First Contact – Part 26 – Nazarenes

The Church of the Nazarene has a presence in my area, but to my knowledge I have never known anyone that goes there. So, my first contact with the Nazarenes happened remotely.

In the past, I would occasionally pick up an issue of Christian Research Journal at the local LifeWay store. This is a magazine published by the Christian Research Institute. CRI is headed up by author and radio personality Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the Bible Answer Man. Back in early 2000, I read an article in an issue of the CRJ by Rachel Ramer. It was questioning the credentials of the translators of the Watchtower Bible published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I wrote a letter to the editor about several of the articles in that issue including Rachel’s. I received responses from several of the authors, including Rachel. Her response led to me responding which led to her responding. The original topic of discussion morphed into something else which morphed in something else and so on. Our Email exchanges ended up lasting for over a year. I saved our entire conversation into a text file on my computer. When loaded into Microsoft Word it is 645 pages long. That’s a lot of typing and Emailing. It was during this exchange of Emails that I found out Rachel was a member of the Church of the Nazarene.

I mentioned Rachel in a previous “First Contact” post. She is the person who sent me a copy of Brian McLaren’s book “Finding Faith” for Christmas while I sent her a copy of Dan Barker’s “Losing Faith in Faith”. An interesting exchange me thinks. As fate would have it, I was traveling frequently to Terre Haute, Indiana, with my job in those days. Terre Haute is west of Indianapolis. I found out that Rachel lived in a small town to the east of Indianapolis. So, during one of my trips we agreed to meet at a restaurant in Indianapolis one evening for a face to face. Rachel’s husband couldn’t make it, so she brought a friend with her. You know, just in case I happened to be a psychotic serial killer. I certainly didn’t blame her. You can’t be too careful about such things.

Fortunately, I was able to find a reprint online of Rachel’s article that I mentioned earlier. And just so you can get an idea of how our multi-month long conversation started, here’s my letter to the editor about her article.

“Rachel D. Ramer states in the first paragraph of her article "Examining Translations with Jehovah's Witnesses" that it is very important to know, for any given translation of the books of the Bible, the translators and their credentials. This sounds reasonable to me. But wouldn't this be even more true concerning the authors of the books of the Bible? Take for instance the book of Hebrews. It is my understanding that nobody knows for sure who wrote this book and thus do not know that person's credentials. Also, since the four gospels were unsigned, no one knows for certain if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were actually the authors. These supposed authors' names came through early church tradition. Although this tradition may be accurate, it may not be. If not knowing the translators and their credentials is grounds for rejecting a translation, is not an unknown author grounds for rejecting certain books of the Bible?”

I very much enjoyed the exchange of ideas Rachel and I engaged in, but it did take a lot of time. However, lengthy exchanges of ideas were not new to me. Back in the 1990’s before the Internet became widely available, people had to use online services such as CompuServe, AOL, BIX, and others. I was a member of AOL. There were a number of message boards on this service where people discussed Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. I spent a lot of time bartering ideas there also. In addition, I was frequently writing articles for computer magazines in those days. I guess I was and am just a writing fool.

First Contact – Part 17 – Community Church

If you travel much at all, you have probably seen many Community Churches in different locations. I often wondered what exactly the name meant. Apparently, these churches are often a collection of Christians from many other denominations that felt that their churches were not sufficiently reaching out and meeting the needs of their local community. These people often come together to form a new church – a community church – with a mission to reach out to their community.

The first time I visited a Community Church was in Maryland. How I ended up there is an interesting story.

Perhaps you have heard of The Bible Answer Man. This is a radio program hosted by Hank Hanegraaff. You may know Hank from the many books he has written. Hank is also known for his ministry, The Christian Research Institute. This group publishes a magazine called Christian Research Journal. I used to purchase this magazine occasionally at our local LifeWay store. In Volume 22 Number 3 there was an article written by a lady named Rachel Ramer. I wrote a letter to the editor about this article and surprisingly received a response from the author. I then responded to her response. This led to Rachel and me exchanging Emails over the course of about a year, discussing many Biblical topics. Rachel lived in Indiana, and for a while I worked on a project near her hometown. During one of my trips I was able to meet her in person over dinner.

For Christmas 2000, Rachel mailed me a copy of a book that she really liked and asked that I read it. The book was Finding Faith by Brian McLaren. After reading the book I exchanged a few Emails with the author. At that time Brian was the pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland. In fact, he was the founding pastor.

In the summer of 2001 my employer sent me to Rockville, Maryland, to attend a week long class. When I found out that Spencerville was just a short distance from my hotel, I contacted Brian and told him we would be at his church the Sunday morning after my class was over. We made arrangements to have lunch together afterwards.

All went according to plan. Kathy, Andrew, and I went to the church. We attended a Sunday School class and then the worship service. Brian spoke on the topic of the Apostles’ Creed. After the service was over, we met up with Brian. As it turned out his wife and kids were out of town for various reasons. So, it was just him joining us for lunch. He told us how to get to a Mexican restaurant he liked, and we followed him there.

At lunch we talked about family, Christianity, and his book Finding Faith. I had my copy for him to autograph. I also gave him an autographed copy of my first book (the only one I had written at the time), Beginnings to Endings. The lunch and conversation were quite enjoyable.

Over time, Brian wrote more books and became more involved with leaders and churches from around the world. This led him to leave his pastoral ministry at the church and become, according to some, a leader in the Emerging Church. Brian has become a somewhat controversial person in the Christian community. Some really like his ideas, but others think he has gotten off the Biblical track and more into what some call the social gospel. You can see what he is currently up to on his Web site.

To me, the Cedar Ridge Community Church seemed very typical of an evangelical church. Of course, it’s hard to gain a complete understanding of what a church is all about with just one visit.

If you’d like to read a more complete story about Rachel Ramer’s and my Email exchanges, you can read it in an earlier post. A famous atheist is involved.

An Interesting Year: Of Atheists and Christians

Back in the early part of 2000 AD, I picked up a copy of “Christian Research Journal V22 N03” at a newsstand. It had several very interesting articles in it. Being the vocal dissident that I am, I decided to write a letter to the journal, commenting on the most intriguing of the articles. I received responses from several of the authors, but one stood out: Rachel D. Ramer. She had penned an article entitled “Examining Translations with Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Upon receiving her response, I countered with another response. She did likewise, then me again. Ultimately, we became penpals (probably more accurately called keyboard pals since we were corresponding via Email). Over the course of about a year we exchanged many, many Emails. Our conversations were sometimes frustrating, but mostly intellectually stimulating.

In the course of our Email discussions, I mentioned a book written by nineteen-year-evangelist-turned-atheist Dan Barker entitled “Losing Faith in Faith.” Rachel mentioned a book by four-year-preacher-still-preacher Brian McLaren entitled “Finding Faith.” The opposing titles were too much for us to resist. Rachel sent me a copy of the latter for a Christmas present. I countered by sending her a copy of the former. It was interesting contrasting the two books.

After having read these two books, I exchanged a few Emails with both Dan Barker and Brian McLaren. Then I found out that the Atheist Alliance Convention of 2001 was being held in Atlanta. Lo and behold, Dan Barker was going to be present and debating Rubel Shelly, then Senior Minister of Woodmont Hills Church in Nashville, TN. I contacted Dan via Email and we arranged to have a private meeting while at the conference. I planned to discuss the similarities of our deconversions, give him a copy of my recently released book “Beginnings to Endings,” and to get Dan’s autograph in my copy of “Losing Faith in Faith.”

Then another interesting development occurred. My employer was going to send me to some training in the DC area that summer. My wife and son were going with me. We planned to spend a few extra days while there sightseeing. This presented us with two opportunities. One was to see some of my family I had not seen in years. The other was to attend Cedar Ridge Community Church. Brian McLaren was the founding pastor of that church. I sent an Email to Brian and we arranged to take him to lunch after services. As with Dan, I was planning to give him a copy of my book and have my copy of “Finding Faith” autographed.

Happily, everything went as planned. I traveled to Atlanta to attend the Atheist Alliance Convention in April 2001. There were some very interesting papers presented, but the highlight was the debate between Dan Barker and Rubel Shelly. The questions I submitted to each of them via index cards were both asked during the Q & A session. I met with Dan the next morning and had an interesting conversation. As you may know, Dan Barker and his wife are co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. This organization has become quite controversial in the Christian community. I hear it criticized quite often on Christian radio.

In July 2001, my family and I traveled to the DC area. I had a great class, a wonderful time touring DC, a nice visit with my relatives, and an interesting time with Brian McLaren. He preached that Sunday morning on the Apostle’s Creed. After services, he rode with us to a Mexican restaurant where we bought his lunch. Unfortunately, his wife and kids were all busy with other activities that weekend and were out of town. However, we had a very good conversation with Brian at lunch. As you know, Brian has written a lot of books, some rather controversial amongst Christians.

To top off all these meetings, I eventually got to meet Rachel, my penpal, in person, also.

So, in the space of a year, I made a new friend and penpal due to my having written some comments about an article she wrote, exchanged books by an atheist and a Christian, then got to personally meet the authors of each of those books, and eventually meet in person with my penpal. It was indeed an interesting year.