To the LGBTQ Children of the Christian Reformed Church

The Christian Reformed Church Synod voted last week to expel more than two dozen LGBTQ-affirming churches and depose all LGBTQ-affirming ministers, elders, and deacons across its congregations. Tens of thousands of Sunday school-aged children sit in Christian Reformed pews, which means that thousands of LGBTQ teens and young adults are likely to come out across the denomination over the next several years.

—

To the LGBTQ Children of the Christian Reformed Church:

I know how it feels to be stuck in the middle.

Someday, I imagine you’ll feel the same way—caught between a church you love, a home, a family that baptized you and raised you and a place where you belong—and the tug of your heart to love another person, to ask hard questions, to be yourself, to discover God’s will for your life, and search for who God truly is.

Coming out is scary. It’s even scarier when you think your entire world might reject you. Some people won’t understand, and that’s okay. Family members might compare you to biblical villains. Church members who you have known for years might say hurtful things. Childhood friends might block you on social media. Be brave. 

You’re a hero simply for the courage to come out to yourself. 

Find the safe people. You can start with me. Be gentle with yourself. You might face depression and anxiety and wonder if the world is really better with you in it. Please know that it is—even, especially, in the dark seasons when you don’t understand why.

I’m sorry that your church leaders won’t even blink at their harsh rhetoric or the weight of the celibacy demand they want to impose on your life. It won’t seem fair, and it won’t be fair, either. The truth is that no straight pastor or youth group leader or elder understands what it’s like to come out as gay in the Christian Reformed Church—and most of them aren’t really trying, either.

It will often seem like some pastors care more about the church order than your heart. Maybe they do. Ultimately, they’re just afraid. Acknowledging the gray has a tendency to topple the black-and-white.

Keep your chin up when “hate-the-sin and love-the-sinner” feel like the same thing. Don’t be discouraged when your pastor goes to Synod to pass another apology to LGBTQ people and nothing changes when they get back home. And hang in there when you’re searching for compassion and just keep getting Romans 1 back instead.

After the votes at Synod last week, my deepest grief was for you—the thousands of LGBTQ children who will now grow up in a denomination with no voices who will wonder with them about what Scripture says and instead wield only the heavy-handed threat of excommunication over your desire to love another person.

But now, a week later, my deep hope is that maybe it’s all spectacularly backfired. Over the last seven days, I’ve watched the new creation of a hodgepodge group of unlikely exiles—wise, kind, thoughtful people who want to follow Jesus Christ, who share a robust, orthodox Reformed faith and who also believe Scripture embraces same-sex marriage.

I know it might be hard to see from where you are right now, but there are many, many Christians in the world who love Scripture with all their hearts and still hold the capacity to wonder what it says. There are many Christians who think unity does not require uniformity. And there are many Christians who are humble enough to read Jesus’ repeated rebukes of religious leaders and wonder, is Jesus talking about us?

There are many Christians out there who will say “welcome” even when you disagree with them. They don’t need years of study to determine whether they will allow you to profess your faith. They don’t react to heartfelt expressions of protest with the swift hammer of discipline. They believe Jesus Christ is the real “salvation issue.” Indeed, it’s okay to wonder about how to live your life—even if it takes longer than the arbitrary three-year limit that your church leaders will give you.

There are Christians who are ready to geek out over all your favorite parts of the Heidelberg Catechism. They’ll sing all the songs that your heart has grown to love—in fact, they probably wrote your hymnal. And your heart will be so encouraged, like mine, when you see them brilliantly playing their own small part in the grand drama of Christ’s redemptive work.

I know that you love your church. We loved it too. Many of us fought for you at synods and council meetings and Bible studies. We stayed until they kicked us out. I know I had, probably naively, hoped I’d be there when the Christian Reformed Church reversed its position on same-sex marriage. I deeply hope that moment will come for you instead. But if it doesn’t, please know this:

The ocean of God’s love does not stop at the denomination’s edge.

Go search for a God who is bigger than an organization that demands control of your conscience. Do not be afraid. Hold Scripture in one hand and creation in the other and start trying to figure out how they fit together. Find the square inch (or two) out there for which God created you and bring God’s shalom into it.

In the end, God’s Kingdom is not Christian Reformed.

And when times get hard, remember, we may no longer be in your denomination, but we will always, always be in your corner.

Yours,
Ryan Struyk