I can't imagine being a part of a church that is not intergenerational. It seems to me such a church is less than what it should be. I've never been a member of one that wasn't intergenerational.
This makes me think, though, of neighborhoods that are demographically stratified, by age, ethnicity, economic class, or whatever. Those too are less than what they should be, for essentially the same reason.
One key to strengthening the thread between the denomination and it's local churches is the denomination giving up its claim to act as political lobbyist and expert for its members. Church Order Article 28 requires it but has been ignored.
Indeed, the "doing more together" cliche has been used by a minority of CRCers (who have the lion's share of denomination level power) to establish a political platform (planks on federal policy on climate change, federal policy on public welfare benefits, federal policy on immigration, etc) for all CRCers (that is, for all members of local CRC congregations).
My own local church does not presume to speak for me as to national or state or even local government policy. Why should my denomination? Again of course, CO Article 28 says it should not, even may not, but it does anyway. And of course that is a breach of trust and covenant committment. No wonder the thread is thin.
I think denominations are very valuable, but as ecclesiastical institutions, not as political, scientific, or political think tank (etc) institutions. Of course, this thinking (Kuyperian social sphere sovereignty) is not at all new, even if increasingly ignored at the denominational level of the CRC.
This article characterizes the US as "debat[ing] to shut[] down its refugee resettlement completely," but the Canadians as "being applauded for its increase in hospitality, welcoming 29,817 Syrian refugees this year alone." But according to the Pew Research Center (see at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/16/nearly-half-of-refugees-entering-the-u-s-this-year-are-muslim/) the US "... has received 28,957 Muslim refugees so far in fiscal year 2016, or nearly half (46%) of the more than 63,000 refugees who have entered the country since the fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2015...," which doesn't count those "27,556 Christian refugees" allowed in "so far this fiscal year."
In other words, the US is not being a refugee grinch and Canada is not, by comparison, being a refugee Santa Claus.
I would agree with the author that Christians ought to play a role in welcoming refugees that are admitted to their country. At the same time, I believe the political discussion (or debate) about middle east refugees -- including by Christians -- ought to be far more constructive and nuanced than simply 'let's see how many refugees our country can take in.'
While I don't at all take Trump's stated position on immigration (although I'm not actually sure what that is from day to day), I do tend to see the the middle east refugee question to be remarkably complicated and would favor, politically speaking, providing much more assistance to Jordan and possibly other middle east countries as they provide refugee camps that would keep Syrians near their own home country, for example. It seems to me that the permanent resettlement of refugees in foreign countries should be a disfavored solution, even for the sake of the refugees, many/most of which don't want to leave their home country.
We do well to separate questions of personal action given the political decisions already made, from the question of the political policies we advocate for. Too often, we don't do that, assuming the two questions are only one.
A big part of the time problem is the creeping expansion of what is taken up at the denominational level (including at snod). Why, for example, should synod be taking up a 500 year old series of papal bulls issued by a couple of Roman Catholic popes (Doctrine of Discovery). There were no churches or classes who asked for synod to take that up (rather, it came from a handful of people on the creation care study committee, procedurally anomalous as that may be).
The general "political atmosphere" in our surrounding culture had become a seeming irrisistable temptation to take up, at the highest level (synod), too many things that an institutional church (including the CRC, see Church Order Article 28) just shouldn't be taking up. Even if some of those issues are important, there is a time, place, and one or more othet institutions for taking them up.
Synod will have plenty to take up if it listens to its own rules (again, CO Article 28) and resists the temptation to take up what is outside the institutional church sphere. And it can do a better job if it focuses on that more limited plate full of issues.
This is an intriguing article, and it certainly introduces to the discussion (whatever exactly the question is, which really isn't defined) a new thinking twist, but I wonder this: about what can we, should we, do we not already have in all things, "holy uncertainty," or perhaps just uncertainty (I'm not sure how one might distinguish between "holy" and "unholy," or even "regular," uncertainty).
Do we have, should we have, "holy uncertainty" about the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection? No doubt, all lack faith, just as Jesus' own disciples did. That condition is certainly "uncertainty," and it is quite genuine -- is it "holy uncertainty," "unholy uncertainty," or "regular uncertainty?"
In other words, is the suggestion that we should have "holy uncertainty" about homosexuality (again, whatever the question precisely is) at all helpful? Are we all not somewhat like Rene Descartes, after all, who had some doubt about any and all propositions in his search for truth until he stumbled on the notion of "I think, therefore I am." But of course his skeptical contemporaries, the Pyhronians, declared essentially that they "doubted that the doubted" in rebuke of Descartes. Christians have historically lived in opposition to Descartes "rationalism" -- should we now reconsider this?
In other words, having doubt is rather ubiquitous in all facets of human affairs. Does rephrasing it as "holy uncertainty" really help in the discussion of whatever exactly this question is? I'm not so sure -- or, to put it another way, I'm having "holy uncertainty" about this "holy uncertainty."
Deja vu to the era of Abraham Kuyper, who moved from one hermeneutical approach early in life to a different one later. Of course (I would suggest), the shift in this case is reversed from the shift made by Kuyper.
I suspect this perception of hermeneutical change is of far more concern to many CRCers than the SSM issue. It is to me.
Your response to Ron Polinder, Peter, is intriguing to me -- even a bit stunning if I am to be honest.
You say, as I read it (see statements: "The report is definitely not balanced - and it was not intended to be. It concentrates on the missing, difficult, uncomfortable (for me) pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story" and also, " there was considerable discussion on this point in the committee. In the end, it became clear to us that we needed to present the less admirable elements of European cultural heritage and Christian missions rather clearly and without an attempt to balance each negative observation, historical reference, or - most importantly - personal story with a positive observation, historical reference, or personal story."), that your committee deliberately presented 'one side of the story' in this report for the explicit purpose of making the CRC/CRCHM 100+ year involvement in Rehoboth look extra bad.
Let me suggest a real world metaphor to explain my cause for being stunned. I grew up in NW Iowa at a time (1960s and 70's) when much was different from now. I've occasionally remarked to others -- lawyer that I am -- that if my family's life was plucked from history, its practices discovered and measured by current standards, the government's child protection agency would have permanently removed me from my home. Why? Physical abuse (working more than most adults do today), housing abuse (we had no indoor toilet, a broken down house -- literally --, and lack of any heating system upstairs where we slept in Iowa winters), and some other reasons. Were the negative aspects of my upbringing extracted by a CRC study committee and reported without context, my parents would be abhored, despised, and thought of as true agents of evil by the report's readers. And so would many other farm parents in NW Iowa who had children my age.
And I suspect that some now-adults who were children raised in NW Iowa at that time, in those families, might today come to the CRC study committee and tell dark but true stories, and the study committee could choose to "concentrate" (as you say) on these "missing, difficult, uncomfortable ... pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story," as you also say -- and a generation of NW Iowa farming parents would be thereafter defamed in the now-older years of their lives.
Yes, I use the word "defamed" with careful intention, because if my and other parents were subjected to the methodology apparently used, as you describe, by this study committee, the result would indeed be the defamation of my parents. Not, mind you, because of the facts told, but because of the facts not told, because of the historical and other context not offered, because of the unwillingness of the study committee to hear or report on the "buts" that the committee says in this report it didn't want to listen to or report on.
This kind of "defamation by selective reporting" is not an uncommon phenomena. If you have ever sat in a jury, or even watched a trial, you are familiar with the reality of a group of people (jury) being fully persuaded after one side gives its opening remarks, or after it presents its evidence, or after its closing arguments, but then brought back to reality when the other side has opportunity to present its "buts."
This study report intentionally presents only one side!! How in the world does that result in anything good? How does that methodogy not result in defamation?
In your response to Ron, you point to the use of the word "pagan" as a word inexcusably used in the past by CRC/CRCHM folk at Rehoboth. Huh? Except for the acquired stigma attached to the word in the past couple/few decades, the word "pagan" was a perfectly good word to use to denote (and I quote a dictionary definition), "1. a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions." Which brings up another "arc of the whole truth" problem with the committee's methodology. This report judges over 100 years of historical action (and, apparently, vocabulary used) by today's standards, as told (intentionally!) from only one side to boot. Again, wow!
Not mentioned in your above comment to Ron, but directly said in the report, this committee has concluded that the CRC/CRCHM should never have ever gone to New Mexico, that doing so was wrong. What an incredible conclusion. On the other hand, when one intentionally chooses to reduce a real life story down to a distilled concentrate of only that which was bad, I'm not sure you could reach another conclusion. But using this methodology would also result in the conclusion that my parents were wrong to give birth to me, and once given, continue to raise me.
To be perfectly clear, I have no case to make against my parents. And I suspect many parents and their grown children have conversations later in life when the kids express disappointments, anger and other negatives about their childhood and parents bemoan exactly and confess as to how they raised their children. I've done that some with my kids already. And in fact, this same sort of thing happened in the Reboboth community as well -- about 13 years ago! Given that, I'm baffled that a CRC study committee would want to attempt to do what this report does, just as if it would want to resurrect the regrets of my 1960s/1970s childhood family.
Finally, your comments also suggest that a major purpose of this report is so that we can "see[] ... a much larger critique of European-American cultural and religious values - not just a critique of Rehoboth and CRC Indian missions." As the report makes clear, that larger story begins several papal bulls (pronouncement by the Roman Catholic Pope) back in the 15th century?
Does enriching our historical understanding of a Roman Catholic doctrine starting in the 15th century really trump the harm of defaming so many who did so much good work at Rehoboth for over a century? If so, we really ought to be going back to studying the death of Guido de Bres, author of our own Belgic Confession. De Bres and his contemporaries were murdered by the combined efforts of the Roman Catholic Church (and Pope) and the Spanish king nearly a century after the start of the Doctrine of Discovery. No, I don't seriously make that suggestion, but indicate it to give some context to the value, or lack thereof, of defaming CRC/CRCHM people who did good work and honorable work at Rehoboth, so that we might better understand the permutations of a historical Roman Catholic doctrine from over half a millennium ago.
Danielle, I'm not unaware of the stories you refer to, including the details of some. They are not unlike what I would expect. But that doesn't really address or affect the points I've made.
You are involved in the indigenous issues in Canada, which is good. But if I understand correctly, the CRC was not involved in any indigenous schools in Canada. This is not to say you should discontinue your work in Canada on those issues, but it is to say that whatever whoever did in Canada should not be imputed in any to the CRC or CRCHM.
What the CRC/CRCHM did do was Rehoboth/Zuni. It certainly is appropriate to examine the record of the CRC/CRCHM in Rehoboth but when one does that (whether individually or as a study committee), one has to do it appropriately. Intentionally distilling over a century of CRC/CRCHM involvement in Rehoboth to its worst stories, refusing to consider/relate historical or cultural content in order to focus on the bad, is irresponsible, even shameful, just as some of those "worst stories" are shameful.
And then there are the conclusions made by the report, which conclusions really have no relationship to the stories. One of those conclusions is that it was simply wrong for the CRC to go to do Rehoboth (see page 40 of the report). That is an astounding conclusion, and if correct, really means we need to put an end to both home and foreign missions, because those efforts will be accompanied by "bad stories" as well -- its simply unavoidable this side of the second coming. This astonishing conclusion also represents a clear condemnation of the actions, sometimes representing the better part of some peoples' lives, of many CRC/CRCHM people, not to mention indigenous people who worked with this effort, taken over a century of time.
Another conclusion of the report, embedded throughout the report even if not so concisely stated, is that whatever bad actions of the the Pope back in the 15th century, and by others for centuries thereafter, that might in any tangential way be connected to the phrase "Doctrine of Discovery," are the responsibility of the CRC, including CRC agencies and members. The reasoning to support this conclusion is the mere repetitive stating of a cliche: we "drink downstream" from what was done. Wow! Given this almost glib technique for assessing responsibility, the CRC, including its agencies and all its members, are literally also responsible for the burning death of Guido de Bres (in the16th century), and probably the slavery of Irish, the slavery of Africans, the invasion of China by the Japanese, World War I, and million other things as well.
No, I'm not at all exaggerating, or at least no more than this report does. If we can be said to be responsible because we "drink downstream" from a few Papal bulls in the 15th century, we can be said to "drink downstream" from pretty much every significant event in human history beginning in the 15th century. This why I've previously characterized this report as little more than an exercise in self-loathing. It reminds me of some uber-liberal faculty members at some US university (I personally picture the University of Oregon), sitting in a circle, competing with each other in hurling accusations against "America," and especially the "white Europeans who came to American," of spoiling/destroying the world and oppressing everyone else in the process -- except in this case the accused is the CRC and its agencies and members.
The U of O faculty wouldn't permit any "buts" in their discussion either.
Indeed, advocating is not all that hard. The far more difficult thing is figuring out exactly what to advocate for. It's a tip of the iceberg vs the base of the iceberg thing, maybe a lot worse.
Especially when we claim to represent others when we advocate -- like OSJ does -- it is really important that we question whether our advocates really have the subject matter expertise as well as the analysis/decision making skills and experiences that one should have when he/she leads others (advocating is leading).
In the CRC, for example, we require that pastors have considerable formal education, and other training/experience, before we allow them to lead/advocate as a pastor does in our churches. Those pastors are equipped, for example, to do their own original research, knowing the original biblical languages, before suggesting what scripture says when they stand behind a pulpit. They have formal degrees and real training from "industry experts." This is so important to us, we've decided, that we've established a school where just these things are taught as a specialized area of concern. The degrees conferred as specially name.
Question: does the CRC do likewise when it takes on the role of advocating about political, legal, ecomomic and scientific matters in behalf of, and to, CRC members? What is the preparation/experience of those who advocate in the denomination's (our) behalf about these matters?
The advocacy that is being discussed in this article is not, as you characterize it Kris, "advoca[cy] with people who are oppressed or on the margins" but rather lobbying of the government to persuade it to pass certain legislation, done for and behalf of the CRC and its members. The difference is enormous.
If I advocate in behalf of others that the government pass this law or that law, I should have the expertise/ability to be able to competently evaluate "this law or that law," as well as the likely effects of passing this or that law. The requirement to be competent should not be ignored by my saying I'm merely "advocat[ing] with people who are oppressed or on the margins" -- saying that doesn't accurately express what I am doing.
Let's bring this concretely to the "advocacy" (more accurately and commonly called lobbying) discussed in this article. If I were to lobby government in behalf of a client/constituency as to the Global Food Security Act (whether pro or con), I would probably want to read the intended statute (the bill). I'm a lawyer and so I would of course bring that set of skills and experiences to bear in reading it. I can read the nuances of "legal language," and I know from experience that drafted bills are often intentionally deceptive in some ways, as evidenced when bills are so often given names to suggest they have an effect other than what have. It is not uncommon, for example, for large companies or industries to want legislation that benefits them (allows them to sell goods/services) and so they lobby for bills that purport to help those in need (their intended revenue source). Thus, for example, if the US dairy industry wanted more revenue from its surplus supply of milk, it might propose to the government that it pass nice sounding legislation, like "Global Food Security Act," which predominantly benefitted the dairy industry by requiring the federal government to buy the industry's powdered milk supplies and delivery them to third world counties overseas.
After reading the bill, I would then want to check out more details about the potential problems I found with the bill. For example, would this law really just help the US dairy industry by giving milk supplies to lactose intolerant third world populations? Or, do the provisions in the proposed law virtually guarantee that in some, many or most cases, the real recipients will be corrupt governments or not-so-corrupt governments that are allowed to intercept or repurpose funds given them?
Another thing I'd likely want to examine as to a law of this kind is how much "hurting more than helping" it might do. If, for example, the proposed law would export powdered milk to third world countries, would it be having the effect of destroying or damaging a local milk industry in some of those countries? That would be nice the US dairy industry but damaging to dairy providers in those other countries (who can compete with the price of zero after all?)
These are the kind of inquiries/investigations hired lobbyists (which OSJ is when it engages in activities aimed at passing legislation) should make/do as to any legislation it lobbies for. And doing those inquiries/investigations required expertise and experience.
So when this article concludes with "You can advocate on any issue [too] ...", I think it is important to point out that "advocating" (lobbying) for or against legislation, done well, involves much, much more than just convincing people to say "yes" or "no," or getting CRC members to tell their political representatives to say "yes" or "no," to proposed legislation. The latter is, as I said, just the tip of the iceberg, at least if the lobbying is to be done well.
I would certainly appreciate, off-line if you like (you have my email address), an indication of credentials OSJ brings to bear when it lobbies for or against legislation like the Global Food Security Act.
I would hope that millenials, and all other age defined groups for that matter, predominantly serve outside of the institutional church. This is not to say they shouldn't serve within the institutional church as well, but it needs to be understood that we serve (or should serve) in all that we do, and that message ought to be a core message of the (preaching and teaching and encouraging) institutional church to all its members.
I think the more the institutional church effectively teaches this Calvinist/Reformed/Kuyperian message, the more members will be convicted that all they do should be service to their Creator, and the more they are so convicted, the more they will connect to, and serve in, their institutional church, even if most of their service to their their Lord is done outside the institutional church.
Posted in: The Beautiful Mess of a Multigenerational Church
I can't imagine being a part of a church that is not intergenerational. It seems to me such a church is less than what it should be. I've never been a member of one that wasn't intergenerational.
This makes me think, though, of neighborhoods that are demographically stratified, by age, ethnicity, economic class, or whatever. Those too are less than what they should be, for essentially the same reason.
Posted in: Five Steps to Denominational Renewal - Part 1
One key to strengthening the thread between the denomination and it's local churches is the denomination giving up its claim to act as political lobbyist and expert for its members. Church Order Article 28 requires it but has been ignored.
Indeed, the "doing more together" cliche has been used by a minority of CRCers (who have the lion's share of denomination level power) to establish a political platform (planks on federal policy on climate change, federal policy on public welfare benefits, federal policy on immigration, etc) for all CRCers (that is, for all members of local CRC congregations).
My own local church does not presume to speak for me as to national or state or even local government policy. Why should my denomination? Again of course, CO Article 28 says it should not, even may not, but it does anyway. And of course that is a breach of trust and covenant committment. No wonder the thread is thin.
I think denominations are very valuable, but as ecclesiastical institutions, not as political, scientific, or political think tank (etc) institutions. Of course, this thinking (Kuyperian social sphere sovereignty) is not at all new, even if increasingly ignored at the denominational level of the CRC.
Posted in: Welcoming Refugees: It's Who We Are
This article characterizes the US as "debat[ing] to shut[] down its refugee resettlement completely," but the Canadians as "being applauded for its increase in hospitality, welcoming 29,817 Syrian refugees this year alone." But according to the Pew Research Center (see at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/16/nearly-half-of-refugees-entering-the-u-s-this-year-are-muslim/) the US "... has received 28,957 Muslim refugees so far in fiscal year 2016, or nearly half (46%) of the more than 63,000 refugees who have entered the country since the fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2015...," which doesn't count those "27,556 Christian refugees" allowed in "so far this fiscal year."
In other words, the US is not being a refugee grinch and Canada is not, by comparison, being a refugee Santa Claus.
I would agree with the author that Christians ought to play a role in welcoming refugees that are admitted to their country. At the same time, I believe the political discussion (or debate) about middle east refugees -- including by Christians -- ought to be far more constructive and nuanced than simply 'let's see how many refugees our country can take in.'
While I don't at all take Trump's stated position on immigration (although I'm not actually sure what that is from day to day), I do tend to see the the middle east refugee question to be remarkably complicated and would favor, politically speaking, providing much more assistance to Jordan and possibly other middle east countries as they provide refugee camps that would keep Syrians near their own home country, for example. It seems to me that the permanent resettlement of refugees in foreign countries should be a disfavored solution, even for the sake of the refugees, many/most of which don't want to leave their home country.
We do well to separate questions of personal action given the political decisions already made, from the question of the political policies we advocate for. Too often, we don't do that, assuming the two questions are only one.
Posted in: Let’s Play “Banner Editor for a Day”
My headline:
Discerning what it is to be an institutional church denomination in a hyper-politicized culture - what should it mean, and not mean, to be CRC?
Posted in: Is the Agenda for Synod Too Long?
A big part of the time problem is the creeping expansion of what is taken up at the denominational level (including at snod). Why, for example, should synod be taking up a 500 year old series of papal bulls issued by a couple of Roman Catholic popes (Doctrine of Discovery). There were no churches or classes who asked for synod to take that up (rather, it came from a handful of people on the creation care study committee, procedurally anomalous as that may be).
The general "political atmosphere" in our surrounding culture had become a seeming irrisistable temptation to take up, at the highest level (synod), too many things that an institutional church (including the CRC, see Church Order Article 28) just shouldn't be taking up. Even if some of those issues are important, there is a time, place, and one or more othet institutions for taking them up.
Synod will have plenty to take up if it listens to its own rules (again, CO Article 28) and resists the temptation to take up what is outside the institutional church sphere. And it can do a better job if it focuses on that more limited plate full of issues.
Posted in: Homosexuality and Holy Uncertainty
This is an intriguing article, and it certainly introduces to the discussion (whatever exactly the question is, which really isn't defined) a new thinking twist, but I wonder this: about what can we, should we, do we not already have in all things, "holy uncertainty," or perhaps just uncertainty (I'm not sure how one might distinguish between "holy" and "unholy," or even "regular," uncertainty).
Do we have, should we have, "holy uncertainty" about the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection? No doubt, all lack faith, just as Jesus' own disciples did. That condition is certainly "uncertainty," and it is quite genuine -- is it "holy uncertainty," "unholy uncertainty," or "regular uncertainty?"
In other words, is the suggestion that we should have "holy uncertainty" about homosexuality (again, whatever the question precisely is) at all helpful? Are we all not somewhat like Rene Descartes, after all, who had some doubt about any and all propositions in his search for truth until he stumbled on the notion of "I think, therefore I am." But of course his skeptical contemporaries, the Pyhronians, declared essentially that they "doubted that the doubted" in rebuke of Descartes. Christians have historically lived in opposition to Descartes "rationalism" -- should we now reconsider this?
In other words, having doubt is rather ubiquitous in all facets of human affairs. Does rephrasing it as "holy uncertainty" really help in the discussion of whatever exactly this question is? I'm not so sure -- or, to put it another way, I'm having "holy uncertainty" about this "holy uncertainty."
Posted in: Homosexuality and Holy Uncertainty
Deja vu to the era of Abraham Kuyper, who moved from one hermeneutical approach early in life to a different one later. Of course (I would suggest), the shift in this case is reversed from the shift made by Kuyper.
I suspect this perception of hermeneutical change is of far more concern to many CRCers than the SSM issue. It is to me.
Posted in: Why the Church Should Pay Attention to the DOD Task Force
Your response to Ron Polinder, Peter, is intriguing to me -- even a bit stunning if I am to be honest.
You say, as I read it (see statements: "The report is definitely not balanced - and it was not intended to be. It concentrates on the missing, difficult, uncomfortable (for me) pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story" and also, " there was considerable discussion on this point in the committee. In the end, it became clear to us that we needed to present the less admirable elements of European cultural heritage and Christian missions rather clearly and without an attempt to balance each negative observation, historical reference, or - most importantly - personal story with a positive observation, historical reference, or personal story."), that your committee deliberately presented 'one side of the story' in this report for the explicit purpose of making the CRC/CRCHM 100+ year involvement in Rehoboth look extra bad.
Let me suggest a real world metaphor to explain my cause for being stunned. I grew up in NW Iowa at a time (1960s and 70's) when much was different from now. I've occasionally remarked to others -- lawyer that I am -- that if my family's life was plucked from history, its practices discovered and measured by current standards, the government's child protection agency would have permanently removed me from my home. Why? Physical abuse (working more than most adults do today), housing abuse (we had no indoor toilet, a broken down house -- literally --, and lack of any heating system upstairs where we slept in Iowa winters), and some other reasons. Were the negative aspects of my upbringing extracted by a CRC study committee and reported without context, my parents would be abhored, despised, and thought of as true agents of evil by the report's readers. And so would many other farm parents in NW Iowa who had children my age.
And I suspect that some now-adults who were children raised in NW Iowa at that time, in those families, might today come to the CRC study committee and tell dark but true stories, and the study committee could choose to "concentrate" (as you say) on these "missing, difficult, uncomfortable ... pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story," as you also say -- and a generation of NW Iowa farming parents would be thereafter defamed in the now-older years of their lives.
Yes, I use the word "defamed" with careful intention, because if my and other parents were subjected to the methodology apparently used, as you describe, by this study committee, the result would indeed be the defamation of my parents. Not, mind you, because of the facts told, but because of the facts not told, because of the historical and other context not offered, because of the unwillingness of the study committee to hear or report on the "buts" that the committee says in this report it didn't want to listen to or report on.
This kind of "defamation by selective reporting" is not an uncommon phenomena. If you have ever sat in a jury, or even watched a trial, you are familiar with the reality of a group of people (jury) being fully persuaded after one side gives its opening remarks, or after it presents its evidence, or after its closing arguments, but then brought back to reality when the other side has opportunity to present its "buts."
This study report intentionally presents only one side!! How in the world does that result in anything good? How does that methodogy not result in defamation?
In your response to Ron, you point to the use of the word "pagan" as a word inexcusably used in the past by CRC/CRCHM folk at Rehoboth. Huh? Except for the acquired stigma attached to the word in the past couple/few decades, the word "pagan" was a perfectly good word to use to denote (and I quote a dictionary definition), "1. a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions." Which brings up another "arc of the whole truth" problem with the committee's methodology. This report judges over 100 years of historical action (and, apparently, vocabulary used) by today's standards, as told (intentionally!) from only one side to boot. Again, wow!
Not mentioned in your above comment to Ron, but directly said in the report, this committee has concluded that the CRC/CRCHM should never have ever gone to New Mexico, that doing so was wrong. What an incredible conclusion. On the other hand, when one intentionally chooses to reduce a real life story down to a distilled concentrate of only that which was bad, I'm not sure you could reach another conclusion. But using this methodology would also result in the conclusion that my parents were wrong to give birth to me, and once given, continue to raise me.
To be perfectly clear, I have no case to make against my parents. And I suspect many parents and their grown children have conversations later in life when the kids express disappointments, anger and other negatives about their childhood and parents bemoan exactly and confess as to how they raised their children. I've done that some with my kids already. And in fact, this same sort of thing happened in the Reboboth community as well -- about 13 years ago! Given that, I'm baffled that a CRC study committee would want to attempt to do what this report does, just as if it would want to resurrect the regrets of my 1960s/1970s childhood family.
Finally, your comments also suggest that a major purpose of this report is so that we can "see[] ... a much larger critique of European-American cultural and religious values - not just a critique of Rehoboth and CRC Indian missions." As the report makes clear, that larger story begins several papal bulls (pronouncement by the Roman Catholic Pope) back in the 15th century?
Does enriching our historical understanding of a Roman Catholic doctrine starting in the 15th century really trump the harm of defaming so many who did so much good work at Rehoboth for over a century? If so, we really ought to be going back to studying the death of Guido de Bres, author of our own Belgic Confession. De Bres and his contemporaries were murdered by the combined efforts of the Roman Catholic Church (and Pope) and the Spanish king nearly a century after the start of the Doctrine of Discovery. No, I don't seriously make that suggestion, but indicate it to give some context to the value, or lack thereof, of defaming CRC/CRCHM people who did good work and honorable work at Rehoboth, so that we might better understand the permutations of a historical Roman Catholic doctrine from over half a millennium ago.
Posted in: Why the Church Should Pay Attention to the DOD Task Force
Danielle, I'm not unaware of the stories you refer to, including the details of some. They are not unlike what I would expect. But that doesn't really address or affect the points I've made.
You are involved in the indigenous issues in Canada, which is good. But if I understand correctly, the CRC was not involved in any indigenous schools in Canada. This is not to say you should discontinue your work in Canada on those issues, but it is to say that whatever whoever did in Canada should not be imputed in any to the CRC or CRCHM.
What the CRC/CRCHM did do was Rehoboth/Zuni. It certainly is appropriate to examine the record of the CRC/CRCHM in Rehoboth but when one does that (whether individually or as a study committee), one has to do it appropriately. Intentionally distilling over a century of CRC/CRCHM involvement in Rehoboth to its worst stories, refusing to consider/relate historical or cultural content in order to focus on the bad, is irresponsible, even shameful, just as some of those "worst stories" are shameful.
And then there are the conclusions made by the report, which conclusions really have no relationship to the stories. One of those conclusions is that it was simply wrong for the CRC to go to do Rehoboth (see page 40 of the report). That is an astounding conclusion, and if correct, really means we need to put an end to both home and foreign missions, because those efforts will be accompanied by "bad stories" as well -- its simply unavoidable this side of the second coming. This astonishing conclusion also represents a clear condemnation of the actions, sometimes representing the better part of some peoples' lives, of many CRC/CRCHM people, not to mention indigenous people who worked with this effort, taken over a century of time.
Another conclusion of the report, embedded throughout the report even if not so concisely stated, is that whatever bad actions of the the Pope back in the 15th century, and by others for centuries thereafter, that might in any tangential way be connected to the phrase "Doctrine of Discovery," are the responsibility of the CRC, including CRC agencies and members. The reasoning to support this conclusion is the mere repetitive stating of a cliche: we "drink downstream" from what was done. Wow! Given this almost glib technique for assessing responsibility, the CRC, including its agencies and all its members, are literally also responsible for the burning death of Guido de Bres (in the16th century), and probably the slavery of Irish, the slavery of Africans, the invasion of China by the Japanese, World War I, and million other things as well.
No, I'm not at all exaggerating, or at least no more than this report does. If we can be said to be responsible because we "drink downstream" from a few Papal bulls in the 15th century, we can be said to "drink downstream" from pretty much every significant event in human history beginning in the 15th century. This why I've previously characterized this report as little more than an exercise in self-loathing. It reminds me of some uber-liberal faculty members at some US university (I personally picture the University of Oregon), sitting in a circle, competing with each other in hurling accusations against "America," and especially the "white Europeans who came to American," of spoiling/destroying the world and oppressing everyone else in the process -- except in this case the accused is the CRC and its agencies and members.
The U of O faculty wouldn't permit any "buts" in their discussion either.
Posted in: Advocacy Works!
Indeed, advocating is not all that hard. The far more difficult thing is figuring out exactly what to advocate for. It's a tip of the iceberg vs the base of the iceberg thing, maybe a lot worse.
Especially when we claim to represent others when we advocate -- like OSJ does -- it is really important that we question whether our advocates really have the subject matter expertise as well as the analysis/decision making skills and experiences that one should have when he/she leads others (advocating is leading).
In the CRC, for example, we require that pastors have considerable formal education, and other training/experience, before we allow them to lead/advocate as a pastor does in our churches. Those pastors are equipped, for example, to do their own original research, knowing the original biblical languages, before suggesting what scripture says when they stand behind a pulpit. They have formal degrees and real training from "industry experts." This is so important to us, we've decided, that we've established a school where just these things are taught as a specialized area of concern. The degrees conferred as specially name.
Question: does the CRC do likewise when it takes on the role of advocating about political, legal, ecomomic and scientific matters in behalf of, and to, CRC members? What is the preparation/experience of those who advocate in the denomination's (our) behalf about these matters?
Posted in: Advocacy Works!
The advocacy that is being discussed in this article is not, as you characterize it Kris, "advoca[cy] with people who are oppressed or on the margins" but rather lobbying of the government to persuade it to pass certain legislation, done for and behalf of the CRC and its members. The difference is enormous.
If I advocate in behalf of others that the government pass this law or that law, I should have the expertise/ability to be able to competently evaluate "this law or that law," as well as the likely effects of passing this or that law. The requirement to be competent should not be ignored by my saying I'm merely "advocat[ing] with people who are oppressed or on the margins" -- saying that doesn't accurately express what I am doing.
Let's bring this concretely to the "advocacy" (more accurately and commonly called lobbying) discussed in this article. If I were to lobby government in behalf of a client/constituency as to the Global Food Security Act (whether pro or con), I would probably want to read the intended statute (the bill). I'm a lawyer and so I would of course bring that set of skills and experiences to bear in reading it. I can read the nuances of "legal language," and I know from experience that drafted bills are often intentionally deceptive in some ways, as evidenced when bills are so often given names to suggest they have an effect other than what have. It is not uncommon, for example, for large companies or industries to want legislation that benefits them (allows them to sell goods/services) and so they lobby for bills that purport to help those in need (their intended revenue source). Thus, for example, if the US dairy industry wanted more revenue from its surplus supply of milk, it might propose to the government that it pass nice sounding legislation, like "Global Food Security Act," which predominantly benefitted the dairy industry by requiring the federal government to buy the industry's powdered milk supplies and delivery them to third world counties overseas.
After reading the bill, I would then want to check out more details about the potential problems I found with the bill. For example, would this law really just help the US dairy industry by giving milk supplies to lactose intolerant third world populations? Or, do the provisions in the proposed law virtually guarantee that in some, many or most cases, the real recipients will be corrupt governments or not-so-corrupt governments that are allowed to intercept or repurpose funds given them?
Another thing I'd likely want to examine as to a law of this kind is how much "hurting more than helping" it might do. If, for example, the proposed law would export powdered milk to third world countries, would it be having the effect of destroying or damaging a local milk industry in some of those countries? That would be nice the US dairy industry but damaging to dairy providers in those other countries (who can compete with the price of zero after all?)
These are the kind of inquiries/investigations hired lobbyists (which OSJ is when it engages in activities aimed at passing legislation) should make/do as to any legislation it lobbies for. And doing those inquiries/investigations required expertise and experience.
So when this article concludes with "You can advocate on any issue [too] ...", I think it is important to point out that "advocating" (lobbying) for or against legislation, done well, involves much, much more than just convincing people to say "yes" or "no," or getting CRC members to tell their political representatives to say "yes" or "no," to proposed legislation. The latter is, as I said, just the tip of the iceberg, at least if the lobbying is to be done well.
I would certainly appreciate, off-line if you like (you have my email address), an indication of credentials OSJ brings to bear when it lobbies for or against legislation like the Global Food Security Act.
Posted in: Are Millennials Looking Outside the Church to Serve?
I would hope that millenials, and all other age defined groups for that matter, predominantly serve outside of the institutional church. This is not to say they shouldn't serve within the institutional church as well, but it needs to be understood that we serve (or should serve) in all that we do, and that message ought to be a core message of the (preaching and teaching and encouraging) institutional church to all its members.
I think the more the institutional church effectively teaches this Calvinist/Reformed/Kuyperian message, the more members will be convicted that all they do should be service to their Creator, and the more they are so convicted, the more they will connect to, and serve in, their institutional church, even if most of their service to their their Lord is done outside the institutional church.