Just over ten years ago I was ordained as a Minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church. In so many ways, including denominationally, that seems like a lifetime ago and another world.
In an article last month here on the Reformed Journal, What Now? After Synod, several of us in the CRC offered our responses to the decisions the Synod has made over the past few years. I briefly shared that I would be seeking release from my ordination. I am grateful to my church and Classis who have handled my request with grace and care. I will shortly cease to be a minister.
Here is a longer account of why I chose to take this step. I share it while being deeply aware that this was a relatively easy decision for me. My vocation and livelihood aren’t in jeopardy. Also, the CRC is only my adopted church home. The sadness I feel is nothing like the grief of many lifelong CRC folks, and those whose roots go down through many generations. Add to this that the CRC’s decisions around same-gender relationships don’t impact me personally. In so many ways this is far weightier, more complex, and more painful for others than it is for me.
While there is much that could be said, I’ll focus on one of the broader issues. To put it very bluntly, the CRC has abused its confessions and confessional processes. This isn’t simply about how to interpret “unchastity” in Heidelberg Catechism Q&As 108 & 109. It’s about the CRC’s overall approach to the confessions and confessional adherence.
Based on what I have seen over the past few years it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the confessions and confessional processes have simply been co-opted as the most efficient tool in the CRC’s toolbox to accomplish a desired outcome. They have been instrumentalized and weaponized as the most expedient way to drive out those who take an affirming stance on same-gender marriage, or who do not think that this should be a reason for separation.
I haven’t seen any evidence of a desire to maintain the confessions more broadly, only an insistence on confessional adherence as a means to this particular end. If there were a genuine concern about upholding the clear teaching of the confessions as a whole, then some officebearers at Synod — who supported using confessional processes to drive out those who disagreed with them on matters of sexuality — ought to have been placed under discipline. Their remarks blatantly contravened the unequivocal teaching of the confessions on baptism.
I have seen some folks attempt to excuse this kind of thing. I have seen others celebrating it, as if a “pick-n-mix” approach to confessional enforcement is the right way forward. So, for example, I have come across many versions of: “Homosexual sex is a salvation issue, but what someone thinks about election (or baptism, or. . .insert any number of other confessional teachings here) isn’t. So it isn’t as important to enforce that.”
There’s a great deal that could be said about this. I will simply note that it reflects an un-Reformed view of the nature and content of the confessions, and also that it is incorrect and irrelevant because Synod voted for full confessional conformity. As part of that, Synod also shifted the approach the CRC has taken for over 50 years when it comes to dealing with those who have confessional difficulties.
On the basis of what Synod has decided, every (potential) CRC officebearer — or (potential) holder of a position that requires adherence to the Covenant for Officebearers — who is equivocal about infant baptism and “rebaptism,” who isn’t in one hundred percent agreement with the Canons of Dort on election and reprobation, who is merely “memorialist” about the Lord’s Supper. . .etc. etc. etc. . .should be in just as much confessional jeopardy as those who have concerns about the CRC’s stance on sexuality. This isn’t the approach I would have chosen, but this is what Synod voted for, even as many warned of the wider ramifications.
Until I see as much zeal for enforcing clear confessional teachings as I see for driving out those who have a different interpretation on matters of sexuality, I will assume that the confessions and confessional processes were simply a cover for some people’s monomaniacal desire to enforce conformity on this one issue.
Perhaps, though, the folks who say that this really is all about upholding the confessions are going to prove me wrong. If so, a number of those whose votes they relied on might regret getting what they wished for. By rights the confessional enforcement pit bulls ought to be coming after quite a few of their own next.
They probably won’t though. It looks like there will be a generous approach to all sorts of matters except one. . .and then, perhaps, whatever this particular voting block intends to go after next. That’s another of the many problems with all of this. When you turn the confessions and confessional processes into a tool for enforcing a single issue, you have to wonder what the next issue will be, and the next and the next. . .
You just never know where the sledgehammer will fall when a denomination’s modus operandi becomes selectively enforced confessional thuggery.
My heart aches for those in the CRC who are facing massive consequences as they try to navigate denominational enforcement, their consciences, callings, and livelihoods, not to mention their place in a denomination they love and have called home. My prayer for all of you is that you are able to find peace in Christ, and a place where you can flourish as you continue to worship and serve him.
The ways in which the confessions and confessional processes have been (mis)handled should be a matter of grave concern to everyone in the CRC, no matter what their stance on the questions that have divided the denomination.
Thank you, Suzanne! Clearly and powerfully stated.
Wonderfully stated and cogent—thanks, Suzanne!
This is exactly the sort of serious and thoughtful engagement with historic confessions that once was a mark of the CRC — in its pulpits, its colleges and seminary, in “roast preacher” family discussions over Sunday dinner. But today there is no place for it. We have lost far more than room for dialogue — we’ve lost sight of how confessions shape a community and vice versa
Many thanks to my valued former colleague for this heartfelt and eloquent eulogy to a denomination.
A eulogy indeed.
I am grateful for your leadership, friendship, and clarity. You will continue to preach the gospel and share the love of Christ in so many spaces. It is a loss for the CRC to have your voice removed. Bless you for your courage and clarity in naming the reasons for your convictions. Grace to you and Peace from God!
Suzanne, perhaps it is because you were not very active/involved in CRC ministry on the ground, but yes, there certainly is a broader revival of interest and attention to the confessions growing across the denomination. There is my “Three Forms Podcast” (available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etc.) which has been growing in popularity over the last 10 months, I know of two other CRC Pastors that have read through the Confessions as podcasts, another that is doing a commentary series on YouTube, I know of several churches where the Councils have begun reading through the Confessions for their opening devotions, multiple CRC churches have added a portion of a Confession to their Sunday service, churches that are relaunching Catechism teaching for their youth as well as adult Sunday School, and beyond the CRC, there are a few different books recently released/re-released on the need for Confessions. It certainly appears that the Lord is doing something here, and restoring the CRC’s confessional heritage.
As for the comments about Synod and Baptism, I only heard a couple of delegates mention that they came from a “believer baptism” position in the past, but I didn’t here any that held to that now as officebearers in the CRC?
“A believer baptism position” is acceptable, is it not? As I came to the Reformed camp from a Baptist heritage, thanks mostly to teaching and witness of Calvin College /Seminary professors and of several churches in West Michigan, I still had reservations about the issue of baptism. I understood and appreciated the concept of covenant theology, and yet my understanding since childhood was through the examples of the New Testament. My minister “on the ground” counseled me that in accepting infant baptism as a sign and seal of the covenant of God’s promise, I was not denying believers’ baptism, but expanding my knowledge of what the sacrament was, and expanding my understanding of God’s grace. I didn’t need to give up or reject the one for the other, I could hold both “positions” at the same time as true and valid and do so honestly. And I have for nearly 50 years as a CRC member, including 4 terms as elder with 3 pastors who affirmed that stance.
You speak of the renewed interest and use of confessions and the HC as if they had been lost or disregarded —really? What guides were those congregations using previously?
Certainly Jeff, we welcome and rejoice when ever someone makes Profession of Faith and is baptized as they join the church, so believers baptism is still practiced. The issue would be with an officebearer that refused to recognize infant baptism, that would be in violation of our Confessions and out of bounds.
And yes, I think there are many CRC churches that had discontinued the practices of Catechism preaching, teaching, etc., as there seems to have been a generation that largely found them boring/inapplicable/did not wish to bound by such standards. However, now a new generation is being raised up, that is returning the CRC to her roots in these ways.
Unfortunately we can’t “return to our roots” because we are being pushed out of the CRC against our will. Tears are being shed while others pontificate.
Lloyd, as a delegate to synod this year I can certainly tell you that there were comments made on the floor of synod (from those who align with the decisions synod made) which suggested that confessional conformity around sexuality was imperative, while confessional conformity around baptism wasn’t important or, at minimum, wasn’t anywhere near as important.
While there may be a renewed interest and use of the confessions, we are not yet seeing a broad application of that interest beyond human sexuality (into matter of creation care, pride, baptism, love for neighbours, …) hence Dr. McDonald’s apt critique.
Lloyd you did not write anything that would give a helpful reply to the concerns raised by this author. To say people are reading the confessions says nothing about understanding or agreeing with them, “without reservation.” I am convinced there is no one who can honestly say they agree with everything in the confessions, not if they are honest. I also have never heard a response to the point made in this article that actually responds to the point made.
I fully agree with all of the doctrines in our confessions, without any reservations. So, you consider me a liar???? And yes, reading and teaching from the confessions helps bring us a long way towards agreeing with them!
Lloyd, would it be more accurate to say that you agree fully and without reservation with all the things that you consider doctrinal in the confessions, but not all the other parts of the confessions? The problem with this position is that the church has not clearly defined which are the important doctrinal issues and which are not. How can we ask people to say they agree without reservation without letting them know which parts we expect them to fully agree to?
Lloyd,
I do not want to consider you a liar, I am sure you agree with the confessions as far as what you believe they teach. Allow me to show you where I have some difficulties, maybe I am unfair in assuming others may have some of the same difficulties even though not all of them.
1. Low hanging fruit: Almost no Biblical scholar believes Paul wrote Hebrews.
2. BC Article 34 “Anyone who aspires to reach eternal life will be baptized only once.” I have relatives who have been baptized as adults after being baptized as infants. I will not believe this act of faith excludes them from salvation. We have many hispanic pastors in our community who were raised in countries where people were baptized as infants out of superstition, they now rebaptize them as believing adults, they are not excluded from eternal life.
3. Everything that happens happens according to God’s eternal plan …. that does not include sin however. Everything can only mean everything, to say there is this secret will of God which is often contrary to the revealed will of God is playing the kind of games for which Bildad, Zophar, Eliphaz and Job were reprimanded by God.
4. BC We “prove” the Trinity with the verse, “let us make man in our image.” Us is plural, therefore this proves the Trinity. Even the Qu’ran has the text “let us…” Because us does not always show plurality in eastern culture, it gives authority.
5. Anyone who has studied the culture of Asia Minor during the time of Jesus and the apostles will tell you that being predestined or elect is never an end in itself, Scripture teaches that Abram was elect/chosen/predestined for the purpose of showing the world what following God is like. In the New Testament believers are told they were elect/chosen/predestined “to be like Christ.” Election and predestination should never have a period after the word, as in he was elect, she was predestined. We always ask to what or for what? The confessions limit election and predestination to refer to the salvation of the individual.
6. Being made in the image of God means having true righteousness and holiness, taken from Colossians. Like in #5 the Dead Sea Scrolls and other writings discovered after the confessions were written shed light on what it meant in the ancient world to be an image bearer. Go to the museum in Corinth as see all the images that were placed in front of Asclepius. One of the main ideas is that an image bearer is a representative.
7. Three marks of the true church. Why limit to these three? Scripture has more teaching on the issue of God’s Justice than on any of these three. Am I wrong in saying if there is a church that does not practice and defend God’s justice they are not a true church?
The number seven is a good Biblical number and a good place to stop. The Holy Spirit did not stop directing the Church of Jesus after the 1600’s there is much more to learn. God told Jeremiah that he didn’t even understand people, “you cannot run with horses.” God told Job he did not know it all. To say everything in the confessions is correct and there is no room for new leading from the Holy Spirit, and that everyone in the 98% (that is probably low) of Christians who are not CRC are in error lacks humility first of all, but is incomprehensible.
I have to give a #8 as I am preaching on the fourth commandment this week. The HC tells us what the fourth commandment requires, I do not disagree with any of the things mentioned, but I cannot believe Moses, Jesus, or Paul would have said the fourth commandment teaches what the HC claims it teaches.
Lloyd, a quick Google search tells me you’re a dye-in-wool Abide member: https://youtu.be/CRJjpvXVtMc?si=Oujizy5mP-WK7L6j
What do you think you are doing with this comment? Why the backhanded insult? How is a podcast more “on the ground” than what Dr McDonald does? Your smug satisfaction is harming your witness.
There is a pastor in our classis who does not believe in infant baptism, yet has taken your “confessional” stance in regard to same sex relationships. He’s not under discipline.
I appreciated this fresh (for me) explanation of the inconsistency inherent in Synod’s focus on only one aspect of the confessions in their march toward purity, while minimizing or ignoring other folk’s reservations regarding confessional positions. Thank you, Dr. McDonald.
Excellent analysis, Suzanne. Thanks.
A fine piece of writing shining an honest light on the duplicity of the whole darn thing.
I was born and baptized a Presbyterian many moons ago, but grew up in the RCA – attended Calvin (’66) and WTS (’69) … and ordained (Jan. 1970) in the PCUSA … I’m retired (Ha!), and doing interim work in Pasadena, where my wife (CRC in background) also live.
We’ve followed developments in the CRC and RCA – with sorrow, as the conservatives weaponize bits and pieces of the Confessional materials to punish, threaten, and oust – a terrible “cleansing” that will bring no good at all.
Your comments here are so thoroughly appropriate … I’m sharing this on a FB group that I founded a good many years ago: Happy to be Presbyterian.
All the best … and Hi to Western.
Tom
Thank you for this excellent review.
I sometimes wonder: where is the Holy Spirit in all of this.
Thank you, Suzanne, for your honest and convicting writing. I recall, in a happier moment, working with you to facilitate your path to candidacy and ordination as a minister of the Word in the CRC. You williingly shared your many gifts with your new church community.
And now “we” have said there is no longer space for you and we used the confessions (that I know you deeply love) to force you out. You and so many others. So sad!!
I don’t regret helping you on your journey into the CRC I’m just so sad to see you leave. But I know you will continue to be a blessing to the larger Kingdom community.
“selectively enforced confessional thuggery” – the most accurate description of the synodical manipulation I’ve encountered.
Hopefully, those Council who use the confessions as opening devotions also use scripture? In some circles the confessions seem to supersede God’s Word. I remember an angry man who stated, “I don’t care what the Bible says! This is against the Heidelberg!”
The confession are a summary of what we believe God’s Word teaches, and yes they always point us back to the Word! My Council’s meeting last night began with reading a passage from Deuteronomy 7, Lord’s Day 4, and discussion.
Thank you, Suzanne, for your clear and honest words. I came to the CRC as an adult, kicking and screaming. But I grew to treasure the deep conversations among people who didn’t always agree, but chose to continue to work and worship together. Your descriptions align with everything I’ve heard and experienced in the past few years. I’ve also wondered “Who;’s next?” I’m thinking that any violation of HC Q&A 112 ought to facilitate the clearing out of a few more pews. Heartbreaking.
Thank you for your reminder that there is more to Q & A 108 & 109 than just human sexuality. Just another case of lets be carefull what you wish for and vote for, it might come back to bite you and affect an issue that is more personal. Then we have to deal with the hypocrisy of not wanting to deal with those issues because they affect to many of our families and leaders. Instead of trying to purify the church, let’s remember church should not be a place for saints but a hospital for sinners.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of what is happening – the battle against same-sex-marriage as a symptom of the larger misuse of the confessions as weapons to force conformity. It’s that larger issue we need to be talking about.
Good insights. I find it strange that rather than defining what is meant by adultery, the past two synods have just attached one specific. What about other forms of adultery. What about marriage of divorced persons? How did King David fit in? What about state performed marriages? So many unanswered questions. It was a strange approach to the issue.
Regarding issues that have a history of dividing the church, does anyone remember how divided the church was over Clergywomen? How about divorced pastors getting remarried? There was a big Civil war over owning people as slaves, because after all, slavery is found in the Biblical context. —And who let all of you uncircumcized gentiles into the church anyway?
Oh yeah. That was Jesus, who preached radical, ever increasing and inclusive love for everyone. You may want to try following the way of Jesus, he takes converts. –Even modern day Pharisees who have weaponized church confessions.
Thankfully, the radical, inclusive love of Jesus refuses to be contained in a tidy theological box of human construction. Have visited your church in person and online. You walk the talk.
Along the same lines there is also the clear salvation issue of wealth. Perhaps the new CRC sees only the status confessionis of sexuality, but Mammon is quite powerful in our churches today.
It is interesting that progressive minded people are comfortable with Mammon being regularly challenged and in the CRC they give to the church at quite remarkable rates.
We are, at anytime, most in danger from the devil we do not see, not as much from the perceived “issue of the hour,” for what is in the darkness we cannot see.
I wait to see the giving receipts of congregations examined in this new CRC.
Amen!
Abiders and their supporters who have been most eager to promote or applaud Synod’s recent decisions on confessional status have turned the confessions into idols or into a cynical means to manipulate the church into adopting their own agenda on a particular issue. Either way, shame on them!
If they really believe what they say about the binding nature of our confessions, I want to ask them: which confessions do they mean? Specifically, which Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism and Canons of Dordt? Over a period of about a century the CRC has professed adherence to at least six variants of these confessional documents, having regularly amended them. Which version do they subscribe to? Pre-1910? Pre-1938? Pre-1958? Pre-1985? Pre-2006? Or the current one? Presumably just the one in force that they swore in their ordination as officebearers to “fully agree with the Word of God”. Then all those earlier variants of our confessions could not possibly “fully agree with the Word of God”. Those who held to the earlier versions must have been heretics, right? They should retroactively declare them as such.
Either the Abiders have turned the confessions into an idol or they have turned them into a political tool to enforce their brand of purity onto the entire church. Shame on them!
Suzanne, I appreciate your analysis of how synod has co-opted the confessions and confessional process as an efficient toolbox to accomplish their desired “end.”
Problem: “I have studied this matter carefully and prayerfully and do not believe that the Bible condemns same-gender marriage.”
Solution: “It doesn’t matter what you think. Synod has declared that “unchastity” includes same-gender marriage. Case closed. Like it or get out.
And who knows how many other “ends” in the future.
Thank you Professor, for your candor. I will be joining you….hard to know how soon. I’m 80 years old; my ministerial credentials remain with an African American congregation in South-Central Los Angeles—for 44 years now. (I don’t know if the searchers will find them, probably in the closet in the attic…or maybe they just make up new ones) Over a long ministerial career, I attended more synods than I want to remember…but I’m wondering if it has ever occurred to you:were those synods that gave us these confessions (like Dort) so spiritually inspired that they came out without error…like those big Canons of Dort were untainted by political aspirations of the day, and unaffected by men (they were men only then, weren’t they?) so full of themselves. I don’t have a problem with the Heidelberger, but it seems odd to use a “learning tooL” to hijack a church…Like, it is divinely inspired and subject to interpretation for a culture it could not have envisioned. Nice formula—Sin, Salvation, Service. But it’s a stretch to suggest this is a Biblical formula. My preaching in an African American church began with the exodus: an oppressed people whose cries came to God, who freed them from empire, freed them into covenant, and insisted you stayed in covenant by seeking justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with your God. Just wondering….
Thanks so much for giving voice to a (hypocritical?) contradiction that I’ve felt ever since the synodical decision(s). This was well-written, insightful, and gives us much to chew on. [Something about a plank and speck here too]
Also, I really appreciate you making the space for lament in your piece: I’m a multi-generational, born-in-the-CRC person myself, and I’m still processing the deep grief associated with not recognizing a large portion of my denomination these days. Pieces like this make me feel less alone.
I do not even understand why this is an issue for a Christian. The martyr St. Polycarp, a disciple of John the Apostle and who knew him personally, and also the Bishop of Smyrna stated:
“Similarly, the younger men must be blameless in all things; they should be concerned about purity above all, reining themselves away from all evil. For it is good to be cut off from the sinful desires in the world, because every sinful desire wages war against the Spirit, and neither fornicators nor men who have sex with men (whether as the passive or the active partner) will inherit the kingdom of God, nor will those who do perverse things. Therefore one must keep away from all these things and be obedient to the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ. The young women must maintain a pure and blameless conscience.”
The Didache also states this homosexual behavior as being the Way of Death.
The modern churches seem so separated from the Ancient Church that things so basic as this are being questioned 🙁 People need to read the Church Fathers… not the Heidelberg Catechism… to interpret Holy Scripture. They will not go wrong.