Appointment Of A New
President at ENC:
Symptom of A Major Problem In The Nazarene Church
BY MANNY SILVA
SEE: https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2017/03/29/appointment-of-a-new-president-at-enc-symptom-of-a-major-problem-in-the-nazarene-church/;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Dan Boone, president of Trevecca Nazarene University, was recently
selected as the new president of Eastern Nazarene College, which is also
being discussed as a possible merger with Trevecca. He will step in
sometime after Dr. Corlis McGee leaves her current position later in the
summer. The “leaders” of the denomination are cheering, no doubt. They
have always been complicit, or at the very least willfully ignorant,
with everything that has been destroying the Nazarene denomination
spiritually.I am not surprised at this choice. Dr. Boone and Dr. McGee share some views that make this selection understandable. To many of us who have voiced our concerns about the denomination for years, it further indicates full steam ahead towards a practical marriage between Nazarenes and Roman Catholics. The only major item that will be missing soon is to have pope Francis as the keynote speaker at a future General Assembly. And why not? The prayer stations are already in place, the Roman Catholic practice of Lent and ashes to the forehead is everywhere, and the Roman Catholic retreat is scheduled for a pre-Assembly event this summer.
If you believe in the Bible- truly believe in it, not just parts of it as Dan Boone does- then I could not warn you any more than I do now. You are placing your child in danger by sending them to Eastern Nazarene College, and frankly, there is hardly a Nazarene college now that has a strong biblical foundation anymore.
So here is why Dr. Boone’s appointment bodes very badly, especially for those who have children of college age.
Ecumenicists Promoting Roman Catholicism
Dr. Boone and Dr. McGee are both ecumenicists. Dr. McGee has expressed to me in a past meeting with her and the ENC provost that Roman Catholics are our brothers and sisters in Christ. On the ENC website, you will find Roman Catholic churches on the list of available churches to attend in the community. In the ENC bookstore (last time I visited), you would also find Roman Catholic related books, including a Roman Catholic bible, along with many books by authors that promote an ecumenical belief system.
Dr. Boone, as Trevecca president, has long promoted yearly trips for students to the Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky, a site that was the spiritual home of the Roman Catholic mystic, Thomas Merton. Here at this retreat, students from ENC have the opportunity to “practice the silence”, which is nothing more than Catholic mysticism that has no roots in biblical teaching. The “spiritual discipline” of silence is a doctrine of demons. This retreat is scheduled for this year again: https://www.trevecca.edu/community-life/faith-service/spiritual-formation-retreat
Dr. Boone also has promoted the use of prayer labyrinths, and has had one there for years at Trevecca. After I exposed this more fully, he made excuses about it, and later re-named the labyrinth and called it something else. It is not just Trevecca doing this: https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/labyrinths-prayer-stations-yoga-in-the-nazarene-church/
An Uneasy Accommodation To The LGBT Community
At Eastern Nazarene College, an LGBT support group was allowed to be established at Munro Hall. I sent a letter to Dr. McGee wondering how Bertha Munro would have felt, knowing an LGBT group was meeting in a building named in her honor. I received a reply their from former chaplain, with an excuse that the school does not necessarily sponsor the group, which was a lame excuse because all they had to do was say no to a group whose basic premise goes against Biblical values. And this same chaplain spoke in a chapel service several years ago, all but promoting a relaxation of biblical standards regarding homosexuality.
For Dr. Boone, all those things at ENC fit right in with his track record. He is known for accommodating the LGBT agenda at Trevecca, having allowed an extreme LGBT group to come on campus to have “a dialog.” https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-response-to-dan-boones-report-on-soulforce/
And lest we forget, at the last General Assembly, Dr. Boone was one of those most instrumental in arguing for postponing an attempt to strengthen the Church statement on homosexuality. It will be interesting to see what the arguments for this will be this year. I working on evidence that indicates that the denomination is in for a very difficult time regarding the homosexuality issue, which will lead to further division in the Church.
Hostility Towards Bible Believers
Dr. Boone has an utter disdain for Bible believing Christians, as shown in this article I wrote a few years ago. He has compared Bible Believing Christians to Islamic fundamentalists. He says that our appetites have been whetted “by religious blood in the water.” (https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/dan-boone-goes-after-bible-believers-again/)
Promoting False Teachers
Dr. Boone is certainly no Bible traditionalist. He has very bad theology, he promotes false teachers, and he does not believe in the creation as told in Genesis. He was a prominent member of the group, Nazarenes Exploring Evolution, before it’s website suddenly closed down for no apparent reason. Until it closed down, folks like Dr. Boone were heartily endorsing the idea that God used evolution to create us. He was not alone in that group, and was joined by many well-respected pastors, professors and national leaders. Very frightening indeed.
In an older profile at Nazarene Theological Seminary, which is no longer posted, he said the following:
“…I am deepening in the mystical forms of prayer.”
Dr. Boone promotes one of the leading teachers of contemplative mysticism, false teacher Richard Foster. As an example, Foster makes the amazing claim that non-believers can also practice the Christian spiritual disciplines: “We need not be well advanced in matters of theology to practice the Disciplines. Recent converts–for that matter people who have yet to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ–can and should practice them” (Celebration of Discipline, 1978, p. 2).
Dr. Boone has called Thomas Merton and Ignatius of Loyola spiritual giants.
Merton was not a spiritual giant- he was a monk who said that he was “deeply impregnated with Sufism” because he believed that Eastern mysticism was compatible with and could be incorporated into Christianity. He placed Mary high on a level equal to Jesus, he prayed to many catholic saints. He was influenced by Aldous Huxley, who found enlightenment through hallucinogenic drugs.
Ignatius of Loyola was no wiser, and as the founder of the Jesuits he brutally persecuted Christians and swore complete submission to the pope. As most Roman Catholics do, he venerated Mary. He practiced extreme asceticism, living in a cave for a year and never bathing. He also promoted and taught visualization prayers, breath prayers, and other unbiblical practices (Source: Way of Life). Yet, Dan Boone calls him a spiritual giant.
In a Letter to Pastors he wrote in 2009, Dr. Boone not only erroneously claimed that the Roman Catholic church was the only church for 1500 years after Christ, but he also exposed more error along with his ecumenical get along with everyone philosophy. How is it that we can “be one” with the Roman Catholic Church?
“While Nazarenes are different from Catholics in very significant ways, we believe that we will share eternity with them in the presence of the Christ who prayed that we might be one.”
His philosophy seems to be, anyone who claims the name of Jesus, no matter their belief otherwise, will spend eternity with Christ. This is contrary to Jesus’s teaching, and indicates Dr. Boone’s dangerous and ignorant thinking as he misleads others.
A Symptom Of A Bigger Problem
I am sure Dan Boone is a nice guy. But how long will the denomination continue to tolerate nice guys who teach bad theology, who do not believe in the creation account in Scripture, and who promote Roman Catholic mysticism? Sadly, the appointment of Dan Boone is merely a symptom of a much bigger problem in the Church of the Nazarene. Dan Boone is not going anywhere else because I wrote this article. I have no illusions of that.
It is going to take a huge cataclysmic event of spiritually challenging proportions to generate any kind of major opposition to the apostasy in the church. By then it might be too late. Will people only wake up at the next General Assembly if some earth shattering amendment is made regarding homosexuality, the next frontier in the Church? Will same sex relations be blessed in the church? Is it happening already, and you just don’t know it? Will homosexual “Christians” be a part of the accepted conversation?
Or perhaps, most of the sheep in the pews will they continue on pretending that all is well in a holiness denomination that only mouths the words, but does not live them anymore.
Holiness is becoming heresy right before our eyes.
Additional Documentation:
Dan Boone’s Involvement with Promoting Evolution
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/nazarene-scholars-continue-to-undermine-belief-in-gods-word-with-evolutions-lie/
Dan Boone’s Dislike of Bible Believers
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/dan-boone-goes-after-bible-believers-again/
Dan Boone’s Involvement with SoulForce (LGBT advocates)
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-response-to-dan-boones-report-on-soulforce/
My Conversation with Dan Boone:
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/conversation-with-a-university-president/
A Charitable Discourse?
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/a-charitable-discourse-or-compromise/
Labyrinths and Prayer Stations
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/emergent-church-what-is-it/trevecca-labyrinth/
https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/labyrinths-prayer-stations-yoga-in-the-nazarene-church/
