What it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ

Reflections on an im“modest proposal”
Lobbying for the congregational way

Arie C. Leder

Almost twenty years ago Henry De Moor lamented the growth of ecclesiastical individualism in the CRC (“The CRC on the ‘Congregational Way’?” (Calvin Theological Journal 23.1 [1988]: 54-60). Within the CRC such individualism means that a local church’s council considers itself not only as having original authority but also such original authority that the broader assemblies, classis and synod, may under no circumstances violate the integrity of that council. Thus, a classis has no authority to depose a council, nor would a synod have the authority to depose a classis or a council.

De Moor cites the Maranatha Case (1918), the Common Grace Controversy (1924), and the more recent Goderich Case (1980s) to the contrary. Nevertheless, he argues, local autonomy still “finds a greater hearing among us than does well-established synodical precedent.” He continues:

“An increasing number of church councils . . . no longer feel the need to seek the Spirit’s guidance in the broader assemblies of Christ’s church. One consistory decides to install women elders in defiance of the present denominational covenant, . . . ; another decides to withhold certain quotas as an expression of locally held views that are firmly set in concrete; yet another publishes a hymnal for local congregational use because the denominational liturgical literature is ‘too confining’.” (56-57)

Something old something new

Almost twenty years later, Sam Hamstra’s “A Modest Proposal” (The Banner, March 2007, 18-20) suggests that “the congregational way” may be healthier than ever before in the history of the CRC. Essentially practical and a-theological (for an "A"CRC), Hamstra represents the entrepreneurial, voluntarist ecclesiology that has increasingly characterized conversation about the nature and task of the CRC. Hardly the clear but flawed theological position of Nelson Kloosterman and Lester De Koster, advocates of the local autonomy De Moor cites.

Within twenty years, then, the discussion has moved from reflecting theologically on the nature of the local church as representing the mystical body of Christ, to arguing for a more effective local church on practical grounds: the denominational approach is not working, let’s try the post-modern non-denominational approach; no reflection on the denomination as ecumenism in its simplest form. As in business, so in the church: if one model doesn’t work, let’s try another. Of this approach to decision-making De Moor writes:

“It is not in prayerful gatherings of office-bearers who take each other seriously as agents of Christ’s leading but in the privacy of home or office that arguments and lobbying tactics are conceived. An atmosphere of battle is created and the struggle is carried out in the printed page and in unofficial assemblies that smack of party gatherings. Inevitably, in such an environment, it is almost impossible to keep classical and synodical meetings from descending to Congress-like politics. As in that arena, where special interest groups labor mightily to pressure a majority in the assemblies to opt for ‘our side’ or even to work out some compromise, no matter how distasteful, so in the church—this rather than a collegial searching for the leading of God. In our secular society, even church government is losing its ‘vertical dimension.’” (57)

Do ut des-des ut do

The latter part of the 20th century saw lobbying of the right and left become, almost, normal church business in the CRC. The price: a loss of tens of thousands in membership, a diminished ownership of our historic confessional identity, and a steady drift towards evangelical entrepreneurialism.

As De Moor describes it, then it was the “Committee of the Concerned” versus the “Establishment.” Soon it would be the Committee for Women in the Christian Reformed Church who sat in synodical delegates’ chairs during coffee breaks or appeared en masse, dressed in white, when Synod discussed women in office. Then, an agency which, without synodical approval, began classical renewal programs, political correctness that opened the door to ministry for uncalled and unqualified and anchored the ill-fated Crossroads anti-racism program, the office of Social Justice (although an official agency, it lobbies for social justice positions not approved by Synod, such as the solution to Third World debt, but fails to help congregations to work out our common decisions on abortion, for example), and, more recently, Hearts Aflame, a group lobbying against Synod 2006's decision on women delegates at the broader assemblies. The pressure tactics of the right De Moor decries in his 1988 article have become those of the another “wing” of the CRC.

Whether anchored in a theology of the supreme authority of the local church, the politics of lobbying, or well-meant political correctnesses, these pressure tactics are foreign to the Reformed church polity as understood in the CRC. They balkanize the CRC into interest groups difficult to reconcile with the theological minds of the CRC defined by Henry Stob (the theologically safe, the militant, the positive), Henry Zwaanstra (Confessional Reformed, Separatist Calvinist, American Calvinists), James Bratt (the positive neo-Calvinists, the Confessionalist-seceder, and the defensive and introverted neo-Calvinist). They do express, however, an Americanization of the CRC, but not one envisioned by the American Calvinists Zwaanstra discusses. Lobbying is the American thing to do.

Moreover, pressure tactics do not fit a keen understanding of the church as a community held together by an agreed upon covenant on the church polity level, nor on the ecclesiological level: the church as a community not created by our covenanting with one another, but created by a covenant solemnly sworn by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We don’t keep covenant because it’s good for us, or because it endorses a particular understanding of an issue, but because it is an essential part of our nature. Nor do we violate a covenant because the church does not satisfy what an individual, a local church, or an interest group believes ought to be true but is not, or not yet, agreed upon by the church. Temper tantrums are not approved ecclesiastical procedure.

Looking at our own heritage of differences

Edwin Chr. Van Driel, reflecting on the disputes and attempts at unity in the Episcopalian Church USA (ECUSA) writes (“God’s Covenant. What it means to be Church,” Christian Century, January 9, 2007, 8-9):

“It is God’s covenant that forms the basis of the church. Yes, those of us within the church will at some point find ourselves in disagreement. But our disagreements do not give us the right to suggest that one of us should leave the covenant–because it is God’s covenant, not ours. Nor do our disagreements give me the right to suggest that you should move to a table ‘further down’–because it is not my table you are invited to, but God’s table.”

“I’m not suggesting that the current disputes and differences in the churches are not serious, or that they do not reflect real and important theological differences. Still we are not invited to the covenant or the table on the basis of our theology; we were invited to the covenant long before we even had a theology. We are invited to the covenant because of grace.”

To make the point Van Driel rehearses the history of his own church, the former Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (NHK; he calls it NRC), now the Protestant Church of the Netherlands (PKN), the church which the ancestors of the CRC left in 1834. He writes:

“Some will say that this approach to church and covenant sacrifices truth for unity. I would suggest that we take a lesson from the history of the Netherlands Reformed Church. In the 19th century, some of its ministers denied the resurrection or the divinity of Christ; another minister famously claimed to be a follower of Buddha. The leadership of the church refused to uphold the church’s confessional standards. As a result, the majority of the church seemed to have lost its theological identity.

“In this situation the orthodox minority found itself divided into two camps on how to respond. One camp thought the church’s theological character should be restored by its members appealing to the church’s courts and synod. If this did not help, the members would leave the church. This became known as the juridical way. For several decades the juridical camp made its appeals, and when these were unsuccessful, members of the dissenting group left and formed the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (RCN). Meanwhile, the other minority group in the NRC followed the medical way: its members believed that as long as one is not prevented from preaching the gospel, one should never leave the church. They believed that the medicine of the gospel itself can heal a sick church, and although they were weakened by the loss of orthodox allies, members of this group continued to focus on preaching the gospel.

“The result seemed predictable. The RCN would become a conservative bulwark, its identity firmly protected by its juridical structure. The NRC would grow more and more liberal, with a slim and powerless conservative minority. But things turned out differently. One hundred years later the RCN found itself at the far left of the theological spectrum, and its international daughter churches, including the Christian Reformed Church in the U.S.A., declared themselves in impaired communion with their mother church. Meanwhile, in the 1930s and 1940s a spirit of renewal began to stir in the NRC. Liberals, middle-of-the-roaders and conservatives became discontented with the perceived theological wishy-washiness of the church.

“None of these groups gave up its particular approach to the gospel, but all realized that a church which does not firmly confesses its obedience to the gospel of Christ is null and void. In 1950 an overwhelming majority in the synod accepted a new, Christ-centered church order and restored the church’s ties to its confessional documents. The preaching of the gospel–and only the preaching–had healed the church.

“If this is what it means to be church, being church will never be easy. We find ourselves joined together with people we disagree with, people we do not necessarily like. But that is exactly what God’s covenant is all about: God reaches out to people who are not likable–people who are sinners. It is only because God graciously embraces these imperfect human beings that any of us have a chance to be included in God’s covenant.

“If this is what it means to be church, then being church is also profoundly countercultural. One reason why the Episcopalian left and right so easily embrace Archbishop Williams’s ideas may be that those ideas perfectly match the American emphasis on freedom and choice. If there is any place for the church to be countercultural, however, it is in situations in which we are called to remember our original covenant.

“‘You did not choose me but I chose you’ (John 15:16). As a church we are called, formed, judged and renewed not by our own choices, but only by God.” (8-9)

Now what?

In its solemn gatherings for worship and through all its assemblies, the CRC is an expression of the mystical body of Christ, who unites us to himself by the covenant he made in his blood. He made us before we made the CRC. That is our historic confession, warts and all. But none of those warts is the "congregational way," in any of its older or contemporary forms. Let’s keep the covenant into which Christ called us. Let’s keep the church polity covenant we believe best reflects that calling of our Lord.