Church of the Nazarene

[slh12280]

Can anyone tell me anything about this denomination? I have attended a few times in the past and know they are very conservative. I don't know if they are truly fundamentalist, in the sense we use it though, as they have working women that wear pants. In some ways they seem like run of the mill evangelicals.

[alphaeta08]

I don't think they're too fundie. I knew several people in high school who went to the Nazarene church (mostly girls, for whatever reason), and they wore pants, did normal stuff, etc. One girl did go to Olivet Nazarene University, but from what she told me, it wasn't very fundie compared to what we've seen here! I mean, she led the prayer before choir concerts and stuff, but no more fundie than any other Evangelical.

[Alecto]

I would say it's Evangelical to Fundie Light, but 100% in the mainstream. They fall between Methodist and Southern Baptist.

[Austin]

It is the denomination of our megachurch here, and they seem pretty conservative to me. That may be a reflection of the community as much as anything else, though. They are borderline with political activism, having high profile republicans or republican candidates speak on Sundays occasionally. They have a school there as well, and they send home "Christian voting guides" in the students' backpacks. People from their congregation are the reason that we still don't have a comprehensive sex ed program in place in our schools, which is the sixth largest district in Ohio.

I am not a fan.

[FloraDoraDolly]

All I know about them is they have a food pantry for needy people. My friend and her mom go there. They say the Nazarenes give out free food to anyone who needs it and they're very nice about it, not snooty and judgmental. And they don't try to push their religion on their customers. (My friend and her mother practice a form of New Age spirituality and are as far from fundie as you can get, so if they're saying nice things about the people at this church, then I completely believe them.)

[emmiedahl]

Our Nazarene church does not have a food bank. I, unfortunately, am the local expert on food banks. :D

[bionicmlle]

I grew up fundie-lite and was taught that Nazarenes were dangerous because they did things like speak in tongues and dance during church services (gasp!)

ETA: I have no idea if either of those things are true -- my friend married a Nazarene dude and he always seemed like your regular ol' conservative christian until he had a head injury, cheated on my friend and started smoking pot...

[Cassandra]

I grew up fundie-lite and was taught that Nazarenes were dangerous because they did things like speak in tongues and dance during church services (gasp!)

The Nazarenes in the town I grew up in were in between fundie-lite and fundie. They definitely didn't dance! I had a friend who went to the church and I remember during Halloween she took me to one of those Christian "Haunted Houses" where they try to scare you into coming to Jesus.

Also, not a huge fan overall.

[dawbs]

I know my husband wno't set foot in their churches because local to us, when he was in high school, they more or less 'took over' a trailer park (it wasn't quite a compound, but if you lived there, you went to taht church) and proceeded to follow the gamers around and scream at them for being hellbound for playing DnD. (Like Austin though, that may be that little-backwater-town, not Naz in general.).

Personally, I associate them w/ church camps--I swear they own bunches of them that they rent out to other fundie groups.

But I also know that not *all* of them are like that--locally, they do angelfood minstries (which is a good group, from what I know--you can purchase food super-cheap and you don't have to prove income or believe in any certain way to get access)

[Juliakitty]

My brother-in-law and his wife converted to this denomination a few years ago and I am curious about it as well. She wears pants and their kids go to public school, and their lifestyle doesn't seem to have changed too much, other than crosses and Bibles in their house.

[xDreamerx]

I'm curious about this too. I have a friend, well acquaintance really who is one. I don't know her well. She's just been in a few of my classes. She wears normal clothes, not overly modest (dresses above the knee, pants etc). She has a normal hair style that isn't too long and last I saw her she had some coloured highlights. We're friends on facebook and from creeping her profile I have gathered that they believe in being saved, adult baptism, and really big on mission trips. Her church seems to include dancing and speaking in tongues. She has some pictures with friends from the church and some are dressed more "modestly" than she is, a couple even in skirts and headcoverings. I get the impression that some parts of the denomination are like fundie meets Pentecostal and other parts are more traditional, legalistic, female submission full on crazy fundie.

[O Latin]

We have a Nazarene university here and one of my friends went there for her first year of college. She was a bit put off by the conservative environment and the religion (they had to attend chapel a certain number of times a semester, things like that). Her favorite story is about a professor who told them they should see the world through "God-shaped glasses." But she wasn't miserable there and she's definitely NOT anything resembling fundie or conservative.

I don't know much about the denomination itself, although I believe they are related to Methodists (I'm Methodist). I assume there is a church associated with the university, but I've never seen a Nazarene church around here.

[Witsec7]

We have a huge Nazarene church in my town, its a multimillion dollar domed edifice. Ergo the locals call it the NazzDome. Lots of tongue talking, and most of the women have long hair. I worked with a member for a few years and she wore a head covering had waist length hair, long skirts, no short sleeves. But I'm thinking this lady was one of the more extreme members.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I've only known a few Nazarenes as more than just passing acquaintances, but the ones I knew were pretty much mainstream to fundie-light. Some were fairly conservative, but the denomination doesn't set off my fundie-o-meter in quite the same way as some of the conservative presby churches or family-integrated churches so.

[Mythicwings]

My grandmother was a Nazarene but she didn't grow up that way. I think what made my grandmother religious was that her fourth pregnancy (my mother) was threatened, and so she went to the faith healing at the Nazarene church, and credited that with my mother being born. To this day my family talks about how my mother was born because of that. Then my grandmother left the Nazarenes when my mother was 5, because the church wouldn't let her cut her hair. I always knew my grandmother with short hair, so maybe that was important - you know, cutting your hair as a symbol that you CAN. So she became a Southern Baptist, which then is how I grew up. So I know that traditionally, the Nazarenes are more conservative when it comes to telling women how to wear their hair, etc., but more "pentecostal type" when it comes to things like believing in faith healing. My grandmother apparently considered the Southern Baptists to be more liberal - which apparently, they are :D

[Austin]

We have a huge Nazarene church in my town, its a multimillion dollar domed edifice. Ergo the locals call it the NazzDome. Lots of tongue talking, and most of the women have long hair. I worked with a member for a few years and she wore a head covering had waist length hair, long skirts, no short sleeves. But I'm thinking this lady was one of the more extreme members.

Everyone around here (who doesn't actually go there) calls it "the compound". Big edifice. Huge. They always have a "building program" going on. :roll:

[emmiedahl]

Are Nazarene universities liberal arts-only? I am just wondering how you learn any kind of college related science without teh eebil evolution coming up. Maybe they believe in micro-evolution but not evolution as an origin of species?

Evolution has come up more times than I can count this semester in both my genetics and biochem classes. Thankfully, the anti-crowd has either been weeded out by pre-reqs or knows that they need to just shut up and learn the material.

[Crackedeggs]

Out here in BFW Ohio, I find them to be borderline offensive fundy. I've had occasion to clash with one of their leaders, over how I raise my daughter, and it got fairly ugly. Woman ended up deposed from her youth group because of her crap. They had a big youth outreach thing where they just picked any kid off the street in a bus and fed them when my girl was a middle schooler - kids started taking advantage after a while, just going for the free dinner, running crazy - but before that, the control the adults tried to exercise over their lost sheep's families was not pretty. The pastor was up front about using our kids to get to us. Since we are a half-Catholic town, of course that church is the Great Satan to these people.

Then there was the girl, born and bread Nazz, who had the nerve when, at a bonfire in my back yard, we were discussing mythology in a rather abstract way, to interject her "You're wrong, One God, Only One God" opinion, that burned my butt. It WAS my yard, after all.

I have a friend, male, who is big in their world further north, and he is constantly parroting soliloquies while he has another beer.. annoying.

My squeeze tells me horror stories about women of our age group who were excommunicated for leaving abusive husbands too.

Yeah, I don't like em.

[SunnyAndrsn]

Can anyone tell me anything about this denomination? I have attended a few times in the past and know they are very conservative. I don't know if they are truly fundamentalist, in the sense we use it though, as they have working women that wear pants. In some ways they seem like run of the mill evangelicals.

I think there are varying degrees of fundie within this denomination. One of my friends grew up in this church and rebelled in her teens. No TV, although they went to public school. Long hair, long skirts, no alcohol, no dancing, no makeup. My friend blew up at her parents and started wearing jeans, make up, and cut her hair. IIRC, her dad was far more willing to get out of the crazy than her mom. One set of grandparents was also involved, and her grandfather was very abusive to her grandmother, to the point where she honestly feared for her grandmother's live, and was fearful that her grandfather would go on a rampage and kill her family.

Anyway, once you get into the restrictive clothing and hairstyles, I think it's pretty fundie.

[Mommy22alyns]

I don't attend the church, but my girls have done soccer, Vacation Bible School, and preschool at a Nazarene church. They also host an annual Fourth of July celebration. They play Christian rock and have active teen and child ministries, no problems with women in pants... I've never gotten a snooty, judgmental, or exclusionary vibe from them. If I wanted to go to church, that's probably the church I'd choose.

[Onora]

In our area of PA, they're pretty conservative, but I don't view them as overly fundie, aggressive, or legalistic. There is one down the street from us, and we've had the boys go to their VBS. Their doctrine is not too different from ours, and we know the pastor casually. I have a few friends who go there. I've honestly heard only good things about the church, and they do a lot for the community including sponsoring the local AngelFood ministries. This church has 3 services and in a town of 7000 that's pretty big. Nobody seems to dress "fundie" either.

[Crackedeggs]

I have researched their church government.. and they are pretty independent, church by church, which would explain the wide variety of experiences here.

[Onora]

Southern Baptist churches are self-governing too, and I've found these differences when I've visited different SBC churches also.

[Mythicwings]

Southern Baptist churches are self-governing too, and I've found these differences when I've visited different SBC churches also.

Yeah definitely, in fact one church we were at when I was a kid changed from very friendly/accepting/basic-Baptist to VERY fundamentalist within like 10 years.

[Alecto]

There are also several different Nazarene denominations, not unlike the Baptists.