i'm a nazbeen

for any of you who may not already know, i was raised in the church of the nazarene (CotN) for most of my life, and in fact, a look into my lineage reveals a long-standing heritage with the CotN for several generations. and, being the good little nazarene that i was, i began my college career by majoring in religion & theology at southern nazarene university. of course, i graduated with a degree in psychology, and have long joked that "once i found god, i became a psych major." i suppose there is a great amount of truth in that joke...

anyway, in facebook world i am a faithful member of a group called "Nazbeens." to quote the group page, it's "a group for facebook members who grew up in the Nazarene faith and have since left it (often due to ignorance or lack of gravitas in the church)." there's all kinds church- and denomination-related dry humor there, as well as interesting stories of how we all became nazbeens. we have 61 members, including several faculty members (past & present) and multiple individuals who are currently in the mission field.

as i was deciding what to post here, i came across a blog post by a good friend of mine, Dr. T. Scott Daniels. in one way or another, scott has had a significant impact on the development of my conceptualization of christ and the church. and in his post, i think he is quite accurate in his view of what we nazbeens have experienced. for simplicity, i have quoted his post here, in SNU crimson storm technicolor:

The Naz-beens: Funny and Depressing

A former student of mine sent me the following link today - http://www.cafepress.com/nazbeens

It is a link for the "Coterie of the Nazbeens" - translated as an organization for "those who grew up in the Nazarene faith and have since left it (often due to ignorance or a lack of gravitas in the church)." The site offers a line of apparel, housewares, and buttons for all Nazbeens (I assume it is pronounced like Has-Beens).

I cracked up at the marvelous creativity it takes to come up with this stuff. At the same time I continue to weep over the drain of intelligence, commitment, and passion for transformation that is taking place as we lose a generation or more.

I believe we are losing them because we have given them a non-fundamentalist heritage of intelligent wrestling with the questions of faith and a passion to see the poor and broken transformed by the universal grace of God - but we have stopped living out that heritage ourselves. So although many of our young people have left the church to pursue secularism or sensualism, I believe many more have left as a faithful response to the gospel we have given them.

Although this may sound strange, I am proud of those who have left as a response to Christian faithfulness. I wish all of you were still here in the denomination fighting it out and helping her to re-tradition herself, but I understand why the desire to pursue God's call would lead you elsewhere. Keep the passionate faith of Christ embodied in Wesley and Bresee alive. As soon as the rest of us quit majoring in the minors we'll come and join you.