This article claims "The Creation Stewardship Task Force Report does not take its own position on climate change science, precisely because the Task Force members collectively were not experts in climate science."
I disagree with this claim. The report and Synod's actions based on the report do indeed take positions as to questions of climate change science, as well as about statistical analysis and polling (what scientists believe what), and chooses among the various positions highly qualified climate scientists hold to boot.
Synod 2012 said:
"... climate change poses a significant threat to future generations, the poor, and the vulnerable" "... climate change poses a significant challenge to us all"
The above statements cannot be made without presupposing (taking positions as to) conclusions about climate change science. To assert the above but deny taking a position on climate change science is a baffling proposition that makes no sense.
Synod 2012 also said:
"It is the current near-consensus of the international scientific community that climate change is occurring and is very likely due to human activity"
The above is also a scientific statement, even if the fields of science relate not to climate change but polling and statistics. I disagreed then and disagree now that there is a near consensus of the international scientific community about climate change. The Task Force and Synod simply assumed it did.
And to say, "... and is very likely due to human activity" is a statement that on it face lacks scientific seriousness. Are we to believe that only humans constitute 100% of the activity that creates climate change? Of course not--no one believes that. So what does the statement mean? Good question--lacking any good answer, but a political point was made despite the scientific ambiguity of what was said.
The fact is, all climate change questions have been deeply enmeshed with political questions, such that real scientific answers are hard to come by. These days, even honest scientific answers are hard to come by. Such is the reality, even within the scientific community, when questions become highly politicized, and there are few if any sets of scientific questions (plural) today that have become more politicized than those involving climate change.
Both the Task Force and Synod intentionally accepted and adopted answers provided by some highly qualified climate scientists and rejected the answers provided by other highly qualified climate scientists. In fact, almost all of answers by all climate scientists result in part (how much is not known) from conjecture, from making assumptions and projecting off those assumptions. All climate computer model use assumptions in their algorithms and project/predict based in significant (perhaps critical?) part on those assumptions. Even the IPCC makes its claims in the form of "degrees of certainty," which by definition means it acknowledges and has concluded that answers given about climate change are based in part on assumptions made, that is, on conjecture.
I'm not suggesting these aren't important questions, nor that climate change questions don't involve moral or ethical concerns. The questions are important and do involve moral and ethical concerns. But there are millions of questions (involving human actions or human responses to circumstances) that are important and all of them involve morality and ethics. Should legal systems use "code pleading" or "notice pleading?" That's an important question in my world, law, about which I have a strong opinion and it too involves morality, ethics--and justice even? Whatever the right answer is to this question, my church (the CRCNA) should not "take a stand" one way or another.
CRC members should be allowed to decide for themselves on all sorts of questions, scientific, political and otherwise, that involve morality and ethics. Should "we" pursue nuclear fission power production or put our bet on nuclear fusion production? Should "we" ban GMO foods or allow them? Should "we" build a high speed rail transportation system in California? Should "we" try to establish a human colony on Mars? Should "we" restrict the number of satellites in orbit to avoid space becoming a junk yard? Should "we" regulate the internet more than is currently done? Should "we" have a single-payor healthcare system in the US? Should "we" break up Amazon, Facebook and Google under the Clayton Antitrust Act? Should "we" stand in solidarity with the citizens of Hong Kong who as I type are marching in mass to resist a proposed law that would allow China to extradite people from Hong Kong to China? Should "we" impeach Donald Trump? Should "we" become a "democratic socialist" country, ala Bernie Sanders? Should "we" support the Venezualan people in their current attempt to overthrown their dictator who refuses to leave? Should "we" have an independent Federal Reserve System? Should US public school be mandated to teach Spanish? Should "we" have an open border?
I could go on of course, with not hundreds but thousands -- even millions -- of other questions on which the CRC could "take a position on" as to issues clearly not ecclesiastical but yet "important" (even very important) and that clearly involve moral and ethical concerns.
We need to be more honest about resisting the temptation to make the denomination our megaphone for our personal positions on ALL of these questions and the millions more the CRC could take up. One overture to Synod 2019 wants the CRC to take a stand against Israeli injustice to the Palestinians, a set of questions not as complicated as climate change perhaps but also far more complicated than the overture authors are willing to admit, and also clearly not ecclesiastical.
Let's start being more honest here. Let's abandon our political ways. The institutional church has enough work to do (and disagree about) without taking on questions that are not ecclesiastical. To be clear, the organic church should take on literally everything, politics included (hey, I've done law and politics for my entire adult life), but the institutional (CRC) church should NOT, and it long ago recognized that it shouldn't in creating Article 28 of its Church Order. Let's choose the wiser path.
Tom: If these facts are so, so clear and indisputable, we certainly don't need Synod to tell reiterate the clear and indisputable facts.
Readers can make up their own minds about whether they think the institutional CRC should be the arbitrators about this facts for all its members, but I do have a question for you though: where does this stop? About what questions that I listed and the thousands more beyond that, all of which involve moral and ethical issues, should the institutional CRC refuse to be the arbitrators for all its members?
It seems to me you make no distinction between the institutional CRC and the organic church. I think that's our baseline difference.
I quite agree with Keith. Despite the claim that "Synod is a deliberative body," I think Synod lacks the time to be just that. There is, in my view, just no way Synod can adequately, deliberately, take up all that is required of it in one week. I thought two weeks was hard, one is closer to simply impossible. Of course, more deliberation time is available to advisory committee (they have only a subset to deal with and so can focus), but I think they are strained also.
This time inadequacy is compounded by the fact that the denomination is taking up more and more (our increasing forays into the political world just increases the amount to deal with).
My prediction is that as the years go by, more and more will be "really done" by the COD and with agents of the denomination (e.g., Exec Dir, OSJ, ...), and Synods themselves will be quick stamp of "yeah" or "nay" based on deliberation far more akin to a Twitter conversation than real deliberation. Case in point: Synod 2019 told the COD to figure out what is ecclesiastical and what is not (CO Art 28). A punt, but really, what is the alternative?
Predicting again, another result of this will be a greater inclination to "split the baby" on issues brought to it. Some folks really want this and that while some folk really oppose it. OK, decide something in the middle, especially given that Synod is running out of time. Try to make everyone happy.
Thanks for this John. Your question #10 is indeed the summary conclusion. I am increasingly befuddled by the idea that some CRC assemblies have, Synod included, that they can meaningfully "address" infinitely complex political issues (which are almost always the media hot topics of the day) they know little to nothing about in detail by delegating "all those details" to a CRC agency.
We are becoming stooges of the political/media spin machinery that is becoming increasingly pervasive in the US, all the while thinking we are "champions of social justice" because we are able to point to a supposed injustice we in fact know little about and tell something else to "do something about that."
Excellent summary John. My hope and prayer is that Synod will know of the existent of CO Article 28, understand the wisdom of it, and not accede to the overture for the reason that the actions it calls for are largely "out of order" (contradictory to the constraints of CO Article 28, which apply to Synod as much as the other assemblies), not to mention divisive and requiring of non-ecclesiastical expertise that a week-long session of Synod is simply unable to achieve.
So, Martin, if OSJ was staffed with people that happened to seriously disagree with the the Shannon Jammal-Hollemans analysis (or saw that analysis as simply incomplete), or disagree with the perspective the present OSJ staff, or the perspective that you have, would they no longer be promoting "truth, righteousness [and] justice" (among other things)?
Is only one of us righteous, given that I seriously disagree with ou on this? And should the CRC, as an institution, pick who of us is righteous and who is not? And if the CRC should pick, how much of a staff, and with what qualifications, does it need to have to (constantly) analyze the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? (It involves a very, very, very long and complicated history). Should the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict maybe be part of the Calvin Sem curriculum so we can know from it what decisions to make about it, whose side to be on?
Or should the CRC take their research and summary conclusions from others outside the CRC who do study this in depth, but then if so, from whom?
And who is the editor (presumably the decider) of the Banner to decide which of the "news outlets" are saying that which is "really true?"
And what is the role of Synodical delegates who ultimately must decide these questions? Must they all educate themselves on the many decades long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before coming to a Synod (like 2019) where theirs are the votes that make these decisions?
Martin: You have much, much more confidence than I that some people who go to a place like Israel and spend a bit of time "on the ground" can thereby gather a sufficient amount of information and wisdom about a many decades old conflict (that in some ways relates back centuries and even millennia) to justify a group of 180 CRCers in a mere week long CRC Synod to intelligently declare in behalf of CRCers what CRC members should think about that conflict, as if such declarations are within our rules for the kinds of matters the CRC takes up (and they aren't, see CO Art 28).
I'm quite sure there are dozens, even hundreds or thousands of places in the world, where some CRCers could go for a relatively limited time and then come back to the US or Canada and ask a CRC Synod to declare some things about those countries and the conflicts they are in (e.g., Russia and Chechnya, China and Tibet, India and lots of internal areas that enforce the caste system, a variety of Muslim dominant countries that enforce Sharia law, and lots of third world countries that lack a meaningful criminal justice system or other basic government functions such that they operate as a large gang, etc etc etc). And yet in the middle of that dismal global picture, the CRC keeps coming back to picking only at the faults and failures of the nation of Israel. Might this have anything to do with with a generalized political perspective and the desire of some CRCers to use their denomination to megaphone those political perspectives? Of course I think that is exactly what this represents, and nothing that is particularly useful to anyone, anywhere, even if the politics of it add to the denominational division and strife.
Bev: Eric expresses what I would say pretty well. I'd have no problem with the institutional CRC studying, e.g., "replacement theology," or any number of theology postures that involve ancient and/or modern day Israel in some way. But this overture doesn't ask for that. It asks for the the Synod to bless a particular political view of Israel and the Palestinians as a modern day political conflict. CRCers certainly do well to be concerned about those issues (as well as the conflict between China and Tibetans, etc etc etc etc), but it is quite outside the responsibility (even the right) of the CRC as institution to pick which political postures are the correct ones and which not, or to delegate that ongoing picking authority to an agency (in this case, OSJ).
Overture 6's language may be "church language" but it calls for political action. Your last paragraph gets to the bottom line, Nick. You want the institutional CRCNA to get on board to 'stop the oppression,' and if that means tolerating bad motivation and bad theology, so be it. The oppression must be stopped.
Respectfully, I have had -- and have -- clients who have been both politically and legally oppressed (just as some would say Palestinians are oppressed by the government of Israel). Should the CRCNA get on board to help my clients? Because it could use the "language of the church" to do so?
Whatever the "language" used, this overture calls for political action, or as OSJ likes to phrase it, "advocacy," including on-going advocacy by OSJ. I know what that is because I've spent my life doing legal and political advocacy (the two kinds are often mixed in the real world, and are in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). This is what I have been trained to do, have experience doing, and have dedicated my occupational life to doing. The institutional CRC has its own distinct defined training, experience and dedication (the latter by CO Article 28, i.e., "ecclesiastical"). CRC synodical delegates are not chosen because of their political or legal training, experience, acumen, or even interest. Nor are Calvin seminary professors appointed for those reasons. Sure, what I do often touches the ecclesiastical (I represented churches, and people against churches) and what the institutional CRC church (properly) does touches on the political (when a church says humans are people knitted by God in their mother's womb, that can't not have political ramifications), but not every person (or institution) can do everything.
Christians, on the other hand, may certainly get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or not (humans are finite). And if they do (individually or together with others and/or via other institutions designed for that effort) but in ways I disagree with, their doing so is still their prerogative, my disagreement notwithstanding. But it simply does not follow that the institutional CRC must, or should, or may (again, referencing its own rules, e.g., CO Art 28). The institutional CRC has covenanted about what it does, and does not do, even if CRC members are not themselves so constrained. Eliminate or ignore those constraints and there is no longer a DEFINED institutional church. All institutions are, by definition demanded by real-world reality, limited in their task. Eliminate (or ignore) CO Art 28 and the CRC's very definition (and therefore unity) is compromised and diminished -- and then Synod becomes (among other things) a political battle field upon which members will (must?) fight.
No, it's not hard to "see some of the reasons for our denomination decline," but it's not just about this overture but also other overtures (over the years) that asked the CRC to venture deep into non-ecclesiatical (political) side-taking.
If any organization, institutional church or otherwise, expands its mandate (jurisdiction if you will), it risks division. And the more it expands (especially into the political unless it is a political organization), the more the risk. The reason is, or should be, obvious: the members of the organization didn't become part of the organization in order to "be one" as to matters the organization "was not about" when they joined. Real world translation: I'm not part of the CRC because I want the CRC to lobby and take positions on political issues in my behalf. (It was the same with the downtown Salem organization board I was on member of, and the Parrish Little League board I was a member of--when asked to take political positions, I said "no", whether I agreed with the political position or not).
Now I think political questions are really, really important and certainly one of Kuyper's "square inches" if you will, and I regularly join forces with others (in other organizations) to take those questions up, and when I do, I seek to do so from a deeply biblical perspective. Still, I'm not a member of the CRC in order to take up that square inch of life (there is a time and place to take up the questions involved in all square inches of life), and so I appreciate the CRC Church Order Art 28, by which CRC councils and members covenant that they will stick to "ecclesiastical matters" (translation: not attempt to become political activist representing all CRC members). Taking up this Overture 6 would break that covenant. It should be ruled "out of order" as a contravention to the constraints provided by our "Church Order covenant" (CO Art 28). I pray Synod does just that. The only other choice is to deepen division by forcing institutional consensus on a non-ecclesiatical matter.
Sure, Classis and Synod and Consistory and Council and Elder and Deacons -- and that's not even touching doctrine describing words -- are all strange words for some people who come to the CRC from outside of it. My church has quite a few "outsiders" in it, although none that I know of who care much one way or another about the need to assimilate a bit of a new vocabulary.
I don't much care about the words used although changing the words (including CRC agencies) tends to make some who know a bit about the broader denomination feel a bit like, well, "it must have changed, why otherwise would they change all the labels?" I personally tend to keep up with "things denominational," but most people in my church don't, and frankly, I like it that most of the people in my church focus on local things. There's only so much time in a day and so many days in a week, and everyone is busy. I'd rather see them focus on local things.
All of which would cause me to perhaps be on the side of leaving the names alone. Doing otherwise gives a sense to some (many?) who focus on local matters to seem even more separated from their denomination.
Speaking of which, should we also change the word "denomination"? :-) And while we are doing it, "Christian REFORMED Church" (many from the outside first think we are something like a "reform school"). :-) Please don't take that as a suggestion -- I think that, all things considered, we do well to choose stability and maintaining a sense of history.
Great article. The only thing I'd add is that the US Federal government has this problem too, in spades, as do a number of US States. The problem is pretty much the same even if the consequences of the latter are and will be more communal.
Posted in: Communication Regarding Overture 8 to Synod 2019
This article claims "The Creation Stewardship Task Force Report does not take its own position on climate change science, precisely because the Task Force members collectively were not experts in climate science."
I disagree with this claim. The report and Synod's actions based on the report do indeed take positions as to questions of climate change science, as well as about statistical analysis and polling (what scientists believe what), and chooses among the various positions highly qualified climate scientists hold to boot.
Synod 2012 said:
"... climate change poses a significant threat to future generations, the poor, and the vulnerable"
"... climate change poses a significant challenge to us all"
The above statements cannot be made without presupposing (taking positions as to) conclusions about climate change science. To assert the above but deny taking a position on climate change science is a baffling proposition that makes no sense.
Synod 2012 also said:
"It is the current near-consensus of the international scientific community that climate change is occurring and is very likely due to human activity"
The above is also a scientific statement, even if the fields of science relate not to climate change but polling and statistics. I disagreed then and disagree now that there is a near consensus of the international scientific community about climate change. The Task Force and Synod simply assumed it did.
And to say, "... and is very likely due to human activity" is a statement that on it face lacks scientific seriousness. Are we to believe that only humans constitute 100% of the activity that creates climate change? Of course not--no one believes that. So what does the statement mean? Good question--lacking any good answer, but a political point was made despite the scientific ambiguity of what was said.
The fact is, all climate change questions have been deeply enmeshed with political questions, such that real scientific answers are hard to come by. These days, even honest scientific answers are hard to come by. Such is the reality, even within the scientific community, when questions become highly politicized, and there are few if any sets of scientific questions (plural) today that have become more politicized than those involving climate change.
Both the Task Force and Synod intentionally accepted and adopted answers provided by some highly qualified climate scientists and rejected the answers provided by other highly qualified climate scientists. In fact, almost all of answers by all climate scientists result in part (how much is not known) from conjecture, from making assumptions and projecting off those assumptions. All climate computer model use assumptions in their algorithms and project/predict based in significant (perhaps critical?) part on those assumptions. Even the IPCC makes its claims in the form of "degrees of certainty," which by definition means it acknowledges and has concluded that answers given about climate change are based in part on assumptions made, that is, on conjecture.
I'm not suggesting these aren't important questions, nor that climate change questions don't involve moral or ethical concerns. The questions are important and do involve moral and ethical concerns. But there are millions of questions (involving human actions or human responses to circumstances) that are important and all of them involve morality and ethics. Should legal systems use "code pleading" or "notice pleading?" That's an important question in my world, law, about which I have a strong opinion and it too involves morality, ethics--and justice even? Whatever the right answer is to this question, my church (the CRCNA) should not "take a stand" one way or another.
CRC members should be allowed to decide for themselves on all sorts of questions, scientific, political and otherwise, that involve morality and ethics. Should "we" pursue nuclear fission power production or put our bet on nuclear fusion production? Should "we" ban GMO foods or allow them? Should "we" build a high speed rail transportation system in California? Should "we" try to establish a human colony on Mars? Should "we" restrict the number of satellites in orbit to avoid space becoming a junk yard? Should "we" regulate the internet more than is currently done? Should "we" have a single-payor healthcare system in the US? Should "we" break up Amazon, Facebook and Google under the Clayton Antitrust Act? Should "we" stand in solidarity with the citizens of Hong Kong who as I type are marching in mass to resist a proposed law that would allow China to extradite people from Hong Kong to China? Should "we" impeach Donald Trump? Should "we" become a "democratic socialist" country, ala Bernie Sanders? Should "we" support the Venezualan people in their current attempt to overthrown their dictator who refuses to leave? Should "we" have an independent Federal Reserve System? Should US public school be mandated to teach Spanish? Should "we" have an open border?
I could go on of course, with not hundreds but thousands -- even millions -- of other questions on which the CRC could "take a position on" as to issues clearly not ecclesiastical but yet "important" (even very important) and that clearly involve moral and ethical concerns.
We need to be more honest about resisting the temptation to make the denomination our megaphone for our personal positions on ALL of these questions and the millions more the CRC could take up. One overture to Synod 2019 wants the CRC to take a stand against Israeli injustice to the Palestinians, a set of questions not as complicated as climate change perhaps but also far more complicated than the overture authors are willing to admit, and also clearly not ecclesiastical.
Let's start being more honest here. Let's abandon our political ways. The institutional church has enough work to do (and disagree about) without taking on questions that are not ecclesiastical. To be clear, the organic church should take on literally everything, politics included (hey, I've done law and politics for my entire adult life), but the institutional (CRC) church should NOT, and it long ago recognized that it shouldn't in creating Article 28 of its Church Order. Let's choose the wiser path.
Posted in: Communication Regarding Overture 8 to Synod 2019
Tom: If these facts are so, so clear and indisputable, we certainly don't need Synod to tell reiterate the clear and indisputable facts.
Readers can make up their own minds about whether they think the institutional CRC should be the arbitrators about this facts for all its members, but I do have a question for you though: where does this stop? About what questions that I listed and the thousands more beyond that, all of which involve moral and ethical issues, should the institutional CRC refuse to be the arbitrators for all its members?
It seems to me you make no distinction between the institutional CRC and the organic church. I think that's our baseline difference.
Posted in: Synod 2019 Top Tweet(s) - Wednesday, June 19
I quite agree with Keith. Despite the claim that "Synod is a deliberative body," I think Synod lacks the time to be just that. There is, in my view, just no way Synod can adequately, deliberately, take up all that is required of it in one week. I thought two weeks was hard, one is closer to simply impossible. Of course, more deliberation time is available to advisory committee (they have only a subset to deal with and so can focus), but I think they are strained also.
This time inadequacy is compounded by the fact that the denomination is taking up more and more (our increasing forays into the political world just increases the amount to deal with).
My prediction is that as the years go by, more and more will be "really done" by the COD and with agents of the denomination (e.g., Exec Dir, OSJ, ...), and Synods themselves will be quick stamp of "yeah" or "nay" based on deliberation far more akin to a Twitter conversation than real deliberation. Case in point: Synod 2019 told the COD to figure out what is ecclesiastical and what is not (CO Art 28). A punt, but really, what is the alternative?
Predicting again, another result of this will be a greater inclination to "split the baby" on issues brought to it. Some folks really want this and that while some folk really oppose it. OK, decide something in the middle, especially given that Synod is running out of time. Try to make everyone happy.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Thanks for this John. Your question #10 is indeed the summary conclusion. I am increasingly befuddled by the idea that some CRC assemblies have, Synod included, that they can meaningfully "address" infinitely complex political issues (which are almost always the media hot topics of the day) they know little to nothing about in detail by delegating "all those details" to a CRC agency.
We are becoming stooges of the political/media spin machinery that is becoming increasingly pervasive in the US, all the while thinking we are "champions of social justice" because we are able to point to a supposed injustice we in fact know little about and tell something else to "do something about that."
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Excellent summary John. My hope and prayer is that Synod will know of the existent of CO Article 28, understand the wisdom of it, and not accede to the overture for the reason that the actions it calls for are largely "out of order" (contradictory to the constraints of CO Article 28, which apply to Synod as much as the other assemblies), not to mention divisive and requiring of non-ecclesiastical expertise that a week-long session of Synod is simply unable to achieve.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
So, Martin, if OSJ was staffed with people that happened to seriously disagree with the the Shannon Jammal-Hollemans analysis (or saw that analysis as simply incomplete), or disagree with the perspective the present OSJ staff, or the perspective that you have, would they no longer be promoting "truth, righteousness [and] justice" (among other things)?
Is only one of us righteous, given that I seriously disagree with ou on this? And should the CRC, as an institution, pick who of us is righteous and who is not? And if the CRC should pick, how much of a staff, and with what qualifications, does it need to have to (constantly) analyze the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? (It involves a very, very, very long and complicated history). Should the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict maybe be part of the Calvin Sem curriculum so we can know from it what decisions to make about it, whose side to be on?
Or should the CRC take their research and summary conclusions from others outside the CRC who do study this in depth, but then if so, from whom?
And who is the editor (presumably the decider) of the Banner to decide which of the "news outlets" are saying that which is "really true?"
And what is the role of Synodical delegates who ultimately must decide these questions? Must they all educate themselves on the many decades long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before coming to a Synod (like 2019) where theirs are the votes that make these decisions?
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Martin: You have much, much more confidence than I that some people who go to a place like Israel and spend a bit of time "on the ground" can thereby gather a sufficient amount of information and wisdom about a many decades old conflict (that in some ways relates back centuries and even millennia) to justify a group of 180 CRCers in a mere week long CRC Synod to intelligently declare in behalf of CRCers what CRC members should think about that conflict, as if such declarations are within our rules for the kinds of matters the CRC takes up (and they aren't, see CO Art 28).
I'm quite sure there are dozens, even hundreds or thousands of places in the world, where some CRCers could go for a relatively limited time and then come back to the US or Canada and ask a CRC Synod to declare some things about those countries and the conflicts they are in (e.g., Russia and Chechnya, China and Tibet, India and lots of internal areas that enforce the caste system, a variety of Muslim dominant countries that enforce Sharia law, and lots of third world countries that lack a meaningful criminal justice system or other basic government functions such that they operate as a large gang, etc etc etc). And yet in the middle of that dismal global picture, the CRC keeps coming back to picking only at the faults and failures of the nation of Israel. Might this have anything to do with with a generalized political perspective and the desire of some CRCers to use their denomination to megaphone those political perspectives? Of course I think that is exactly what this represents, and nothing that is particularly useful to anyone, anywhere, even if the politics of it add to the denominational division and strife.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Bev: Eric expresses what I would say pretty well. I'd have no problem with the institutional CRC studying, e.g., "replacement theology," or any number of theology postures that involve ancient and/or modern day Israel in some way. But this overture doesn't ask for that. It asks for the the Synod to bless a particular political view of Israel and the Palestinians as a modern day political conflict. CRCers certainly do well to be concerned about those issues (as well as the conflict between China and Tibetans, etc etc etc etc), but it is quite outside the responsibility (even the right) of the CRC as institution to pick which political postures are the correct ones and which not, or to delegate that ongoing picking authority to an agency (in this case, OSJ).
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Overture 6's language may be "church language" but it calls for political action. Your last paragraph gets to the bottom line, Nick. You want the institutional CRCNA to get on board to 'stop the oppression,' and if that means tolerating bad motivation and bad theology, so be it. The oppression must be stopped.
Respectfully, I have had -- and have -- clients who have been both politically and legally oppressed (just as some would say Palestinians are oppressed by the government of Israel). Should the CRCNA get on board to help my clients? Because it could use the "language of the church" to do so?
Whatever the "language" used, this overture calls for political action, or as OSJ likes to phrase it, "advocacy," including on-going advocacy by OSJ. I know what that is because I've spent my life doing legal and political advocacy (the two kinds are often mixed in the real world, and are in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). This is what I have been trained to do, have experience doing, and have dedicated my occupational life to doing. The institutional CRC has its own distinct defined training, experience and dedication (the latter by CO Article 28, i.e., "ecclesiastical"). CRC synodical delegates are not chosen because of their political or legal training, experience, acumen, or even interest. Nor are Calvin seminary professors appointed for those reasons. Sure, what I do often touches the ecclesiastical (I represented churches, and people against churches) and what the institutional CRC church (properly) does touches on the political (when a church says humans are people knitted by God in their mother's womb, that can't not have political ramifications), but not every person (or institution) can do everything.
Christians, on the other hand, may certainly get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or not (humans are finite). And if they do (individually or together with others and/or via other institutions designed for that effort) but in ways I disagree with, their doing so is still their prerogative, my disagreement notwithstanding. But it simply does not follow that the institutional CRC must, or should, or may (again, referencing its own rules, e.g., CO Art 28). The institutional CRC has covenanted about what it does, and does not do, even if CRC members are not themselves so constrained. Eliminate or ignore those constraints and there is no longer a DEFINED institutional church. All institutions are, by definition demanded by real-world reality, limited in their task. Eliminate (or ignore) CO Art 28 and the CRC's very definition (and therefore unity) is compromised and diminished -- and then Synod becomes (among other things) a political battle field upon which members will (must?) fight.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
No, it's not hard to "see some of the reasons for our denomination decline," but it's not just about this overture but also other overtures (over the years) that asked the CRC to venture deep into non-ecclesiatical (political) side-taking.
If any organization, institutional church or otherwise, expands its mandate (jurisdiction if you will), it risks division. And the more it expands (especially into the political unless it is a political organization), the more the risk. The reason is, or should be, obvious: the members of the organization didn't become part of the organization in order to "be one" as to matters the organization "was not about" when they joined. Real world translation: I'm not part of the CRC because I want the CRC to lobby and take positions on political issues in my behalf. (It was the same with the downtown Salem organization board I was on member of, and the Parrish Little League board I was a member of--when asked to take political positions, I said "no", whether I agreed with the political position or not).
Now I think political questions are really, really important and certainly one of Kuyper's "square inches" if you will, and I regularly join forces with others (in other organizations) to take those questions up, and when I do, I seek to do so from a deeply biblical perspective. Still, I'm not a member of the CRC in order to take up that square inch of life (there is a time and place to take up the questions involved in all square inches of life), and so I appreciate the CRC Church Order Art 28, by which CRC councils and members covenant that they will stick to "ecclesiastical matters" (translation: not attempt to become political activist representing all CRC members). Taking up this Overture 6 would break that covenant. It should be ruled "out of order" as a contravention to the constraints provided by our "Church Order covenant" (CO Art 28). I pray Synod does just that. The only other choice is to deepen division by forcing institutional consensus on a non-ecclesiatical matter.
Posted in: Time to Rename Classis?
Sure, Classis and Synod and Consistory and Council and Elder and Deacons -- and that's not even touching doctrine describing words -- are all strange words for some people who come to the CRC from outside of it. My church has quite a few "outsiders" in it, although none that I know of who care much one way or another about the need to assimilate a bit of a new vocabulary.
I don't much care about the words used although changing the words (including CRC agencies) tends to make some who know a bit about the broader denomination feel a bit like, well, "it must have changed, why otherwise would they change all the labels?" I personally tend to keep up with "things denominational," but most people in my church don't, and frankly, I like it that most of the people in my church focus on local things. There's only so much time in a day and so many days in a week, and everyone is busy. I'd rather see them focus on local things.
All of which would cause me to perhaps be on the side of leaving the names alone. Doing otherwise gives a sense to some (many?) who focus on local matters to seem even more separated from their denomination.
Speaking of which, should we also change the word "denomination"? :-) And while we are doing it, "Christian REFORMED Church" (many from the outside first think we are something like a "reform school"). :-) Please don't take that as a suggestion -- I think that, all things considered, we do well to choose stability and maintaining a sense of history.
Posted in: Don't Let This Creep Near You
Great article. The only thing I'd add is that the US Federal government has this problem too, in spades, as do a number of US States. The problem is pretty much the same even if the consequences of the latter are and will be more communal.