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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 16th 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.

Roger Nelson

Roger Nelson has been the pastor of Hope Christian Reformed Church in Oak Forest, Illinois, for 22 years. He’s a husband, father, grandfather and the author of Listening for the Voice: Collected Sermons and Reflections on Preaching published by Broken Spoke Books.

16 Comments

  • Shar Karsten says:

    Thank you this thing thoughtful piece. I grieve with you. I grieve deeply for what the denomination has become. I share your thought that this won’t be the last issue they will tackle in their pursuit of new issues to clarify. But I trust that something good will come of the leaving. God is at work bringing new life from that which was dead. There was, and is, much good the CRC has done, and is doing. I grieve for the impact the loss of the leaving churches will have on those good things. This is an excruciatingly difficult time.

    But, I, too, want to be part of a church that errs on the side of grace. Jesus modeled this in all his interactions. Many are crying out to God for guidance, earnestly seeking his direction. This may take time, but we wait on Him.

  • Tara Foreman says:

    Thank you, Roger.

  • June says:

    My husband and I do all of “sharing remembered songs” – it’s become a lifeline for us, especially in these times of the casting out of humans made in the image of our God. I love the image of the Spirit blowing outward to assist in refugees finding new homes. Thank you.

  • Al Mulder says:

    Thank you Roger. The perspectives you share sounds so constraining on the one hand, and so life giving on the other!

  • Steve VanderWoude says:

    Its interesting that David French is cited here to bolster the idea that complexity is somehow at odds with doctrinal certainty on human sexuality, when French belongs to a church where his pastor preaches sermons like this:

    Gay Rights v. Civil Rights
    https://strongtowerbiblechurch.com/gay-rights-vs-civil-rights/

    “The Church should be a loving, safe and truthful place, where no one feels comfortable staying in his or her sin, but rather we feel convicted about coming out of our sin. And once convicted over our sin, forgiveness, healing and change are now possible. And due to the fact that the gay lifestyle is becoming more and more accepted in society, and due to the recent turn of events, it is imperative that Christians formulate a strategy to reach the LGBTQ community and an apologetic to defend basic Christian beliefs–like the fact that God created the covenant of marriage to be between one man and one woman, ideally for one lifetime. That, my brothers and sisters, is a bedrock Christian belief and doctrine.”

    It seems likely that French would agree with his pastor that some Christian beliefs are bedrock (confessional?) and not matters of indifference or disagreement among the faithful followers of Jesus.

    • Mark S. Hiskes says:

      Steve,
      If you read a previous article French wrote in the New York Times, “The Day My Church Cancelled Me was a Very Sad Day,” you will find that French’s views on human sexuality are not that simple.

      I’m not sure if the church you are referencing is the previous PCA church he left because of how he was rejected by them as too liberal or the new one he has since joined, but I find French himself supportive of LGBTQ rights.

      • Steve VanderWoude says:

        Mark,
        I’m aware of French’s views regarding LGBTQ legal rights. You’ll also note, if you’ve followed French’s career as an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, his writing at National Review, The Dispatch and The New York Times, and his legal podcast Advisory Opinions, that he is an avid defender of religious expression and the rights of religious institutions to define their positions on marriage, gender, sexuality, etc. The topic at hand in this essay is not LGBTQ legal rights, but whether the Church should take an “agree-to-disagree” doctrinal position on same-sex sexual activity and marriage. While there are certainly many issues and doctrines Christians can disagree about, French’s own church views the Church’s historic orthodox doctrine on marriage and sexuality as “bedrock”. As such, the author’s attempt to cite French in support of his point is dubious.

        • Eric Van Dyken says:

          He was also a signatory to the Nashville Statement. I’m unaware of him disavowing that doctrinal position.

        • J. Groen says:

          French is a perfect person to cite, since French is increasingly recognizing the dangers of being in groups that require adamancy of belief without reservation.

          The inefficacy of belief without reservation is Nelson’s theme. It is possible to have tangible, predictable, and visible boundary lines that are not failures inasmuch as they are also permeable. Reservations are beautiful and sound permeability features on our boundaries of deeply held belief.

          I appreciate that biology and botany insights about organic borders and walls reveal so many examples of this permeability to us, since we often favor sealed-adamant or engineer-electrified or welder-barbed models in our internalized concept of effective and reliable boundary lines.

  • Ruth says:

    “I’d rather err on the side of grace and welcome the diversity of human experience than require confessional conformity.” Yes.
    If you and I are wrong about confessional purity on this side of heaven, I suspect God will forgive us for that and offer us some “credit” for affirming and loving the people he loves.

  • Daniel Meeter says:

    Dear Roger, friend of my friend Taylor, this was quiet and chaste but intense, from the heart.

  • James VanderMolen says:

    Steve VanderWoude: enough already, we’re leaving, and shaking the dust from our feet as we go. Must you harangue us at the gate?

  • Nick deVries says:

    Thanks Roger for stating what so many feel and believe. “Belief without reservation has always been more than I can muster…” so true (also in medicine I might add)…

  • Rebecca Jordan Heys says:

    Thanks, Roger. As someone who is with you “on the edge” of this issue but at the center of many others (as a white woman in white communities), this is a good reminder of how the Spirit so often works.

  • Dick Van Deelen says:

    Thank you, Brother.

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