. Exploration of this possibility needs to acknowledge that many MNU students do not regularly attend a worshiping community, and likewise includes the potential to exasperate the incongruities of required spiritual formation to include the local church.
Conclusion
In conclusion, requiring students to serve is a spiritually formative practice worth continued exploration. The vision of mobilizing MNU students to engage the least of these has significant challenges that need further scrutiny. In light of the named challenges of this requirement, there is ample reason to simply return to a spiritual formation curriculum that eliminates the challenges by removing required service from the spiritual formation matrix at MNU. However, in doing so, the greater risk of forming students who practice an anthropocentric faith, driven by isolationism and escape, is the resulting compromise, which is incongruent with a Wesleyan theology of love.
Intentional pre-engagement training, ongoing reflection, and post-engagement debriefing can serve to reduce the potential hazards present in guiding students into
150 serving the poor. The theological and denominational resonances, coupled with the holistic expansion of spiritual formation, are substantial indicators of the potential of the overarching vision of this project. For these reasons, the conclusion of this doctoral project is that further investment of time and resources into continued exploration of this vision is a worthwhile endeavor.
151 APPENDIX A
[152]
[153] APPENDIX B
Spiritual Formation Credits Number of Spiritual Formation Total Fine Acquired Earned Credits Short of the Requirement 39 1 $50 38 2 $60 37 3 $70 36 4 $80 35 5 $90 34 6 $100 33 7 $110 32 8 $120 31 9 $130 30 10 $140 29 11 $150 28 12 $160 27 13 $170 26 14 $180 25 15 $190 24 16 $200 23 17 $210 22 18 $220 21 19 $230 20 20 $240 19 21 $250 18 22 $260 17 23 $270 16 24 $280 15 25 $290 14 26 $300 13 27 $310 12 28 $320 11 29 $330 10 30 $340 9 31 $350 8 32 $360 7 33 $370 6 34 $380 5 35 $390 4 36 $400 3 37 $410 2 38 $420 1 39 $430 0 40 $440
[154] APPENDIX C
[155]
[156] APPENDIX D PRE-SERVICE SURVEY
Name: ______Current Year in School: Fr. So. Jr. Sr. Major: ______Minor: ______Phone Number: ( ) - Email: ______MNU Ministry I’m Participating: ______1. When you hear the phrase, “the least of these,” what images come to your mind? ______
Please answer the questions below by reflecting on your past experiences of serving the least of these. 2. In the past, what are the ways that you have been involved in serving the least of these? (Check all that apply.) o Preparing or serving a meal o Working in a Vacation Bible School o Helping to sort or distribute clothing o Creation care (cleaning up the environment) o Building construction (demolition, painting, landscaping, etc.) o Street evangelism
o Teaching English classes o Visiting a nursing home
o Mentoring children o Visiting the elderly in their home
o Other: ______
[157] 3. As you have served the least of these, with whom did you serve? (Church group, family, MNU ministry, etc.) ______4. What was the context or setting in which you served? ______5. As you have served the least of these in the past, what were some of the reasons that motivated you to serve others? ______6. Why have you chosen to join one of the student ministries this semester? ______Please rate your responses below using the scale from 1 to 10. A designation of a 1 signifies that you strongly disagree, a 5 indicates that you moderately agree, and a 10 indicates that you strongly agree with the statement. 1. I see serving the least of these as an important part of my spiritual development.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 2. I can easily connect serving the least of these as an expression of my worship of God.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 3. When I serve the least of these, I feel good about myself.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree
[158] 4. When I serve the least of these, I feel close to God.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 5. It is important for Christians to regularly serve the least of these.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 6. Serving the least of these is just as important as participating in corporate worship, praying, or Bible study.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 7. I have gotten to know God better by serving the least of these.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 8. I anticipate serving the least of these after I graduate from college.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 9. In the future, I anticipate that my vocation will include serving the least of these.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree 10. Receiving spiritual formation credits is critical for getting MNU students to serve the least of these.
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Strongly Disagree Agree
[159] APPENDIX E 1. I see serving the least of these as an important part of my spiritual development. Pre-Engagement Score: 9.3 Post-Engagement Score: 9.1 Rating Difference: -0.2
2. I can easily connect serving the least of these as an expression of my worship of God.
Pre-Engagement Score: 8.5 Post-Engagement Score: 9.3 Rating Difference: 0.8
3. When I serve the least of these, I feel good about myself.
Pre-Engagement Score: 7.9 Post-Engagement Score: 8.2 Rating Difference: 0.3
4. When I serve the least of these, I feel close to God.
Pre-Engagement Score: 9.7 Post-Engagement Score: 8.8 Rating Difference: -0.9
5. It is important for Christians to regularly serve the least of these.
Pre-Engagement Score: 9.4 Post-Engagement Score: 9.2 Rating Difference: -0.2
6. Serving the least of these is just as important as participating in corporate worship, praying, or Bible study.
Pre-Engagement Score: 9.2 Post-Engagement Score: 9.4 Rating Difference: 0.2
7. I have gotten to know God better by serving the least of these.
Pre-Engagement Score: 9.0 Post-Engagement Score: 8.9 Rating Difference: -0.1
[160] 8. I anticipate serving the least of these after I graduate from college.
Pre-Engagement Score: 9.3 Post-Engagement Score: 9.2 Rating Difference: -0.1
9. In the future, I anticipate that my vocation will include serving the least of these.
Pre-Engagement Score: 8.3 Post-Engagement Score: 8.8 Rating Difference: 0.5
10. Receiving spiritual formation credits is critical for getting MNU students to serve the least of these.
Pre-Engagement Score: 4.9 Post-Engagement Score: 6.0 Rating Difference: 1.1
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