Past and Prospect: The Promise of Nazarene History (Point Loma Press)

Today the Church of the Nazarene faces issues that arise directly out of its past. For that reason, Past and Prospect argues that Nazarenes will be better equipped to face their future as a church armed by an understanding of their own history.

Church historian Stan Ingersol examines issues that have characterized the Nazarene way of life during that denomination's first century, showing how the trajectory shaped by the church's founders has been altered through time by the shifting tides of Fundamentalism, mainstream Evangelicalism, global expansion, and the culture of affluence. He contends that current disagreements over polity, holiness, and worship are largely echoes and projections of tensions that have been present in the denomination since its very beginning. As the reader will discover, the common denominator running through these chapters is the prospect of rediscovering a relevant and useful past.



Stan Ingersol has been the Church of the Nazarene's denominational archivist since 1985. The author of Nazarene Roots (2009) and numerous magazine and journal articles, he is also co-author of Here We Stand: Wherae Nazarenes Fit in the Religious Marketplace (1998) and Our Watchword and Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene (2009). He served as a Nazarene representative to the World Methodist Council from 2001 to 2011 and lives in Overland Park, KS.