At the beginning of my senior year in high school, our long-time Nazarene preacher had to resign after his son got a girl pregnant. Our new preacher, Rev. Spearman from Northwest Nazarene College in Idaho, was tall, blond, stupid...and liberal: on the cutting edge of evangelical theology.
Most Nazarenes had no idea that LGBT people existed -- they weren't even mentioned until the last edition of the Manual -- but Brother Spearman gleefully referenced homa-sekshuls in nearly every sermon, blaming nearly every catastrophe or social problem on them, or on Christians for not hating them enough.
Most Nazarenes preachers screamed about our need to go down to the altar to get saved (forgiven of our sins) and sanctified (being cleansed of the ability to sin), but Brother Spearman added a third step, technically in the theology but rarely mentioned: consecration, dedicating your life to God.
Thus he cannily increased the number of times you had to go to the altar. I was sure he did it to push up the altar-call numbers, which would lead to a renewed contract.
More after the break
Even his sermons on "how to get along with your wife" had a liberal edge. It's ok to let her work, as long as you're the main breadwinner. It's ok to help with the cooking and cleaning. She can havae jewelry, as long as she doesn't wear it outside the house, or in front of sinners.
Letting Nazarene ladies wear jewelry? The church elders roiled.
But the worst of Rev. Spearman's liberal transgressions was: baptism.
Nazarenes hated rituals of all sorts, even the little rituals common in other Protestant churches, like saying "Peace be with you" or reciting the Lord's Prayer. And all of those so-called sacraments that some so-called Christians had: baptism, the Eucharist, and so on: they were "memorials" at best, and more likely diabolical, designed to take your mind off "getting right with God."
Ok, we did have a Communion service. Once a year, on the Sunday before Easter, we heard the story of the Last Supper, and ushers went down the aisles, handing out little wafers and thimble-sized cups of grape juice.
So when Brother Spearman announced that he was preaching on "Christian Baptism," there was a collective gasp in the congregation. Some people looked around, wondering if they hadn't walked into Edgewood Baptist Church by mistake.
Seeing the resistance, he read the passage in the Bible about Jesus being baptized. "You think there's something wrong with it, when even the Son of God was baptized? Of course it's not a magic ritual -- it won't get you to heaven. It's a symbol of your commitment to Christ." Yet another way to push those altar-call numbersup.
He picked up the Manual and read the passage on baptism.
"How many of you have been saved and sanctified, but not baptized?'
Nearly everyone in the congregation.
"Well, there's no reason not to. There are rivers on three sides of Rock Island, plenty of places to baptized."
An old guy stood. "The rivers are too swift. It's dangerous."
"Well, what about a baptismal font? We could borrow one from the Baptists...."
Fraternizing with Baptist heretics? Brother Spearman was on thin ice.
"Well, then, maybe a swimming pool."
On the big day, the baptism participants gathered in the men's locker rooms at Longview Park, took off their clothes so they wouldn't get wet, and put on white linen baptismal robes (apparently there are companies that manufacture such things). Some parents, girlfriends, spouses, and well-wishers -- not many -- stood at pool side.
They lined up about waist-high in the extremely chilly April water, and Brother Spearman dunked them three times, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
My job was to lead the person to be baptized to the preacher and back, tell him their full name, and if they were particularly hefty, to help out during the dunking.
When the first guy was dunked, I noticed something that Brother Spearman did not anticipate: When the baptismal robe got wet, it was nearly see-through. You were supposed to wear a modest swimsuit underneath, but some of the guys didn't own one, or forgot, and wore nothing at all! I was getting a perfect close-up view of chests, biceps,dark matted pubic hair, and occasionally even a penis! As they walked away, the gown billowed, so not butts. But frontal nudity, right under the Preacher's nose!
Apparently the experiment was too controversial for the church board; Brother Spearman never mentioned baptism in a sermon again. Soon he stopped referrring to homa-sekshuls and letting women work and wear jewelry. But it didn't help; he was gone by the fall revivial.
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