Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts

Nazarene Baptism: A liberal preacher, a swimming pool baptism, and a lot of sausage sightings


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