Tuesday, May 04, 2021

Some Thoughts on ENC in a Particularly Troubling Week


I went to Eastern Nazarene College.  I really, really enjoyed my time there.  It was the perfect place for me to work out what it meant to be an adult in a supportive, but not overbearing environment.  I know that’s not a universal sentiment and there are lots of good reasons people have problems with whatever college they attend – ENC is definitely far from perfect – but it was a really great place for me.

I would really have liked to be more involved over the years.  I spent a lot of time halfway across the country at Seminary and now live six hours away.  I can’t be there for shows and games.  I can’t use the library or grab a coffee and sit.  I’d love to be a presence on campus and in the lives of students and I have some measure of envy for those who have that opportunity.

I long to be there, because it was the atmosphere, the people, the community that was so valuable to me – and I’d like to be able to give back.  My wife and I have given money, I think every year, for quite a while now.  Not a lot, for sure, but we’ve tried to be faithful in our support.  It’s been 18 years since I spent more than a day or two on campus – outside of those big, old, falling apart buildings, almost nothing is the same – but I do believe the community remains.

As in my time (although I was largely blind to it then), there are people who don’t feel welcome or supported in that community.  That’s truly, really sad.

Recently, it seems, the same tensions over LGBTQ+ issues that are roiling conservative Christians across the US have reared their heads again at ENC.  I won’t share the details, because I really only know them third hand, but whatever they are, they’re representative of dozens and hundreds and thousands of other details over the years, dating back to well before my time.

The fact is, there are lots of faithful queer Christians out there, people who take the Bible and the Kingdom of God as seriously as anyone else.  There are lots of congregations and denominations and traditions that are supportive and nurturing of these Christians and many of those are represented by students at ENC.

When most attendees were Nazarene, it was easy enough to toe the party line.  Even if it wasn’t the healthiest or the best for students, there was some logic to it – let the Nazarenes figure out their own junk – but that’s not reality any longer.  Most students come from non-Nazarene traditions and an increasing number have no problem with the idea that gay people could also be Christians; really, an increasing number have a hard time fathoming why anyone would think differently.

Even within the denomination, those views are changing.  I’m an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and I would sure like us to stop using the gender of our spouses as some litmus test for faith.  That’s not a majority opinion just yet, but I know I speak for a lot of ministers who don’t feel safe expressing a real opinion on the matter, and for an increasing number who feel a moral compulsion to speak out for change.

Fear, though, is the other side of the issue.  The school relies on funding from congregations, many of whom already feel the school is “too liberal” and not accommodating to what they want for their kids.  The sad truth is: if ENC changed its stance towards gay faculty or students tomorrow, the school would close by Fall (if, in fact, there were a viable mechanism for change, which doesn’t really exist).

There is a growing gap between what students want out of a college and what parents and donors want the school to be.  That’s not just true at ENC, but at Christian colleges all over the country.  As generous and as hopeful as those of us who’d like to see change might be able to be, it’s VERY unlikely it would be enough to sustain the school outside of more conservative support.

This is where I feel the most conflicted: On the one hand, if ENC is not willing to step up and lead in difficult conversations about the theological and ethical formation of young people, then maybe it shouldn’t exist.  Advocating for the health and well-being of students in its care is certainly a worthy hill on which ENC could die.

On the other hand, there’s still a lot of great stuff being done in and through ENC.  The top evidence of this is that these movements towards change aren’t coming from outside the community; the very people ENC produces are those speaking and standing up.  The spirit of support and encouragement I so valued as a student must be alive and well, because ENC’s students and alumni continue to reflect it!

There’s always been a tricky balance between fear-based prohibitions and the risk of allowing students to fail in the pursuit of truth.  It’s especially true of sexual ethics in evangelical environments.  Fear usually wins out over hope.  Regardless of your beliefs on any controversial topic, we should all agree that fear reactions are not compatible with Christian life.

If the Spirit of truth guides us into all truth, we shouldn’t be afraid of asking questions.  I learned that growing up in the Church of the Nazarene and it was reinforced at ENC.  As a parent, I know we’re desperate to spare our children harm and pain in that journey towards truth, but as a former child, I’m not sure the harm of that protection was any better than the potential harm that protection avoided.

It’s a risk either way.

LGBTQ+  Christians probably don’t feel welcome in the Church of the Nazarene or at ENC and I don’t blame them for leaving or writing us off, but, for me, as a 5th generation Nazarene, as a straight white male who isn’t actually being harmed by the slow pace of change, sticking around and continuing to push in the right direction seems the only ethical thing to do.  I love both those messed up institutions; they are a part of me, and I cannot and will not abandon them.  I want to work to help make them places of welcome for more and more people (and more kids of people) than they’ve been before.

There are limitations and complexities and financial considerations.  There are legal and political and theological issues that just aren’t going to be resolved overnight.  I’m encouraged by the students and alumni willing to speak up and whatever happens, I’m here in support as we move forward together.

Because of my faith in Jesus Christ, I believe profoundly that wherever we’re going, we’re going there together, or we’re not going at all.  Loving your enemies is kind of what this whole Jesus thing is about.  You can’t browbeat your opponents into submission.  Shame and guilt and anger might work in the short term, but they’re poison down the road.

We may have learned this the hard way in the Church of the Nazarene, but I do think we’ve learned it.  Other denominations are tearing each other apart with anger and recalcitrance and lack of trust.  As much as we disagree, as much as “the other side” might seem backwards and sinful, we have, so far, managed to maintain a belief that we’re all pursuing God in the best way we know how.

ENC needs a little more of that belief at this moment – maybe a lot more – to recognize all the gifts possessed by all members of the community.  I may not be as connected or influential as I’d like to be right now and I may have leaked ignorance and privilege all over these pages, but I can’t remain silent.  We’ve got to do better and we’ve got to do it together, without fear, in the Spirit that leads to truth.

Lets include ALL members of the community and encourage them as they work out their faith in an environment like Eastern Nazarene College!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...for me, as a 5th generation Nazarene, as a straight white male who isn’t actually being harmed by the slow pace of change, sticking around and continuing to push in the right direction seems the only ethical thing to do.  I love both those messed up institutions; they are a part of me, and I cannot and will not abandon them."

The injustice you refer to here DOES harm you, Ryan. Racism harms the racist, homophobia harms the bigot, sexism harms men. The humanity of everyone involved is threatened by these forces. Those who suffer this oppression may

Five generations! By swearing allegiance to these two institutions, without regard to their disposition, and with reference to 5 generations of supporting it, you are saying that you love something more than Jesus, whose resides in and among the least of these that you may or may not get around to standing up for.

Ryan said...


I guess I wasn't clear enough in the piece. I believe deeply you can't just ignore or abandon anyone. A belief in eternity, for me, is a belief that all will eventually be redeemed. Washing my hands of the Church of the Nazarene now just postpones the inevitable work of redemption to come. I'd rather dig in and engage with the people among whom I was raised - working to represent the love and grace of Jesus and advocating for change. Those who leave lose their ability to influence. If we lose the patient from this particular ill, I'll be working to revive the body until the final breath. I'm not saying its for everyone, but it is for me.

Look, I wouldn't become a Nazarene right now, but I'm already here, so I might as well work to improve things.

You are correct about the harm - I should've said "direct" harm - although I would argue that hompphobia in the Church of the Nazarene harms us all, whether we're members or not. There is only one humanity; when any part is ailing, the whole feels the pain.

Anonymous said...

thank you for response, Ryan.

I'm sorry to do this anonymously. Maybe a conversation can happen in a place like this? I don't know. I respect what you've written here, and many lines are compassionate and helpful. A couple clarifications:

- I mean that homophobia (racism, transphobia, sexism, ablism etc.) cause material harm to the person/community that holds them. This harm might be more devastating, sometimes, than the "direct harm" that you name here. Oppressed people can find solidarity, community, and hope, with one another in the face of oppression - and the most authentic forms of solidarity and Christian community emerge under the shadow of oppression. This is where the "event" of the human person/community takes place, in carrying one another, suffering together, and loving one another through suffering. The material harm to oppressors is that they are denying themselves this. Racism chokes both ways - it suffocates Black men on the sidewalks of the U.S...but they die with their humanity intact. What becomes of the humanity of those who suffocate? I'm saying that the "slow change" approach to homophobia/transphobia in the Church of the Nazarene is poison that flows both directions, and both ways there is "direct harm." To stand up for gay Nazarenes is to save the church. To wait for things to slowly get better isn't just to damn young Nazarenes. When the church abandons these faces of suffering, it abandons Jesus, and its own access to humanity and holiness.

- You acknowledge here that your situatedness in the world, and in this church, makes this patience you have possible. That's a start. Please take a look at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s letter to white pastors like you - the Letter from Birmingham Jail. In that letter he carefully addresses what you are saying here about time and change, and writes. King identifies and decries this very attitude in white moderate clergymen. He points out that these admonitions to "wait" and be patient turns "time itself" into an "an ally of the forces of social stagnation." To put it another way, remember that it is Jesus you are telling to wait in the wings until the church matures enough to make room for him. Such a day, King points out, is forever delayed. “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’”

Ryan said...


I think maybe you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying, "wait it out" or "be patient;" I've been hearing those kinds of things for far too long. It's very frustrating.

At the same time, there's literally no mechanism for protest or withholding money or public shaming to actually change anything in the Church of the Nazarene.

The policy-making body, at the denominational level, can't even handle a conversation about whether or not putting one drop of alcohol in your mouth is sinful. To think there's any way it would be capable of addressing LGBTQ+ equality is sadly - very sadly - laughable.

To me, that leaves two choices: either you make a racket and force the issue until there's some split, like the UMC; or, members who think differently and want change can live it out.

I just don't believe real change comes from the top down. It's got to come from the bottom up. We've just got a little house church and not some typical congregation, but everyone is welcome. I've tried to be as vocal as possible in my support of full inclusion.

There's just such an incredible cultural and generational gap between the young people of the Church of the Nazarene and those in power, they're not even arguing about the same things.

There's a Nazarene ministry in Kansas City - Love Wins - that's been under attack for simply loving and welcoming gay people. They're not advocating for inclusion or any changes to the stated position, but simply not yelling "sinner" at every LGBTQ+ person who walks by - which is what a pretty powerful and sizable group of Nazarenes would prefer.

I try not to associate myself with them too much, because my advocacy for full inclusion makes it more difficult for them to help the denomination take one tiny step farther.

The Church of the Nazarene is homophobic; many individual Nazarenes are downright hateful - but if I leave, they win. If I remove my voice, as small and powerless as it is, there's one less voice speaking up for people who are being hurt.

There are so many steps between hatred and inclusion that so many Nazarenes have to walk, we can't just force people from one end of the spectrum to the other, as much as we'd like to do so.

Yelling "sinner" at the folks yelling "sinner" at gay people isn't exactly putting our best foot forward and it's not reflective of the gospel.

Yes, too many Nazarenes are White Supremacist, Trump-supporting, nationalistic, conspiracy-misers who wouldn't know the gospel if it hit them in the face. I would never say, "just wait, they'll change," I say, "call it like it is."

We need to do the same thing here.

MLK denounced those white preachers because they wouldn't speak up or act on what was in their hearts. I'll say whatever needs to be said, to whoever needs to hear it. I'll condemn words and actions when they need to be condemned. Let me know where we need to march or sit in; I'm there.

I just don't think a "do what I think is right, or else" message is actually the best way to get anything done - at least in this particular instance.

Anonymous said...

Thank you again. I respect you very much.

I highly recommend Robert Jones's book White Too Long, which traces the obsession with purity in American Christianity to the need to separate Christian theology from oppressive racial practices. The same is the case with the CoN's obsession with these issues of gender and sexuality. The "actions" involve talking differently about God, sex, bodies, race, gender, holiness, etc...and it sounds from all these messages like you're working hard on that. I'm grateful. I don't know the particulars of this situation at ENC, or what the best way is to change this institution. I suspect being loud and confrontational is the only chance for this institution to make a choice for its own survival. But I don't know, and you may know better than I.

But please don't use the language of "wait" and "patience" - to oppressed people this language means: your suffering isn't important enough for me to stand up to the powers of homophobia, racism, transphobia, etc.

Also, this is the first online conversation I've had in years that has given me hope for this medium. :)

Ryan said...


Maybe you can help me better express my feelings, then. I don't think LGBTQ+ Nazarenes should wait and suffer, but I do think we have to be patient in change, though. Just like we do anywhere in the world with any issue. The Kingdom of God is not showing up fully formed tomorrow.

That shouldn't stop our activism, but we've also got a pretty dangerous "protest" environment that's a zero-sum, take no prisoners, eliminate the enemy kind of thing that itself isn't helpful or in line with Christian theology.

Maybe it should be language of "grace" rather than "patience," although I tend to see those things as pretty much the same thing. People need to do what they need to do - leave, if they're being harmed; speak up if they disagree - but we've got to do with an understanding that people don't change overnight. It does, in fact, take lots of gracious work over a long period of time.

I just know there's going to be lots of Nazarene kids, gay and straight, growing up in the Church of the Nazarene with the same kinds of suffering a lot of us had to go through, if there aren't people willing to stick around and do the hard work.

What I've been trying to communicate, hopefully, is that it shouldn't just fall on the LGBTQ+ community to speak about issues of sexuality, it shouldn't just fall on non-white folks to speak about race.

Usually, as I suspect is the case this week at ENC, these things bubble up when some member of an oppressed community reaches the end of their rope. The emotional pain becomes too much to bear silently, so they scream. That's a sad reality and it's a needed voice, but emotional exhaustion is not the place from which any of us should actually be advocating.

You get a poignant and sad expression of the problem, but you also get a person who's not really in the right frame of mind to express a solution. What makes me really sad is how often we're willing to echo the problem, but not willing to pick up the hard work of figuring out where to go next.

I'm trying to do by best to bear some of these burdens so people don't have to be speaking out of intense emotional trauma all the time. I can't think of any other good use for the privilege I've got than to make other white men, like me, listen to things they don't want to hear.

I do think we need to be patient or gracious - not because its the right thing to do, but because its the only choice we have. If grace sounds better than patience, I'll use it. What I was/am hoping to convey to suffering LGBTQ+ folks is that they shouldn't have to suffer with grace - there should be more of us straight folks stepping up to be gracious or patient and carry some of the emotional burden.

Maybe that's a short sighted way to see things, too - I don't know - but if you can help me find a better way to express it, I'd love that.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to repeat my gratitude for this conversation.

Homophobia is like cancer. The culture (supported by theology, Scripture, cultural practices, heteronormative discourse, etc.) that causes shame and pain for LGBTQIA+ persons exists pervasively, influencing aspects of Nazarene/ENC life that are not directly related to it. So, a gay student finds the instruments of shame while studying biology, or seeing how social events are planned, etc. This is a metastasized cancer; it infects parts of the body that are seemingly unrelated to the tumor.

You speak of people at the end of their rope - when they cry out in anguish, they're identifying the deadly cancer in this body. The people speaking up right now...they're pointing out that the body is sick, and the direct manifestation of that sickness is depression, shame, pain, betrayal, etc. The most dangerous cancers are the ones that hide, that don't flare up in obvious ways. Loud cancer (manifesting unmistakeable symptoms) demands treatment that can save the whole body. Quiet cancer leads to death.

I am saying that it IS an act of grace to make demands. This "body" is full of fear that taking an affirming stance will be too drastic and costly...a chemotherapy that the body may not survive. And maybe they are right! But waiting...it is not just putting LGBTQIA+ students and faculty/staff at risk, it is consigning the body itself to be eaten by this failure to love.

So, there is a call for grace here. But I don't think it runs toward people who are upset and demanding change. ENC needs to have the grace to allow the cries of people oppressed and wounded to be heard, to broadly confess their complicity in a long history of ignoring this cancer in their midst. This moment is a chance to say: "We at ENC are not sure how to rethink our community so that it might be a place of refuge, grace, and Christian love, for people who are LGBTQIA+, and we invite people who identify as such to come help us figure that out. We start by affirming and accepting all people regardless of the gender or sexual orientation, and enter into a phase of confession and listening, so that we might become agents of grace and healing in the world."

They don't have to figure this out, leave the denomination, reject the manual. They DO have to have the grace and humility - and trust in God - that being confessional/listening/accepting will lead to life.

It's a hard therapy, but what is needed to treat a devastating disease.