What Do We Want from The Banner?

I interpret this article as a defense of Bob DeMoor and the publication of the two articles. It seems to me the defense is often built on a false dichotomy: either The Banner tows the denominational line with rote, stale answers to important issues or we allow its authors to push us outside our existing theological framework so that we might find new answers. I propose a "third way" where The Banner challenges the church to think critically and creatively while remaining true to the Bible and our confessions. Unfortunately the Walhout and VanBelle articles do not fulfill those requirements. For examples of thought-provoking articles that accomplish this, check out the blog of Kevin DeYoung, a pastor in the RCA. Our own Forum magazine produced by the seminary also does a good job of meeting those goals.

I would be deeply saddened if Synod were to overturn the decision of the Board of Trustees to keep Editor DeMoor in his position. Editor DeMoor's public apology (http://www.thebanner.org/other/2013/06/dear-brothers-and-sisters-in-christ) states his commitment to our church and our beliefs, as well as communicating an understanding that his role carries great responsibility. The board's decision included a note that that these articles may have indicated a lapse in judgment, but not a pattern of irresponsibility.

From my perspective as a reader of The Banner and a church member, I had great appreciation for the way this was handled. In this situation, as in so many situations, I feel that if there is to be an error, it must be on the side of grace and forgiveness. What becomes of us - ANY of us - if a momentary lapse of judgment is that on which we are judged?

I appreciate very much the thoughtful articles in The Banner. I think it is important to be challenged, and when we are, we must have faith that God's truth will prevail in the discussion. If we stop asking hard questions and engaging in difficult debate, then we will have lost one of the wonderful things I have come to greatly appreciate about this tradition of which I am a part.

I think there are a variety of issues we need to weigh if we are to answer the question about the mission of The Banner.

1. When the CRC decided to use The Banner as a vehicle for promoting the work of CRC agencies and informing CRC members about that ministry, did we undermine it's ability to act like "a kitchen table" for more debating open ended, free flowing ideas? In other words when we use the publication for promotion of ministries, do we set up an implicit message that the ideas presented in other articles are also being promoted? The heart of the protest seems to be the assumption that however one construes the "voice" of the CRC (ED, Banner editor, etc.) that anything that comes along side report and celebration OF agency work carries with it an implicit message? Maybe the Banner is too narrow a channel to process multiple functions and for that reason has caused confusion and anger.

2. Who reads the Banner? My assumption is that the MOST faithful CRC members and contributors to CRC agency ministry are its core audience. My guess is that this audience in the US tends to skew conservative. My guess is that in Canada it's more mixed. Again, these are all guesses that may be way off. If the Banner knows who is reading maybe they should share some of this data. Readership should also impact content. It's always tempting to try to expand readership by trying to speak to another audience, but if you do this you'd better let your base know exactly what you're doing. Given the protests I think this was also a fail if that was what was being tried. 

3. The Banner is one of multiple CRC entities that try to stimulate conversation. Another is of course "The Network". Paper vs. online also impacts readership, mission and purpose. Evaluation of The Banner's mission should not be done in isolation to the other assets the CRC possesses. It is a part of the overall package. The question is "what part should it play" given history, paper vs. online, readership, etc. 

4. "Disruption" is a word used to describe how the Internet has changed many industries, print media not the least of these. The world has changed since my grandmother wrote "Women's World" in the Banner in the 60s. The Banner has changed since the Kuyvenhoven era with wooden shoe burning. John Suk former editor wrote "Not Sure" and left the denomination because he wasn't. Navigating change requires wisdom and kindness. We'll need both for this conversation. pvk

IMHO, The CRC would best  be served by a magazine that is winsome, edifying, clear, and useful as an outreach tool. Controversial issues can be dealt with in other publications.

Doc

Hey, we all know it's tough in the world. Unemployment, sickness, discouragement... why can't we have a magazine that will be edifying? And use other venues to wrestle?

The subject of the published written material which generated the complaint does not seem to involve matters of salvation and do not seem to rise to the level of possible heresy.

Just to weigh in again... here in the NE, the CRC is not doing well, a trend which I, for one, will do all I can to reverse. We need some kind of magazine that can be left in offices, and in other public places, that will present a positive, uplifting message that is at the same time faithful to the sovereignty of God. Our own "kitchen tables" are quickly dwindling in size, and in many places disappearing.

Doc

As a former president of the CRC's publishing arm and as a current member of the CRC's Board of Trustees, Rev. Ken Baker is not a neutral observer merely asking some questions. He is a powerful denominational leader who has been directly involved in these matters. He evidently still isn't convinced Bob DeMoor was wrong to publish the articles. He wonders, "Did they cross the line?" He still doesn't know the answer to that question. No wonder Rev. Baker and his fellow members on the Board of Trustees gave such an inadequate response to The Banner's blunders. No wonder Synod itself needs to address the matter.

Rev. Baker should acknowledge that Edwin Walhout isn't just another CRC member with some opinions that push the envelope. Walhout was a longtime leader at CRC Publications (later Faith Alive, of which Rev. Baker was board president). After retirement, Walhout declared in print that the Reformed confessions are no longer normative for him and wrote that Reformed doctrines would topple like dominos under the force of evolutionary theory. This is the man whose assertions Bob DeMoor decided to spread to every family in the CRC.

Rev. Baker should acknowledge that former Banner editor John Suk left the CRC after affirming homosexual marriage and expressing disbelief in Jesus' Second Coming. Suk published a book titled "Not Sure." This title was echoed in Bob DeMoor's editorial "Don't Be So Sure," published shortly before he published the articles exalting evolution and cohabitation.

Rev. Baker appeals to the editor's "ten years of faithful and edifying service." Picture a pastor who has served in a CRC congregation for ten years. The congregation has recently been shaken to learn that its former pastor has renounced key doctrines and joined an ultra-liberal denomination. Around this time, the current pastor preaches a sermon titled, "Don't Be So Sure." A month later, he knowingly invites a guest preacher to proclaim to the whole congregation that Adam never existed and that Reformed doctrines must fall like dominoes. The next month, he invites a guest speaker to tell the youth group that sex before marriage is fine if two people feel sort of mature and committed. When many people from the congregation express outrage over these things, the pastor says he's sorry they got so upset, and he explains that he was just trying to stimulate discussion. Most CRC congregations would not continue to employ such a pastor. Even if some Council members still liked him and still thought he was not really trying to undermine  confidence in biblical, Reformed truth, they would recognize that he had brought division and had lost the confidence of too many people in the congregation to continue serving the whole church effectively.

Back to Rev. Baker's question: What do we want from The Banner? For starters, we want it to be trustworthy. We want faithfulness to the church's doctrinal and ethical standards. We want a magazine with content that every CRC household can trust to be biblical and Reformed, or else we want to stop using ministry shares to send that magazine to every CRC household. We want an editor who firmly rejects and opposes the direction taken by Banner/Pubs predecessors such as Walhout and Suk, not an editor who publishes Walhout and echoes Suk's call to be unsure. We want more than an editorial apology for "the manner and timing of publishing these articles"; we want an editor with the wisdom not to publish such articles at all.

And we want real accountability. The Banner Editorial Council was of no help at all; they unanimously approved the editor's decision to print the articles. The Board of Trustees was of little help. Trustee Baker still doesn't know if the articles crossed the line, and evidently others on the Board were equally indecisive. They called the editor to Grand Rapids for a conversation, issued some damage control press releases, and continued with business as usual. The Board of Trustees, after further study, called for stronger oversight--and then gave the editor veto power in choosing half the members of the committee that is supposed to hold him accountable. Synod must do better than that.

Not all issues are the same.  Throughout the debate on women's ordination, the CRC declined to define the issue as rising to the level of the confessions.  Those who were advocates for the ordination of women were not ever charged with violating the Form of Subscription as far as I know.  Precisely because this was not a confessional issue, it has been possible for the denomination to live with a local option on women's ordination.  The doctrine of original sin is not like this.  The condemnation of all unchastity is not like this.  These issues are explicitly addressed in our confessions.  On these issues, we have an authoritative, confessional interpretation of what Scripture teaches.  Those who have signed the covenant for office-bearers are supposed to exercise our theological and intellectual freedom within the bounds of the confessions.     

The debate about women's ordination was always about how to interpret Scripture on an issue that was not definitively settled by our confessions, and even in the midst of disagreement my experience of the CRC debate was that those who disagreed nonetheless recognized each other's genuine intention to honor Scriptural authority.  That's still my experience.  This is reasonable, because there are passages of Scripture that speak positively about women as prophets and worship leaders and images of God and other passages of Scripture that speak negatively about women as preachers and leaders in the church.  Which passages should control the interpretation of which?  That's a fair question, and even though I am absolutely confident in my interpretation of these passages, I respect those who reach different conclusions and honor their need to be obedient to Scripture as they read it.  There is no similar ambiguity in Scriptural teaching about fornication, and suggesting that a defense of fornication is somehow analogous to a defense of speaking God's word while female is rather offensive.    

So could we please not confuse the conversation by appealing to women's ordination as if it is a precedent for every other debate in which the denomination engages? 

My fear for Synod is my expectation of a comment discussion, that we will spend time wandering around debating sex, science and the worthiness of our present editor. Discussions of sex, science and the worthiness of whatever editor we presently have will always be with us, it seems to me foundational question is the question of this article, "What do we want from The Banner?"

I think most of us will agree the denomination needs to be able to manage a number of missions at once:

1. Prescriptive Faith formation and doctrinal instruction. The assumption of the Banner for this mission and the felt betrayal by the two articles in question and the editorial decision to put them through is what is drawing all the heat. OK. but if this is the mission of the Banner then we should say so.

2. Space for exploration tolerating divergent even heterodox ideas. When I work with people, in and out of the church I encourage them to speak their minds and their hearts and I value honesty over correctness in this mode. Most of us get this as a necessary part of a process for individuals and communities to work out their faith and figure out how what they believe fits, or does not fit with the catholic church. Should The Banner be a space for this? Our current "mission statement" for the Banner seems to suggest it, and given the limited media modes of communal conversation in most of the 20th century it fits. The question is whether it fits the present realities of The Banner as print medium combined with its promotional mission (which is a separate mission from points 1 and 2 here).

When the matter of adopting the Belhar arose the most interesting question for me was how would our denomination manage a communal conversation and decision of this magnitude? My conclusion based not necessarily on observing the outcome as much as the process was "not very well".

Questions of sex and science along side the matters of power and privilege which the Belhar sought to address are large and broad conversations that the church must engage because society is engaging them. If the church wants to have both influence and a voice we will need to figure out how to do so.

James Schaap has been the CRC historian for the late 20th century. The piece he wrote for the 150th anniversary of the CRC http://www.dordt.edu/publications/pro_rege/crcpi/Pro_Rege_Sept_2007.pdf noted that the reality of our place in our time is that we've lost the ability to control the question. CRC minds and hearts, of laity and pastor alike are shaped far more by voices outside the CRC than inside. No decision on the Banner will change this. We will not have the kind of voice in the Banner that we had in the days before TV and then the Internet took possession of the agenda. The question we must ask is how will we steward the conversations we are capable of. We will talk about sex and science and power and privilege but what we need to figure out first is how will we talk.

David Feddes raised some very excellent points relative to the politics of selecting banner editors, editorial committees, synodical oversight, and the banner purpose.     I think the comment about Canadian vs USA staff is not so pertinent, since if all editors had been USA but equally provocative, the problems would have remained.   On the other hand, Ken Bakker's comments  are written in a barely acceptable fashion as has been pointed out, since they appear to defend the indefensible.   If this magazine goes to every home on the involuntary membership dollar, then it ought to uphold the confessions and scripture.  These two questionable articles clearly did not do so.  Furthermore, the ten years of editorship has not in fact been without "issues", as David pointed out with regard to the "don't be so sure" article.

While I have suggested that we forgive Bob DeMoor for his indiscretion in the two inflammatory articles, I was again put off by the title "where have they all gone?", relating again to the homosex issue.  It would be interesting to use the same title for an article on where the great majority of people have left for other reasons, including acceptance of women in office, crc apparent acceptance of homosex, acceptance of premarital sex, and questioning of primary doctrines from Genesis.  How many left because being upset with the statements made by John Suk?  How many left for other reasons related to lack of orthodoxy, and ignoring of scripture?   With a general decline since 1992, it is becoming apparent that many denominational statements and positions are driving crc people either to more orthodox reformed churches because they perceive a better correlation to scripture there, or to anabaptist churches because they sense a better committment to christian living there.  Traditional social crc members will likely remain because of their primary committment to their heritage, social situation, family relationships, but yet they will decline.   Only a primary commitment to scripture, to God and Christ above all, and to Christian living in both personal and communal aspects, will provide motivation to remain with the denomination.  Thus these types of banner articles serve only to drive people away, with no beneficial side effect, since they also separate people who remain, away from God and from His Will.

Forgiveness for the publishing of two inflammatory articles implies repentance and a renewed sense of discretion with regard to the implications of titles, articles, and the way they are written.   Without that discretion well applied, crc members will often feel like prisoners of the system, implicitly maligned by perverse statements having the "apparent" blessing of an involuntary publication funded by their church tax dollars.

I would also suggest that the banner withdraw from all magazine competitions regarding various article categories (I forget the name of the association or award committee), since review by such an organization has led to awards for some articles that I think should not even have been in the magazine, and such type of "peer" review can lead to a perversion of the intent and method of various articles and editorial content.  The only review that matters is what God has said about it, and that should be interpreted by the denomination, not by some outside organization which has standards outside of and not approved by crc confessions, nor by scripture.

Paul VanderKlay raises some important points above regarding the mandate given the Banner by Synod over the years in contrast to other writers who feel that mandate needs to be revised. The question that needs to be asked is whether there has been shift within the CRC "not" to a more conservative outlook on issues, but a shift from it's Reformed roots to realignment with North American fundamentalism.

Regardless, the Banner and it's editors are an easy targets for what are ongoing pastoral and ecclesiastical discussions on various topics at annual Synods. That these topics are on the table at all, is a reflection of what local churches are struggling with in ministering to their flock. If pastoral care is to be extended that means both dialogue and engagement with scripture and God's creation is required rather than mounting the ramparts.