Holiness, and Entire Sanctification

The Church of the Nazarene is a Protestant denomination in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, formed in the United States in the early twentieth century from the union of several regional holiness groups; its organising assemblies of 1907-1908, culminating at Pilot Point, Texas, in 1908, are taken as its founding. It grew out of the Holiness movement within nineteenth-century Methodism, whose adherents felt that the mainline Methodist churches had cooled toward John Wesley's emphasis on Christian perfection. The denomination's distinctive doctrine is entire sanctification, understood as a definite work of grace, subsequent to conversion, in which the Holy Spirit cleanses the believer's heart and empowers a holy life, a "second blessing" that the tradition holds out as available to every Christian.

In theology it is Arminian rather than Calvinist, stressing free grace and the possibility of falling away, and Wesleyan in its confidence that the believer may grow toward a love of God and neighbour that is complete in intention. It practises believer's baptism and infant baptism alike, ordains women, and has historically expected of its members abstinence from alcohol, in keeping with its holiness ethic.