Wesleyan/Holiness Movement

[Hierophant]

Does anyone here have a background in the Wesleyan/Holiness/Pentecostal/Nazarene churches? I do not have any experience myself, I have only read a few of their writings. I do not even really know anyone from that background, but it seems like Dan Corner is their unofficial spokesperson.

 

From what I gather, they have a very black and white mentality. Either you are righteous or you are not. Those claimed to be saved can become unsaved if they commit certain sins in order to be saved again. I suppose this implies they are constantly repenting all day because of various thoughts and whatever may be going on in their lives. Personally, it sounds really stressful.

 

I understand how they arrived at their theology, but then they must be ignoring major concepts and themes taking place in the background. It is a very literal interpretation of the text as understood from a western mindset, in my opinion.

 

For those who were in it or know about it, what are some of your experiences and thoughts on it?

[mymistake]

I attended a Nazarene church for about 10 to 12 years.  My Bible study talked about Wesleyan/Holiness all the time.  I don't know how well they represented the entire movement but I can share what I remember.

 

I can only think of one guy who matched your description of somebody repenting all the time.  He had done some "homosexual experimentation" years ago and every Sunday he had to remind everybody how sorry he was about it.  I just wished that he would shut up about it but didn't know what to say.  Most of the other people there just struck me as hard core fundamentalists.  They took a very hard line against any kind of alcohol consumption.  Like you would be removed from any leadership position if you were seen at a restaurant and somebody else at your table was having a drink.  You didn't have to drink it yourself, you just had to tolerate somebody else drinking it.

 

The main pastor would find a way to sneak intolerance of gay people into almost every sermon.  He would never make it the main focus of the sermon but he would find a way to bring it up no matter what the topic was.  At the time I was starting to deconvert, realizing that this was messed up and eventually it was one of the reasons we left that church.

 

As for Holiness itself, from the layman's point of view, this is the idea that if you are a Christian long enough you stop sinning.  The Holy Spirit moves in and your desire to do bad things fades until you just don't do them anymore.  Yep, all the elders in that Nazarene church were of the opinion that they do not sin anymore and they were going to help the younger members get to that no-sin zone as well.

 

So lots of intolerance, hypocrisy, self-rightesness and pride.

 

[Hierophant]

2 minutes ago, mymistake said:

I attended a Nazarene church for about 10 to 12 years.  My Bible study talked about Wesleyan/Holiness all the time.  I don't know how well they represented the entire movement but I can share what I remember.

 

I can only think of one guy who matched your description of somebody repenting all the time.  He had done some "homosexual experimentation" years ago and every Sunday he had to remind everybody how sorry he was about it.  I just wished that he would shut up about it but didn't know what to say.  Most of the other people there just struck me as hard core fundamentalists.  They took a very hard line against any kind of alcohol consumption.  Like you would be removed from any leadership position if you were seen at a restaurant and somebody else at your table was having a drink.  You didn't have to drink it yourself, you just had to tolerate somebody else drinking it.

 

The main pastor would find a way to sneak intolerance of gay people into almost every sermon.  He would never make it the main focus of the sermon but he would find a way to bring it up no matter what the topic was.  At the time I was starting to deconvert, realizing that this was messed up and eventually it was one of the reasons we left that church.

 

As for Holiness itself, from the layman's point of view, this is the idea that if you are a Christian long enough you stop sinning.  The Holy Spirit moves in and your desire to do bad things fades until you just don't do them anymore.  Yep, all the elders in that Nazarene church were of the opinion that they do not sin anymore and they were going to help the younger members get to that no-sin zone as well.

 

So lots of intolerance, hypocrisy, self-rightesness and pride.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback. I have heard of the no sinning idea. This is the "double-blessing" idea, correct? At some point in time you receive a second blessing to stop sinning. Since you were in the church, did you ever catch on to anyone who claimed to receive the second blessing actually doing something someone in the know would consider a sin? Little white lie or something like that. I do not think it is a thing, even from a theological standpoint, but I have heard about it enough to know some people believe it. "Christian perfection this side of eternity."

 

My grandmother gave me a book back in the day written by Kenneth Copeland. I did not make it past the first chapter when he made the comment, "I stopped sinning years ago." Even when I was knee-deep in the church, that idea was bonkers to me. How could anyone think they were living a perfect life? I bet if I spent some personal time with them, I would be able to point out all sorts of problems in their life.

[mymistake]

It's been a while but "double-blessing" does sound familiar.

 

I think the trick to convincing yourself that you don't sin anymore is to focus on a very narrow list of sins.  They were very strict about sex, impure thoughts, alcohol, gambling, profanity and so on.  But the people in my Bible study could be super judgmental and could lose their tempers over our simple discussions of interpreting the Bible.  We could be moving through Isaiah and if one suggested a word meant one thing or another suddenly that could set off a powder keg.  There might be 15 minutes of anger from all these people who "don't sin".

 

 

 

[Eugene39]

Hi, TinMan. I was raised in very conservative Holiness churches, and much to my parent's dismay, the last church I was in was a Wesleyan church, which was far too liberal for their liking. 

 

As you surmised, the thinking is completely black and white. You can lose your salvation at any point by sinning. If you've ever read Pilgrim's Progress, towards the very end of the book, Christian sees a path that goes to hell from the gates of heaven. All you have to do is sin, and if you die before getting right with God, you will not go to heaven. At my mother's very last service that she attended before passing away from cancer, she went forward to the altar to make sure that there was nothing between her and her Savior. As mentioned in a previous comment, sin becomes defined as things that you do wrong that you are aware that you were doing wrong when you did it. And yes, there are people who believe that they have gone years without sinning. I heard a woman testify during a camp meeting service that she had not sinned in 50 years. 

 

There is a high priority placed on standards. We did not have television growing up, and the only thing we were allowed to listen to on the radio was the news, Paul Harvey, and classical music. What was called Christian music of today was wrong because it contains the "devil's beat" in it. Dress standards are huge! A man's hair must be short and never follow the fashions. A woman's hair must never be cut, and put in a bun on her head once she gets into her teenage years. My parents kept me away as best they could from some of the kids in our Christian school because they were worldly and wore short sleeves. No jewelry on anyone - even wedding rings are wrong. I could go on, but you probably get the point. 

 

The doctrine of sanctification or second blessing is where they derive the idea of living without sinning. A person gets saved, but it is imperative that they soon go on and get sanctified. See Matthew 12: 45, Luke 11:26, 2 Peter 2:20, and Hebrews 12:14. Some of the stricter preachers seemed to believe that while justification was obviously a good step, I often wondered as a kid if I wasn't sanctified whether or not I would go to heaven. 

 

I find it interesting that you lumped Pentecostals in with the Holiness group. The group that I was raised in would never believe that a Pentecostal was a Christian, and that speaking in unknown tongues was a sign of demon possession! They base this on the "fact" that others were able to understand their language. 

 

Fortunately, I thought my way out of this several years ago and don't even think much about it anymore. So it was interesting in some weird way to reminisce back to the old days.

[Hierophant]

@Eugene39

 

Ahhh.....I did not realize Pentecostals were not lumped within this group. I did not know that, thank you for the correction. Thank you for the information, much appreciated.