The CRC and the HSR

 

Calvin Seminary

Yesterday while walking along the canal, my friend Peggy told me that she had seen a news story in which a Christian Reformed pastor had walked out of  this year's Synod in protest over the Human Sexuality Report issues.  The Synod's reaction to the HSR is a story I have been following but when it becomes national news I am thinking it is worth recording in this blog.

Synod 2022 passed a resolution that made agreeing to the HSR a matter of confessional status.  That meant that to be a pastor or elder or deacon in the CRC one had to agree with a document that forbade marriage between gay individuals as well as engaging in sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.  Years ago there was also a multi-year controversy over women in office, but it was settled by allowing individual churches to make decisions.  This issue was not settled in that way but instead was made "confessional." 

Over the past year many churches including our own former church in South Bend sent overtures to classes and then on to Synod to temper this ruling.  However Synod 2023 reaffirmed the decision of Synod 2022 but with just one hour left to meet did leave the decision of how to discipline those who disagreed for another time.  So as one person we know who is greatly affected by this decision (teaches in a church-owned facility) said the hammer did not come down yet.  

A young man named Ryan Struyk wrote a passionate piece a few weeks ago on the 12Blog which I read daily.   He wrote of being baptized and raised in the CRC and now feeling rejected by them.  Ryan is a producer for CNN and thus the connection to the national news.  His father David Struyk, a CRC pastor and participant in Synod, stood up after the vote and spoke saying that he was walking out of Synod in protest.  That was the video on the national news with Jake Tapper, a CNN host, commending his action on Father's Day.  

Our church in South Bend considers itself an "affirming" church and a welcoming church.  What will happen to it now is a question to be answered in the next year or so.  There will be many affirming churches and pastors and professors at Calvin College and probably Calvin Seminary.  What will happen to their jobs and for that matter, their pensions?  What will happen to all the CRC employees in missions or denominational agencies?  

We are no longer members of the CRC but I am sad to see this judgemental attitude become official.  I am sad to see that it may divide the denomination into groups or even a new denomination.  It is possible that the affirming churches may join another denomination like the RCA (Reformed Church of America) which has also split up over this controversy. 

----------Two weeks later--we know of two people who were employed by the CRC who have resigned their positions--in one case being unemployed, in the other taking a job that she is very happy to have.