Life On the Edge

Conservative evangelical author David French wrote recently in the New York Times about the struggles and failures of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Toward the end of that essay, he turned to human nature and the dangers of a monoculture. These lines jumped out at me: 

In my experience, the more ideologically or theologically “pure” an institution becomes, the more wrong it is likely to be, especially if it takes on a difficult or complex task. Ideological monocultures aren’t just bad for the minority that’s silenced, harassed or canceled whenever its members raise their voices in dissent. It’s terrible for the confident majority — and for the confident majority’s cause. 

I serve a Christian Reformed congregation that holds a diversity of opinions and interpretations about how to love and serve our queer siblings, children, grandchildren, and friends. That seems to fit with what French has named “a difficult and complex task.” In an effort to sustain community with that tension, our elders and deacons wrote gravamina – statements of conscience. The rules for gravamina were changed by the 2024 Christian Reformed Church Synod and we’re now trying to navigate instructions to rescind, repent, resign, or leave. The push for confessional purity leaves us with limited options. 

The proclamation of the gospel invites and even requires communities that are winsome, compassionate, humble, and willing to make space for minority voices. I’d rather err on the side of grace and welcome the diversity of human experience than require confessional conformity. Given the complexity of modern culture, something essential is being lost when there’s little space for wonder, wrestling, and walking beside. As French writes:  

I’m inherently suspicious of the notion that simple ideas can solve complex problems, but what if a simple idea can help us embrace complexity? Intellectual diversity matters. Opening your mind to a wider range of perspectives is transformative. It doesn’t just protect the minority from the majority; it also helps protect the majority from itself, and the institutions that learn that lesson will be far more tolerant and successful than those that close their doors to opposing points of view.

I’d like to be part of a community that teaches traditional marriage and welcomes same-sex couples. I’d like to be part of a community that celebrates the trajectory of the gospel reaching beyond our grasp and knows the Spirit to be leading, teaching, and pushing us to follow. I’d like to be part of a community that embraces pastoral and interpretive variance. I’d like to be part of a community that makes space for minority voices. However, in the CRC, it now seems as if confessional certainty is fixed in the 16^th century, and “without reservation” is the epistemological expectation. 

Belief without reservation has always been more than I can muster.

I’ve long lived out on the edges of certainty. And yet the Reformed community welcomed and made space for me. Studying Calvin, the Catechism, and the confessions gave me a mat on which to wrestle. Reading Plantinga, Smedes, and Mouw kept me grappling – even while Buechner, Barbra Brown Taylor, and singer-songwriter-theologian Bruce Springsteen helped me breathe. While I desperately clung to the confessional center, the edges gave me the impetus to hold on.  And those edges welcomed the unwashed, the impure, and unsure. 

A few weeks ago, I was part of a group of pastors that gathered by Zoom. We were male and female, young and old, working and retired, Canadian and from the States, chaplains, preachers, and denominational executives. We were mostly bewildered and brokenhearted, representing those who don’t meet the new standards for compliance. The prompting question for this meeting was, “What’s sustaining your spirit these days?” What spilled forth was the reading of scripture, shared prayer, and even some singing on Zoom. Amidst a few tears of lament, the Spirit was present. I was reminded of the Psalmist writing: 

By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”     Psalm 137: 1-3 NRSV

That’s a gross misreading of the opening lines of Psalm 137. I’m not equating the CRC to Zion nor am I suggesting that the young brothers leading this current cultural coup are our tormentors. But I can bear witness that we’re like refugees–cast out of country and sharing remembered songs.

Chances are those who are being pushed out in this pursuit for purity will scatter to other denominations. And chances are the confident new majority will push toward new issues to clarify, new minorities to dismiss, and new edges to clean up. But I believe there’s life out on the edges. I believe the Spirit blows outward and even refugees find new homes. Therefore, I’m going to keep my face turned toward those who can’t claim certainty and bear witness that they still have a place in the Church.