Holy Mentors

Photo by William Bout on Unsplash

Earlier this month I attended my 20th college reunion at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. Despite the fact that my parents and most of my family now live in Idaho, I hadn’t made it to any of my previous reunions at the university. So I wanted to make an effort this time despite the distance from Washington, DC.

Twenty years goes by in the blink of an eye, but it’s still a long time. And the reunion brought out the nostalgic in me as I walked around campus – with many new buildings and additions – remembering a time when I was younger, more energetic, and naïve. 

But it was time spent with my former university chaplain that really took me back - even though we’ve stayed in touch and I’ve seen him in the convening years. Before attending the university chapel where a friend and colleague was preaching, we went to a coffee shop in downtown Nampa. And it was there that my chaplain – a wise Nazarene pastor – reminded me that at one point I denied the physical resurrection of Jesus. Like other cringe-worthy episodes one falls into in the course of life, I was completely embarrassed! In fact, I couldn’t remember denying this core doctrine of the faith even though my chaplain outlined the arguments we used to have in the cafeteria. I don’t doubt him. The arguments sounded familiar. 

When I was in undergrad, I was a well-known religion major on campus and something of a contrarian. I still have that contrarian streak in me, but thankfully I’m most often known for being a contrarian for the historic faith. At this point, however, I had embraced a whole host of Liberal Protestant thinkers and the materialist approach that comes along with them. Miracles were questionable. The Virgin Birth was a nice concept. The resurrection, obviously, was an inspiring idea. Demons and angels were myths. And the Bible was a collection of stories outlining people’s experience of the divine. I loved reading Tillich and books from the Jesus Seminar. I even attended conferences by Marcus Borg, who was a dear man and became a friend. I am still convinced that Borg had a relationship with Christ that is hard to understand given his theological claims. 

Looking back, this was my attempt to rebel. My brother and I never rebelled as kids. It’s just not in our nature to rebel in any traditional sense. We had a wonderful, wholesome Nazarene upbringing. But I was rebelling by dabbling in theological revisionism and saying shocking things to my friends and the chaplain.

He told that at one point he finally had to look me square in the face, making sure to get my attention, to tell me that the people who wrote the New Testament, who travelled from their homes and families, many of them dying as martyrs, gave their lives because they believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus. I had to deal with this fact. These people turned the world upside down because they wholeheartedly believed – and some claimed to have seen – the resurrected Jesus after Easter morning. They did not preach a gospel about a spirit or an idea, but a person. And a tangible one.

It’s odd that I never fully embraced a Liberal Protestant perspective. When one is raised as an evangelical, it’s hard to expunge that from the system. I also read Wesley. And he was a mainstay throughout these years. It was when I went to Divinity School at Duke University, however, that my dabbling in theological revisionism hit a brick wall. 

At Duke, my professors had no time for Borg or Tillich. They had no patience for revisionism. I was hit dead on with what I would later describe as a fire hose of orthodoxy. In the pulpit of Duke Chapel there was no room for a spiritualized resurrection. In theology class, one of the PhD students who served as a teaching assistant wrote on my paper on why hell was not eternal that “the ghosts of nineteenth-century liberalism haunt this paper.” I once asked my history professor why we didn’t spend more time reading the revisionists that I had grown so fond of. He looked at me and simply said, “Ryan, we only have three years to make Christians out of you people.” 

This process was not fun. It was not enjoyable. I almost left Duke that first semester. The revisionism was being beaten out of me, figuratively speaking. For many years after, I actually resented my undergraduate professors for allowing me to slide so far, such that this refining fire was necessary. 

I got over any resentment for my professors long ago. I’m thankful for the Christian education that I received because it instilled in me a biblical faith that I would only later come to embrace. I was given a firm foundation at NNU. But speaking to my university chaplain this month opened my eyes to something else about this journey. He was adamant that I feel no embarrassment about my past revisionism, reminding me that I was on an honest journey. 

As I look back now I can see that I was on this journey – despite my contrarian nature – with wise and patient Christian mentors; faithful followers of Jesus who walked with me, listened to me, and I know, prayed for me. They’re still faithful. And most of them are still in Nampa. This isn’t a story of someone being corrupted by “liberal religion faculty” but a story of discovery and trust. It’s also the story of the people God puts in our lives. 

I don’t think that my story is simply that of an inquisitive undergraduate student, but one about the ways that God places mentors in our lives to help us along the Christian journey. It’s a story about patience. It’s also a story about the “way of salvation.” As Wesleyans, we believe that God’s grace is at work and that he is leading us on to perfection, or wholeness. 

My chaplain reminded me that as Wesleyans we believe in a God who transforms. Thankfully, God has been at work in me over the course of these twenty years and I pray that he is not finished yet. And, of course, this grace-driven work includes both a process of maturation and instantaneous moments of God’s power. It’s an interesting twist in my case, however, that my Methodist professors demanded a near instantaneous transformation while my Nazarene professors led me on a progressive journey. We usually view these groups embracing the opposite. The Wesleyan vision is both. 

And I also think that – especially for those of us who are engaged in the intellectual work of the church – our theology, our approach to scripture, our engagement with the tradition, also needs this maturation, this process of sanctification. I want to be careful not to fall into Gnosticism. We are not saved by our thinking, but our ability to embrace the truth of God’s revelation is ultimately a gift of faith, and our ability to rest in it is made possible by God’s grace. Revisionism is often a sign of a lack of trust. But as we walk with the resurrected One, we come to know him as he is, and as the Prayer Book pleads, God cleanses the “thoughts of our hearts.” Coming to embrace the faith once delivered is a gift, but it’s also a gift that can take time to receive and the maturity to know what you have. 

I’m not sure what ultimately tipped me toward orthodoxy; I think it was a combination of walking with Jesus and having to face the challenge that my chaplain gave me about Christ’s first followers. But the foundation was there all along. My parents and grandparents, the saints of the church, and faithful pastors first planted it. And in college, I was given wise and patient mentors who lived faithfully and trusted in God’s ability to fend off the challenges of a pugnacious twenty-year-old. I’m the better for having taken the journey. I know that my redeemer lives. 

And I hope that the maturation process that my chaplain pointed out will continue in me, in my daily walk with Christ, in my interactions with others, and in my thinking. I pray that I can rest more and more in God’s revelation of himself, trusting in him. And perhaps in the process I can be a patient mentor to the next round of contrarian twenty-year-olds. I have mentors who have shown me just how to do it. 

My 20th reunion gave me many reasons to be thankful.       

Dr. Ryan N. Danker is the President of the Charles Wesley Society.