The Church of the Nazarene is a Protestant denomination within the broad tradition of Methodism.

History

The Church of the Nazarene began in October 1895 in Los Angeles, California by a group wanting to impact the poor and disadvantaged in the inner city. Theologically, they were very much in line with what is now called the American holiness movement. They were led by former Methodist minister, Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1916). They named their new church Church of the Nazarene and began to work towards becoming an international denomination for holiness people.

Almost immediately, they began to plant other churches. In 1907 they agreed to merge with the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, a group of churches from the eastern United States. The two groups agreed upon a new name, the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. In 1908 they invited the Holiness Church of Christ, another similar group from the south central U.S., to join them. Current Nazarenes celebrate this union in October 8, 1908 at Pilot Point, Texas as their foundation date. In 1919 the word Pentecostal was dropped from the denominational name because of confusion it caused with groups who used that word to promote the

The Church of the Nazarene has shown significant growth over the last century through their own evangelistic efforts and by mergers with other holiness groups. The Church of the Nazarene from its roots was a denomination with compassion for the poor and marginalized.

Doctrines

The Church of the Nazarene remains committed to Christian holiness, although a deeper understanding of John Wesley and their own biblical scholarly research has refined their beliefs without much internal opposition. Nazarene beliefs include one eternal self-existent God manifest in a three-fold nature; the divinity of Jesus; baptism by immersion, sprinkling, or pouring; the Lord's supper for all believers; entire sanctification; and the return of Jesus Christ to raise the dead. The Church of the Nazarene stands in the Arminian tradition of free grace for all and human freedom to choose that grace. The Church distinguishes itself from many other Protestant churches because of its belief God's Holy Spirit empowers Christians to be constantly obedient to Him. The Church does not believe that a Christian must sin every day. Rather, the Church does teach that sin should be the rare exception in the life of Christian. The Church also believes in the doctrine of entire sanctification, which states that a person can come into a state of entire devotion to God in which they are no longer under the influence of the legacy of sin that came from Adam. This means that through the power of the Holy Spirit, people can be changed so as to be able to live

In recent days, some in the denomination have understood the movement's distinctive theological doctrine -- sanctification -- as best understood in terms of love. Love is the core notion of the various understandings of holiness and sanctification found in the Bible. And Christians are called to love when in relation to God and others (Oord and Lodahl, 2005).

The denomination's official creedal statement is in the form of sixteen "Articles of Faith" found in the most recent edition of The Manual: Church of the Nazarene (ISBN 0834119447; 1995-2005 edition).

A comparatively recent work explaining Holiness doctrine from the Nazarene perspective is J. Kenneth Grider's 1994 book A Wesleyan-Holiness Theology (ISBN 0834115123).

Activities

Their other interests include higher education and missions. As of 2003, they have eight universities in the United States and many more internationally and are ministering in 150 world areas. In 2003, the church had 1,435,780 members worldwide in 13,259 churches. Membership of 621,048 in the United States constitutes the largest for one country, although there are more total members outside the U.S. than in it. Headquarters are in Kansas City, Missouri, where the Nazarene Publishing House is also located. This publishing house is the largest world publisher of "holiness" literature. The Church of the Nazarene is a member of the World Methodist Council.

Contemporary denominational theologians of note include H. Ray Dunning, Michael Lodahl, Steven K. McCormick, Thomas Jay Oord, Samuel Powell, and Al Truesdale.

Origin of the name

The name of the denomination comes from the biblical description of the followers of Jesus as "Nazarenes" (Acts 20:5), a term perhaps used by Jesus himself. In the subsequent history of early Christianity (up to about the fourth century), the term "Nazarene" may have been applied to Christian sects who retained Jewish practices. The Church of the Nazarene has no connection with such historic groups. The denomination embodies the orthodox Christian notion of Jesus Christ, that is, the Holy Trinity and particularly the theology of scriptural holiness propagated by John Wesley. J.P. Widney, the founding president of the University of Southern California, suggested to P.F. Bresee the use of the name "Nazarene" because it represented the lowliness of Jesus Christ (see John 1:45-46 in the Bible). The denomination started in a mission that ministered to the homeless and poor, and wanted to keep that attitude of ministering to "lower classes" of society.

See also

• J. Kenneth Grider
• Thomas Jay Oord
• H. Orton Wiley
• List of Church of the Nazarene schools

References

• Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, Samuel S. Hill, editor
• Handbook of Denominations, by Frank S. Mead, Samuel S. Hill, & Craig D. Atwood
• Relational Holiness: Responding to the Call of Love. Thomas Jay Oord and Michael Lodahl. Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2005.
• Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States, Glenmary Research Center Kirche des Nazareners

Kerk van de Nazarener