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Thank you, Joel Van Dyke, for this posting.  I grew up in First CRC of Detroit during the 1960s.  I was formed by the 1967 riots that devastated that city (I even wrote a book about the experience).  I came to Calvin College (now University) and Seminary as an adolescent burning questions (literally) in my heart about how to reach places like Detroit.  Much of the teaching in those days centered around theology that originated the Netherlands, which I found hard to relate to.  I spent a year in Chicago in the S.C.U.P.E program, which helped me make some sense of my journey, but ended up serving the CRC in rural congregations as that was where pastors were needed.  I see much of our current denominational struggle as being an urban/rural one.  We remain a largely rural denomination, and our rural members believe their way of life is being threatened.  One of our urban churches-- Neland Ave-- is wrestling directly with the LGBTQ issue while many in the rural communities seem to have the answer.  I am a city boy.  I have no nostalgia for the simple, hardworking, small town or family farm life.  I thrive living in places of diversity (I loved my 20 years of service as a military chaplain, where I ministered to sailors and Marines from every walk of life in America) and am comfortable with people having different perspectives than mine on an issue.  Is there a place in the CRC for people like me? 

 

I am neither "affirming" or wanting to "abide."  But Synod's mandate to "guide into compliance" dictates the bottom line of any conversation between church visitors and councils.  You can listen all you want, but the only value in the "conversation" is to allow individuals to vent their frustrations.  Synod has been consistently unwilling to listen to those who disagree, including but not limited to those who want to revisit the Scriptural teaching on the issue and the minority report about those who submit a gravamen.  Now we're encouraged to listen!  Any "listening" at this point is merely patronizing-- especially if the church is not open to considering alternative viewpoints as having validity.

Jeffrey Thompson:  You hit on a couple of things that I think are significant.  Your words, "the bulliness of Synod" and " we discerned, we talked at great lengths on the topic, we prayed, we read the Holy Bible."  What this ultimately boils down to is spiritual abuse.  God has given legitimate authority to Synod, but this authority has been abused to force compliance to the majority opinion, with a sheen of spirituality.  I find it interesting that the "prayer room" has been moved to the stage of Synod.  We had better listen to ("comply with") Synodical decisions, because they are "settled and binding."  Too bad if you are the 1/3 in the church that doesn't agree-- you lost the vote.

As for Scripture, I'm not willing to limit our study to the Gospels.  I'm increasingly convinced that if we began the discussion with Pauls's words in Romans 2:1,  "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things," it might affect how we understand Romans 1.  It is sad that the chapter break falls where it does, because Romans 2:1 is the whole point.  Paul is not giving us a lesson on sexual ethics-- he's pointing out the universal reach of sin and the need of all for a Savior (which he summarizes in Romans 3:23-24,  "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

The CRCNA has not arrived at "the truth" re. the LGBTQ challenge.  Contrary to the other response, we are not yet ready to come to a conclusion.  We need more time for prayer, study, discussion, and discernment.  And we need to listen to all voices-- our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, those who call themselves "affirming," the "abide" folks, and people like me who still have significant questions for both sides and are not ready to join either camp.  If we really want to take the Bible seriously, I suggest we all focus on I Corinthians 12, where the Church is called a body, and every part is important.  ". . .there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."  (I Corinthians 12:25-26).  Many of us are suffering-- our LGBTQ members and those who cannot agree with Synod's recent decisions.  The solution,  "conform or leave" may resolve the church's anxiety, but it is certainly not Biblical.

 

I've already written plenty on this, but let me add 2 observations.

1. Re: "discussions of the HSR within congregations . . . is quite a different matter."  One of the issues going on here is that the HSR came out at the beginning of COVID, and Synod did not meet for two years.  I think this produced a great deal of anxiety within the church, fed by some who overstated the issues and created worst-case scenarios.  As I mentioned before, I believe the 2022 decision was an attempt to address the church's anxiety, which took priority over ministry to the LGBTQ community.

2. Whatever Jesus may have said that is not recorded in the Gospels is irrelevant.  These words are not available to us, and so we are in the realm of speculation.  They certainly don't have the authority over the church and believers that Scripture has.

3. How long do we keep the discussion going?  The problem here is sin-- and not the sin of the LGBTQ community.  Too many of us are convinced we have the truth in this matter and are unwilling to consider other voices.  This is pride, which is nothing other than garden-variety sin.  I believe we need to, as a church, repent of our arrogance.  We do not have all the answers.  I'm not sure we even know what all the questions are.  Discerning the leading of God and God's Spirit takes time.  We are in Lent, a 40 day period that begins with considering Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the wilderness.  Discernment takes time.  Anxiety needs to be resolved immediately.  Are we going to be driven by our anxiety or a genuine desire to discern God's leading and a commitment to take whatever time we need?

May God bless all of us in the CRCNA as we strive with our human frailties to be a faithful church.

 

 

I would add one thing:  Is the ministry setting taking a toll on your health?  The stress of a difficult place can lead to high blood pressure, depression, and other ailments.  Have you been prescribed additional medications to control these medical concerns?  A different ministry setting might literally be "just what the doctor ordered."

Can I add one other point?  Retirement is the closest earthly experience of grace there is.  Retired people don't work, yet they have value.  Retirement is a foretaste of the Shalom of Heaven itself.  The challenge for retirees is to model life in eternity to those who come after us.

  

Posted in: January 6

You present your thoughts around the theme of "Uncivil Religion." There is a "civil religion" which holds us as a nation together.  Our coins have imprinted on them,  "In God We Trust."  Sessions of Congress are opened with a generic prayer to  a rather generic "God."  When I served as a military chaplain, I offered numerous such prayers.  I suspect when you speak of "Uncivil Religion" you are suggesting this January 6 was Civil Religion gone amuck.  What if we consider January 6 under the them of  "Christian Nationalism"?   In unpacking this theme, let me limit myself to a discussion of the flags flown by the protesters on January 6.  Of course, there was the stars and stripes, our national ensign. But there was also the Christian or Church flag. God and country. Dangerous, but with our Augustinian "two Kingdom" worldview acceptable.    But what about the presence of the Confederate Flag?  I lived in South Carolina for ten years when there was a huge fight about that flag.   The Confederate Flag represents many things, depending on who you're talking to.  (1) Southern Heritage.  So is Christianity a Southern thing?  Is God a tribal god, whose influence is limited to the American south, similar to the local gods of the Old Testament?  (2) Racism.  The real issue behind the Civil War, in spite of Southern attempts to claim otherwise ("it was about states rights")  On January 6 we saw a Christianity affiliated with racism-- very disturbing.  (3) Rebel.  Many in the North have adopted this flag as the "rebel flag."  So is the Christian faith about rebellion?  As I understand the Bible, rebellion is the problem.  I have come to believe Christian Nationalism is a heresy as dangerous as the heresies of the early church.   As an American, I grieve the loss of democracy in our nation.  As a Christian, I take comfort in knowing that the Kingdom of God is not the same as the American Empire.  God's Kingdom survived the fall of Rome, it will survive the end of American Democracy, should that occur.  The loss of Democracy in the nation is sad.  Apostasy in the church is a much bigger problem, one that needs to be courageously addressed. 

 

Posted in: January 6

Les, you and I both served the same pulpit in our ministerial journey, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for your professionalism and the outstanding service you have given to the CRCNA.  I would suggest, however, that this response is pretty cynical and sarcastic.  To dismiss a fellow believer's sincere effort to put into words Biblical teaching as it applies to legitimate problems facing our nation as "Democratic talking points" certainly does not enhance conversation between fellow believers who have sincere differences in viewpoints.  As a church, we need to address the issues Biblically and theologically, which I think the CRCNA does exceptionally well.  We need to speak more in our native language as Reformed Christians:  words like Kingdom rather than the media's language of Democrat, Republican, and "talking points."  If the demands of responsible citizenship  in God's Kingdom coincides with a particular political party, even if many Evangelicals do not identify with that party, we fall in line with the Kingdom.  If the demands of the Kingdom oppose the platform of a particular political party, we need to courageously and prophetically stand for the Kingdom.  Life in the Kingdom means living under God's Law.  The Ten Commandments are a good starting place for discovering God's Will for our Lives (language I used almost every Sunday back in the day when we read the Commandments in Sunday morning worship).  One of those commandments is,  "You shall not murder."  Thus, the CRCNA is strongly pro-life, which in fact conflicts with the Democrats.  Another is,  "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," which certainly speaks to the lie that many Republicans continue to hold that Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential election.   In my view, the most important sentence in the original posting is this:  ". . .to the extent that Reformed Christians share any historical or theological DNA with the wider evangelical moment we need to confront a poisonous patriarchal white supremacy in the genome."  The foundation of our faith is the Bible, to be read with the exegetical tools we have all agreed on (i.e., original meaning, context, original audience, etc.) not FOX, CNN, a sitting or former President of the US, or the current emphasis of either political party.    

"The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr." ed. by Clayborne Carson.  During these times of high social unrest, I find MLK to be an inspiring example of pastoral and prophetic faithfulness.  By the end of his career, many of his white supporters deserted him because of his views on the Vietnam War, and many of his black supporters deserted him because his continued insistence on non-violence in contrast to such leaders as H. Rap Brown and Malcolm X.  This book was put together post-mortem,  and includes selections from his writings, speeches, and papers.

 

Posted in: Bird's Eye View

Right on!  Lately I've seen this term used re. the CRC, "irreconcilable differences."  We have irreconcilable differences, and so we need to split.  This is the language of the divorce court, used to justify a split.  It is not Biblical.  According to the Bible, the church is like a body-- "the body is not made up of one part but of many."  No part can say to another,  "I have no need of you."  The Dutch Americans in the CRC need the Koreans.  The US needs Canada-- and the other way around.  Those who are "affirming" need those who "abide," and the other way around.  "But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body"  (see I Corinthians 12:12-20).   I get it-- the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and the RCA split over issues we are facing today.  How has that worked out for them?  We say the Bible is our guide-- why don't we put our egos aside, listen to what it says, and follow its teaching, as challenging as that may be?

 

As a retired CRC military chaplain, I want to thank Thrive for this excellent article.  One item that's missing is retired ministers.  We retain the privilages of ministry, including teaching, preaching, and presiding over the sacraments.  But we also are held accountable, and a CRC church holds our credentials.  Holland Heights CRC in Holland, MI holds my credentials as well as an active (hospice) chaplain and two other retired ministers.  They have been very supportive of my ministry, and I believe of the other ministers in the congregation.  The pastor of the church (an RCA pastor) has taken the lead on this.  He is not threatened by the other ministers in the congregation, but appreciates our unique gifts, training, and experience.  When I was in the military, my calling church was Creston CRC in Grand Rapids, which was also very supportive.  In my experience the support of pastors in non-traditional ministries or retired pastors begins with the pastor(s) of the congregation, and his or her respect for their colleague's work.

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