The greatest challenge facing The Church of the Nazarene in the United States today is not the effort to become fully LGBTQ+ affirming on the one side, and it is not the rise of neo fundamentalism on the other side, and it is not all the other things in between. The greatest challenge to the denomination is precisely what so troubled Phineas Bresee (left) who started the denomination, and William Booth (right) who began The Salvation Army, and what they were seeing at the time within their own Methodism – an ungodly affinity for affluence, wealth, position, and power within the ranks of those who are ordained, and among the laity who attempt to leverage their prosperity for control, to the neglect and indifference for "the least of these".
Song # 535 in the Nazarene hymnal is what we used to sing a generation ago as an expression of our holiness. I’ve corrected the wording to more accurately portray our true ambitions today.
