A Historic moment for the Church of the Nazarene

Eugenio Duarte, regional director for Africa and a native of the island of Brava in the Cape Verde Islands, became the first citizen from outside the USA/Canada Region to be elected general superintendent on Tuesday. He is the first General Superintendent who is not from North America.

His acceptance speech is in the clip below:



This is a significant moment in the life of our church. Praise be to God.

My presuppositions are showing

And I think it is a good thing.

I read this article in Christianity Today and was simultaneously saddened, sickened, and surprised. I have long cast a wary eye toward any religion or teaching that claims 'God wants you to be rich" because I just don't see evidence of that in scripture. I know that the proponents of this movement have constructed a series of "Proof Texts" to support their position, but I just can't bring myself to believe that all of the suffering references in scripture are overridden by a prosperity gospel. Not everyone is going to be healthy and wealthy, and this movement leaves those people spiritually devastated because the implied assumption is that there is something spiritually wrong with them. Otherwise, God would show them favor. And I imagine deathbed counseling for someone in this situation is extremely difficult.

I'm still early in my theological education, but I have been around the block a couple of times. I cast a wary eye at any theology that uses a couple verses of scripture to make a far-reaching claim. It was for that reason that the Jabez Prayer movement made me a little nervous. It seems to take an isolated prayer and make it universal in its application, which is very dangerous.

I post this merely to make you aware of some trends in the rapidly-growing Christian church. Pray hard for sound biblical teaching, or we will devastate Africa again, as we did during the colonial era.