The Holiness Manifesto – Is There a Crisis in the Church?

April 1, 2006
 |  11 Comments

It seems that there is a lot of renewed interest in the blogosphere these days around the “Holiness Manifesto.” In case you are not familiar with it, it was one of the outcomes of the Wesleyan Holiness Study Project (WHSP). The third and final meeting of the group of pastors, denominational leaders and scholars from the United States and Canada was recently held and out of that meeting came the latest version of the Holiness Manifesto. I encourage all who profess a Holiness doctrine to read it and see what, if anything, speaks to you from its pages.

In short, it talks about:

  • The Crisis We Face – There has never been a time in greater need of a compelling articulation of the message of holiness. We are not even keeping pace with the biological growth rate in North America. The power and zeal of churches has been drained by the incessant search for a better method, a more effective fad, a newer and bigger program to yield growth. In the process of trying to find the magic method for growing healthy vibrant churches, our people have become largely ineffective and fallen prey to a generic Christianity that results in congregations that are indistinguishable from the culture around them.
  • The Message We Have – God is holy and calls us to be a holy people. God wants us to be, think, speak, and act in the world in a Christ-like manner. We invite all to embrace God’s call to:
    • be filled with all the fullness of God in Jesus Christ — Holy Spirit-endowed co-workers for the reign of God;
    • live lives that are devout, pure, and reconciled, thereby being Jesus Christ’s agents of transformation in the world;
    • live as a faithful covenant people, building accountable community, growing up into Jesus Christ, embodying the spirit of God’’s law in holy love;
    • exercise for the common good an effective array of ministries and callings, according to the diversity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
    • practice compassionate ministries, solidarity with the poor, advocacy for equality, justice, reconciliation, and peace; and
    • care for the earth, God’’s gift in trust to us, working in faith, hope, and confidence for the healing and care of all creation.
  • The Action We Take -May this call impel us to rise to this biblical vision of Christian mission:
    • Preach the transforming message of holiness;
    • Teach the principles of Christ-like love and forgiveness;
    • Embody lives that reflect Jesus Christ;
    • Lead in engaging with the cultures of the world; and
    • Partner with others to multiply its effect for the reconciliation of all things.

So, I ask the questions:

Is the message contained in the Holiness Manifesto on target?
Is it too little too late?
Is the message of Holiness being diluted in order to make the church more palatable to the world?
Is there a role for me to play in spreading the message of Holiness?

I believe that much of the message of the Holiness Manifesto is completely on target. I am currently engaged in a dialog on another blog that is largely populated by folks who come out of the same denominational and theological construct that I do. And the debate is raging fast and furiously over there. Many of us know some of the folks who made up the WHSP and we are passionate about Holiness as a defining characteristic of our church.

This area of dialog has most often been the exclusive territory of the clergy. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard a pastor say that the church is a lay driven movement. Unfortunately that is usually followed by a call to come work this Saturday to repaint the nursery or mow the lawn.

It is an all too rare thing that a pastor will engage a layman in a quality dialog around the issue of holiness. Now maybe that is because not enough of us laymen have been interested in Holiness. Nevertheless that is a shame because Holiness is both somewhat academic and experiential.

Hopefully it is not so academic that only a few can understand it. The last time we had that in church history a guy vandalized the front door of a church with a hammer, nails and pieces of paper and started a reformation!

Now many of us are frustrated by the programmatic approach that many of our churches take to ministry. And, sometimes, it doesn’t even seem like ministry. It seems more like entertainment. Whoever has the “best” Sunday morning entertainment gets the biggest crowds. And bigger crowds beget bigger crowds. And church leaders are often counting the size of the crowd and sending off a report to the denominational headquarters and pat themselves on the back and declare:

“We are a great church.”
“Just look at the size of our sanctuary.”
“Did you see all the special effects and fog machines we used in worship today?”

And then I hear the voice of Jesus saying…

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.“

The message of Holiness is a message of the cross. It is a message of death. Death to sin and its power over my life.

That message is not necessarily a message that can be easily packaged and tied up with a bow. It doesn’t really lend itself to PowerPoint slides during announcements on Sunday morning. It is not our nature or culture to run to the foot of the cross.

But if that message rings within your heart, then there is nothing more beautiful and precious.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!

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