"THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT":
QUESTIONS OF CLARIFICATION FOR WESLEY'S DOCTRINE OF ASSURANCE
by
Michael E. Lodahl
One of the hallmarks of classic Wesleyan thought has
been its emphasis upon the authority of personal religious experience. Indeed, it has been
suggested more than once in the pages of this journal that the primacy afforded the
category of experience puts Wesleyanism in a position to "say something" to
secular modernity, for which the only acceptable authority must arise out of human
experience.(1)
This contention may well be true. But it is an
underlying assumption of this paper that if the Wesleyan emphasis upon religious
experience-specifically as that experience is interpreted as "the witness of the Holy
Spirit"-is to speak authentically to the questions and concerns of our
"postmodern' age, it must be reconsidered and reformulated in light of certain
pressing issues which confront contemporary theologians. In this paper I have three
specific issues in mind: 1) confrontation with other religious traditions; 2)
Christianity's eschatological hope; and 3) the growing recognition of the hermeneutical
nature of human experience and existence.
Accordingly, the intention of this paper is twofold:
first, to offer an interpretation of Wesley's doctrine of assurance, particularly as it is
expressed in his two discourses called "The Witness of the Spirit" (1746 and
1767); and second, to ask three clarifying questions of the Wesleyan doctrine, the
suggested answers to which might provide a more satisfactory formulation of the doctrine
in our time.
I. An Explication of Wesley's
Doctrine
In Wesley's first sermon entitled "The Witness of
the Spirit," one of his obvious concerns is to defend the Methodists against the
charge of "enthusiasm' which had been raised against them for their claiming to have
experienced an assurance of salvation. Wesley wastes no time indicating who are the
"enthusiasts truly and properly"; they are those who have "mistaken the
voice of their own imagination for this witness of the spirit of God "(2)When such
fanaticism abounds, is it not to be expected that all reasonable people might discount
such talk? But Wesley suggests that the truly reasonable course is to steer between
"enthusiasm" and the denial of the experience of assurance.
Wesley admits that in his immediate text, Romans 8:16,
the preposition to could be translated either "to" or "with" our
spirit. He opts for "with" on the strength of the message of I John. That is,
there is a testimony of our own spirit-"And this is how we may discern that we are
coming to know him: if we keep his teachings"-with which the Spirit's witness
concurs. "How does it appear (to ourselves, not to others) that we do love God and
our neighbor, and that we keep his commandments?" he then asks.(3) His answer, quite
simply, is that it is evident in our immediate consciousness, or better, in our
conscience. Thus, the testimony of our spirit is the testimony of our conscience or
"moral sense," bearing witness that we love God and neighbor and keep God's
commandments.
However, the question of the nature of the Holy Spirit's
witness in conjunction with this witness of the individual's conscience is not so easily
answered. Wesley readily admits,
The manner of how the divine testimony is manifested to
the heart, I do not take upon me to explain.... But the fact we know; namely, that the
Spirit of God does give a believer such a testimony of his adoption, that while it is
present to the soul, he can no more doubt the reality of his sonship, than he can doubt of
the shining of the sun, while he stands in the full blaze of his beam.(4)
It appears, then, that Wesley is speaking of an
immediately intuited knowledge of the Spirit's witness to our adoption. He is quite aware
that it is a highly subjective corner into which he has painted himself, and that in such
a corner there is plenty of room for self-deception. How then, may this be distinguished
from "damning presumption"?
At this point Wesley returns to the more objective
authority of Scripture for certain "marks" which distinguish the person whose
experience of assurance is authentically Spirit-given. First, preceding this witness there
must be both repentance (or conviction of sin) and the new birth from God. Then there are
the "present marks" of meekness, patience, gentleness, and longsuffering, all of
which might be encapsuled in the phrase "humble joy." For the self-deceived,
"The stronger the witness he imagines himself to have, the more overbearing is he to
all around him; the more incapable of receiving any reproof; the more impatient of
contradiction."(5) For Wesley, the witness of the Spirit did not lead to an
unyielding, teeth-gritting fanaticism, but to openness, humility and obedience to God.
Yet Wesley is aware that such past and present
"marks" do not get at the heart of the matter: the experience itself. "But
how may one who has the real witness in himself distinguish it from presumption?"(6)
An inherent, essential difference for Wesley is that it "is immediately and directly
perceived, if our spiritual senses are rightly disposed.... To require a more minute and
philosophical account of the manner whereby we distinguish these, and of the criteria, or
intrinsic marks, whereby we know the voice of God, is to make a demand which can never be
answered."(7)
Thus Wesley hoped to put the experience beyond the
criticism of the curious but skeptical philosopher who might ask, "How do you
know?" The question simply could not be answered on the human level, for human
language and reason, unaided by the Spirit, are inadequate to the task. As Colin Williams
indicates, for Wesley the "natural man" is a dichotomy of soul and body, and the
"spirit," in Wesley's words, "i9 the supernatural gift of God, to be found
in Christians only."(8) Williams comments, "God does not witness to our feelings
or natural capacities, but creates a supernatural power of discernment. It is literally
true that God creates his own 'point of contact.' "~ It is only a Spirit-given
"point of contact" that makes knowledge of God, and relation to God,
possibilities. As Helmut Thielicke has written, "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit . .
. tells us that we are called to participation in the divine self-knowledge and that we
are thus set in the true analogy."(10)
But then, Wesley asks rhetorically, how can one know
that his or her spiritual senses are rightly disposed? "Even by the testimony of your
own spirit; by 'the answer of a good conscience toward God.'"(11) Thus he has gone
full circle back to the testimony of the individual conscience, and it becomes evident
that the witness of the individual's spirit (outward fruits) and the witness of the Holy
Spirit ("immediate fruits") not only complement one another, but co-exist in a
dynamic and interdependent tension.
Twenty years later, Wesley again took up the pen
to write a discourse with the same title and Biblical text, primarily to explain and
defend the doctrine against some of the criticism which had been leveled against it.
Apparently his first sermon had not silenced all critics! Of the objections to the
doctrine which Wesley mentions as being the most considerable he has heard, three seem to
be particularly pertinent to us here: 1) that many religious enthusiasts and fanatics,
while utterly decrying the Bible, have claimed to have the witness, thus deceiving
themselves and placing themselves beyond all true conviction; 2) that though the witness
is intended to prove that the profession we make is genuine, it does not indeed prove
such; and 3) that the direct witness of the Spirit does not safeguard against "the
greatest delusions," and is a questionable source of assurance in that one "is
forced to fly to something else [the indirect witness], to prove what it
asserts."(12)
Wesley's corresponding replies to these three objections
are, respectively, 1) that thousands who have experienced and pleaded for the doctrine of
assurance have the highest esteem for the Bible, and the abuse of a doctrine by quacks and
cranks is no repudiation of its truth; 2) that the purpose of the witness of the Spirit is
indeed not to prove the authenticity of our profession, but "to assure those to whom
it is given, that they are children of God"(13) and "does not suppose that their
preceding thoughts, words, and actions are conformable to the rule of Scripture. It
supposes quite the reverse, namely, that they are sinners all over; sinners both in-heart
and life";(14) and 3) that the direct witness of the Spirit is intended by God
precisely to witness with our spirit, that by the joining together of these two
witnesses" every word shall be established" (Mt. 18:16)
Wesley concludes this second discourse by reiterating
the point which was so obvious in the first: that these two witnesses must exist in a
creative and dynamic tension:
Two inferences may be drawn from the whole. The first:
let none ever presume to rest in any supposed testimony of the Spirit which is separate
from the fruit of it.... The second inference is: let none rest in any supposed fruit of
the Spirit without the witness (of the Spirit).... If we are wise, we shall be continually
crying to God, until his Spirit cry in our heart, "Abba, Father!'. . . Without this
we cannot retain a steady pace, nor avoid perplexing doubts and fears.(16)
II. Questions of Clarification of
the Doctrine
Certainly there is far more that could be said
concerning Wesley's doctrine of assurance, but at least the basics are before us. I would
now like to address three questions to the Wesleyan doctrine, corresponding fairly closely
to the three issues isolated from Wesley's second discourse, the answering of which I
believe would help to clarify its meaning and significance today:
1)What relationship does this "witness of the
Spirit" bear to one's antecedent presuppositions and religious beliefs, i e., the
tradition in which one stands?
This question is loosely related to the first of the
three objections mentioned above in the previous section: "But madmen, French
prophets, and enthusiasts of every kind, have imagined they experienced this
witness." His specific reply to this question near the end of his second discourse is
telling: "Though many fancy they experience what they do not, this i9 no prejudice to
real experience."(16) The obvious counter-question is, How do you define "real
experience"? That madmen, French prophets and enthusiasts had religious experiences,
Wesley could not deny. Similarly, modern Wesleyans cannot deny the authenticity, or at
least the occurrence, of religious experience among Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Mormons and
Moonies. When one has encountered such religiously experienced people outside the
Christian tradition, it appears artificially arbitrary to label the Christian religious
experience "real" and all other experience "unreal" or
"phony" or even "of the devil."
The philosopher of religion David Pailin has asserted
that which is something of a truism for modernity: immediate experience is the most
conclusive kind of verification for any particular thesis or statement. Even if one
accepts this modern truism-and there is good reason to be suspicious of it-the question
still arises whether this holds in the case of theistic verification by religious
experience. "Unfortunately, although there is no need to doubt the genuineness of the
basic experience," he writes, "there is considerable doubt about the
justifiability of the theistic significance given to these experiences." (17) There
are analogous experiences among those of other religious traditions, so that "in the
end the significance attributed to religious experiences seems to reflect rather than to
confirm existing beliefs.'(18) (the classic example of this is that often the visions of
Catholic mystics seem to be of the Virgin Mary.) The data of religious experience may
confirm theistic or specifically Christian claims ("that I am a child of God; that
'Jesus Christ hath loved me and given himself for me;' ") only if the experiencer
lives within the context of theistic or Christian traditions. In other words, that
"Jesus Christ hath loved me and given himself for me" does not come given in the
experience of assurance. Thus, assurance of God's acceptance is applied to the experience
rather than being demanded by the experience. C. H. Whitely says the same when he writes,
"What the subject of religious experience supposes himself to be apprehending cannot
be unaffected by what he already believes there is to be apprehended."(19)
How, then, is one to interpret the Wesleyan experience
and doctrine of the Spirit's witness in light of the plurality of religious experience?
Three options quickly suggest themselves: a) to follow Wesley, more or less, in affirming
that the evangelical experience is "real." while all else is at best.
self-deception and at worst inspired by Satan; b) to relativize all religious experience
as a human phenomenon explainable entirely in psychological (e.g.,Freud), sociological
/Durkheim) or cultural (Feuerbach, Marx) terms; or c)to regard all religious experience as
human intimations of awareness of an Other (e.g., Schleiermacher, Otto). It is at the
point of this third option that Wesley's doctrine of prevenient grace, which pictures
God's Spirit drawing to the Father all persons by whatever possible means, might be most
useful. I believe, however, that the most honest and fruitful approach to the question
will involve a fusion of options b) and c), so that all religious experience is
relativized as a wholly human function, which at the same time (and in all its humanness)
may become a means of divine grace. This "incarnational" approach to religious
experience should become clearer as we proceed.
2) In light of the first question concerning the
relationship between the Spirit's witness and antecedent religious beliefs and
presuppositions, is the doctrine of assurance sufficiently anchored in the eschatological
soil of Romans 8 (the best scriptural support for it, and Wesley's primary text in this
connection) in particular. and of the New Testament as a whole?
It should be remembered that, to the second objection to
his doctrine. Wesley replied that the Spirit witnesses that we are God's children, and not
that all our "thoughts, words and actions are conformable to the rule of
Scripture." The intention behind this question is to try to bring Wesley's doctrine
more in line with "the rule of Scripture," not simply in terms of our thoughts
about doctrine (theoria), but in our words and actions (praxis) too. Particularly in the
work of Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jurgen Moltmann. Christian theology has begun to recover
its apocalyptic roots. Thus, in Carl Braaten's estimation, modern theology with Barth
recovered its Christological norm, but until recently sidestepped its eschatological form,
"its definite connection with the question of man's hope for the future."(20)
This recovery ought to have a profound effect on a modern experience and understanding of
assurance, for indeed Romans 8 is brimming with the eschatological hope of God's children
being revealed, an event for which "all of creation waits expectantly and longs
earnestly" (8:19). The whole creation moans with the pain of labor, awaiting the day
of liberation when it "will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption into
the glorious freedom of God's children" (8:21, 22). Thus the witness of the Spirit
points to a new age in which all of creation will share in God's liberty.
As the theologians of hope have reminded us, the
Christian kerygma proclaims that, in the resurrection of Jesus, this new age has already
dawned. It is the same Spirit who raised up Jesus from death who dwells in and among us,
and who testifies to our eschatological sonship and daughterhood through the resurrected
Son. As Pannenberg writes, " In early Christianity the Spirit had eschatological
significance. The word designated nothing else than the presence of the resurrection life
in the Christians."(21) Thus we see that Braaten's criticism of modern theology is
appropriate also for the Wesleyan doctrine of assurance; for Wesley, the norm of religious
experience was indeed Christological-which is arguably one of Wesleyanism's strengths-but
the form was, at best, only incidentally eschatological.
A possible bridge of understanding in Wesley, however,
is the distinction he makes between the "assurance of faith" (the doctrine of
assurance as usually understood) and the "assurance of hope." The assurance of
which Wesley normally speaks, the assurance of faith, "is an assurance of present
salvation only; therefore not necessarily perpetual, neither irreversible."(22) Here
of course Wesley freed the idea of assurance from the weighty chains of predestinarian
theologies. But Wesley spoke also of "the assurance of hope." or an assurance of
personal perseverance to the end. "Wesley," writes Williams, "believed that
to some God does give the full assurance that they will endure to the end, a conviction
'given immediately by the power of the Holy &host.' Yet it is not common, and it is
not a necessary gift."(23) If this "assurance of hope" can be considered a
corollary of the witness of the Spirit, it is perhaps at this point that Wesley can be
said to have contributed to an eschatological religious experience which expresses itself
in a theology of hope.
Of course, Wesley's hope was rather narrowly defined in
terms of individual salvation, whereas modern theologians have better captured the
Biblical hope of corporate or communal salvation. The hope of Romans 8 is one shared by
"all creation" with those "who have the first fruits of the Spirit"
(8:23) The fact that, in the resurrected Christ, this hope is proleptically fulfilled in
this age also means that those who share his Spirit are called to be, in Moltmann's words,
"construction workers and not only interpreters of the future whose power . . . in
fulfillment is God. This means that Christian hope is a creative and militant hope in
history."(24)
This revolutionary thrust of the Spirit in history is
more evident, perhaps, in the more "enthusiastic' sects on the fringe, such as
Joachim of Fiore and later Joachimism, than in Wesley and the Methodists. Nonetheless, as
his own life indicates, it would be a great injustice to Wesley to suggest that he shared
none of this visionary spirit. More significant than this, though was the revolutionary
dynamic which, in his doctrine of Christian perfection, he injected into the stream of
Christian thought: love expelling all sin in this life. In many ways his identification of
Christian perfection with the infilling work of the Holy Spirit was analogous to Joachim's
"age of the Spirit" As Theodore Runyan has indicated,
The theological rationale behind (early Methodism's)
transformationist impulses was the Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification or "Christian
perfection." This doctrine is distinctive from notions of sanctification in other
Christian traditions in that it expects the finite equivalent of eschatological
fulfillment (i.e., entire sanctification) as something which can happen in history rather
than beyond it. This gives birth to a fundamental hope for the reformability of history in
the power of the Spirit.(25)
Even if Wesley himself did not perceive fully the
eschatological dynamic of the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, we as his
twentieth century students certainly should. Thus, again borrowing from Braaten, it is not
sufficient to continue emphasis on the Christological norm of religious experience for
Wesley; we must also live within its eschatological form.
3) Does the Wesleyan doctrine of assurance sufficiently
take into account the vital importance of the Christian community, the body of Christ, as
a mediating presence and context for the believer and his or her religious experience?
The relationship this question bears to the previous one
is obvious. For as long as the doctrine and experience of assurance pertain only to the
individual and his or her present acceptance by God, there is no pressing need for the
community. But when the corporate nature of humanity and consequently of the church is
understood in all of its Biblical and sociological importance, and when the Spirit is
experienced as the guarantor of a glorious eschatological freedom for all creation, it
becomes quickly evident that the individualistic approach to the Spirit's witness is
wholly inadequate. We do not become Christians or experience God's acceptance in isolation
any more than we become persons in isolation or sinners in isolation. The self, whether
viewed as person, sinner, or Christian, is forged and formed through relationships.
Insofar, then, as the witness of the Spirit continues to
be understood as a religious experience of the solitary person, it seems appropriate to
ask: What role does the faithful community play in functioning as a vehicle of divine
forgiveness and acceptance, and of imparting consciousness or assurance thereof? We should
remember that Wesley's own experience of assurance occurred not in solitude but in the
company of fellow believers. It is doubtful whether he would have gained assurance had he
followed his inclinations to stay home that evening! H. Richard Niebuhr voiced a similar
sentiment when he wrote in his classic work, Christ and Culture:
The Christ who speaks to me without authorities and
witnesses is not an actual Christ; he is no Jesus Christ of history. He may be nothing
more than the projection of my wish or my compulsion; as, on the other hand, the Christ
about whom I hear only through witnesses and never meet in my personal history is never
Christ for me. We must make our individual decisions in our existential situation; but we
do not make them individualistically in confrontation by a solitary Christ as solitary
selves.(26)
The Christ "in my personal history," the
"Christ for me," is undoubtedly the Christ of Wesley's doctrine of assurance:
"I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given
me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and
death." The issue where doubt arises is whether Wesley was sufficiently aware of
"the Jesus Christ of history" who speaks through authorities and witnesses-or,
stated differently, of the mediated nature of this experience of assurance. My assumption
i9 that religious experience involves the mediation of the religious dimension through the
other dimensions of human experience. The physical, moral, social, emotional and religious
dimensions of the person all interpenetrate and are mediated through one another, and in
fact can be considered separate "dimensions" only on paper. This process of
mediation certainly is no different in the case of religious experience.
Thus, as Jerry Gill writes, "Disclosures of what
may be called 'the divine dimension' do not occur in an experiential vacuum, but rather
arise out of perceptual, conceptual, moral, and personal disclosures, which in turn arise
out of empirical settings."(27) Ian Ramsey has rightly suggested that the most
religiously significant of such finite and empirical experiences are those which involve
interpersonal relationships. In this he echoes Martin Buber's poetic but powerful I and
Thou, as well as Scripture, particularly as it is interpreted by liberation exegetes such
as Jose Miranda. This personal or relational dimension comes especially to the fore when
Gill emphasizes that, in every disclosure situation on no matter what level of experience,
there must exist the element of personal involvement and commitment, of risk and
ambiguity. In this vale of ambiguity-"we see in a glass, darkly," Paul wrote-one
speaks not of experience of God, strictly speaking, but of a knowledge of God related to
experience, and mediated through experience. In this connection Hans Kung has written,
Statements on God will be verified and tested against
the background of our experience of life: not in conclusive deduction from a supposedly
obvious experience that renders unnecessary a decision on man's part, but in a clarifying
illumination of the always problematical experience that invites man to a positive
decision.(28)
This understanding of religious experience and knowledge
as mediated through the "mundane" dimensions of experience-where the task of
human interpretation is continually necessary-leads to a humble hesitance to define
doctrine too neatly. Because of God's hiddenness in the realms of ordinary human history
and experience, religious experience is tacit, not readily articulated. Religious
knowledge," writes Gill, "is primarily tacit because the deepest religious
response is always a matter of action as distinguished from concepts. (29) It is better
embodied than encoded; or, as John's gospel puts it, truth ~s something which we do
(3:21). Here we move very near Wesley's insistence on the dynamic interplay of the inner
or direct witness and the outward fruit or indirect witness of the Spirit in our lives.
If this view of religious experience is accepted, then
Wesley's idea of the immediacy of the Spirit's witness must be clarified and qualified. He
often stated that the Spirit bore direct, immediate witness with our spirit that we are
God's children. At the same time, when the doctrine of assurance is placed within the
context of Wesley's emphases upon Scripture, the church and its traditions, the sacraments
and human reason, it is possible to understand him quite differently. Indeed, for Wesley
the Spirit' s witness came in and through these means of grace, never apart from them.
Hence his disdain for Moravian quietism, which taught that religious seekers ought to do
absolutely nothing but wait for Christ's unmediated word of assurance, and hence his own
opposing teaching that the seeker ought to attend to every means of grace available to her
or him. Wesley probably never did shake completely the Moravian stress on the immediacy of
the Spirit's witness, but his denial of Moravian quietism and his own emphasis on the
means of grace indicate at least a leaning in the direction suggested by this clarifying
question.
III. Concluding Remarks
It has been my aim to re-examine the Wesleyan doctrine
of assurance, or the witness of the Spirit, in the light of certain crucial issues with
which contemporary theology is faced. The questions which have been directed at the
doctrine, and the answers suggested, might be summarized in these three programmatic
theses: that the doctrine of the Spirit's witness
1) must acknowledge the reality of profoundly religious
experience among non-Christians, and realize that human interpretations of such
experiences are not derived from, but applied to and formative of, such phenomena through
the conceptual tools and labels from one's religious tradition;
2) must be cognizant of the eschatological form in which
the Spirit works and witnesses according to Christian proclamation, and show how this
eschatological hope ought to move us to visionary, revolutionary words and deeds; and
3) must take into account the absolute necessity of the
Church, Christ's body, as a means of mediating assurance of divine forgiveness and
acceptance, because of the mediated and interpreted nature of aU human experience,
including, of course, religious experience.
NOTES
1 See, for example, Paul
Bassett, "Conservative Wesleyan Theology and the Challenge of Humanism,"
Wesleyan Theological Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 1973), esp. p. 76; and Rob Staples,
"The Present Frontiers of Wesleyan Theology," Wesleyan Theological Journal Vol.
12, o. 1 (Spring 1977)
2Wesley, Sermon X, "The
Witness of the Spirit," Discourse I, The Works of John Wesley, Vol. V (Kansas City:
Nazarene Publishing House reproduction of the Wesleyan Conference Office edition, 1872),
p. 111.
3Ibid., p. 114.
4Ibid., p. 117
5Ibid., p. 119.
6Ibid., p. 121.
7I bid .
8Quoted by Colin Williams, John
Wesley's Theology Today (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), p. 49.
9Ibid., footnote 8.
10Helmut Thielicke, The Hidden
Question of God (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman9 Pub. Co., 1977), p. 129.
11Wesley, op. cit., p. 122.
12Wesley, Sermon XI, "The
Witness of the Spirit," Discourse II, Works, Vol. V, p. 131. The three objections are
the first, second and fifth in Wesley's li9t, pp. 129-131.
13JIbid., p. 130.
14Ibid.
15Ibid., pp. 133, 134-
16Ibid., p. 133.
17David Pailin, "Theistic
Verification," in The Living God, ed. Dow Kirkpatrick (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
1971), p. 56.
18Ibid.
19C. H. Whiteley, "The
Cognitive Factor in Religious Experience," in Religious Experience and the Problem of
Religious Knowledge, ed. Ronald Santoni (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), p.
262.
20Carl Braaten, The Future of
God (New York: Harper & Row,1969), p.60.
21Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus-God
and Man (Philadelphia: The Westnunster Press, 1968), p. 67.
22Quoted by Williams, op. cit.,
p. 123.
23Ibid., p. 124-
24Jurgen Moltmann, Religion,
Revolution and the Future (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969, p. 217.
25Theodore Runyan,
"Sanctification and Liberation: A Re-examination in the Light of the Methodist
Tradition," manuscript of paper presented at 1977 Oxford Conference, on Methodist
Theological Studies, p. 2.
26Richard Niebuhr, Christ and
Culture (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1951), pp. 245-246.
27Jerry Gill, The Possibility of
Religious Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1971), p. 182.
28Hans Kung, Does God Exist?
(Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1980). 550.
29Gill, op. cit., p. 189.
Edited by Jason Gingerich, George Lyons
and Michael Mattei for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University
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