In 1970 the CRC Synod appointed a study committee to advise the church as to what its position on homosexuality should be. The committee’s report is found on pages 475–499 of the Agenda for Synod 1973. Rev. John H. Piersma, pastor of the Bethany Christian Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois, deals with this report herewith.
The overture which called for the appointment of a Study Committee to study homosexuality came from Canada. Some of us might not know that there is a Council of the Christian Reformed Churches in Canada which meets annually, consisting of delegates from the several Canadian classes. So far as we know this Council has no official standing, although it does have some considerable political and moral influence in the Christian Reformed Church.
The Report is divided into two parts which might be called exposition and application. Here is a rundown of things we consider important and typical:
Under the heading Our Mandate and the Present Scene we are told that the church must take a stand because homosexuality is a growing problem in today’s society. This problem is found among us (“No one knows the number of homosexuals in our denomination but even if we take the most conservative statistical estimates we may conclude that our report concerns several thousand members who are living in this condition,” p. 478). Attitudes among us differ toward these people, and we “ought to develop a genuinely Christian and rehabilitative attitude toward these members.”
The occasion for this concern is the fact that in Canada legislation has been adopted declaring that “homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offence.” Our Canadian Council through its advisory committee on “Contact with the Government: re Homosexual Acts” approved this legislation, arguing that “it is not the task of the government to legislate private morality.”
Under Definition of male and female homosexuality several important statements arc found. “Sexuality . . . is the desire to give and receive in intimacy so that the ‘aloneness’ of a person is abrogated in the love relationship between man and woman as Genesis 2 teaches us.” “Homosexuality is the condition in which the process of maturation does not result i.n an adult who is heterosexual, that is, sexually orientated to the opposite sex: it is instead the condition in which an adult’s sexuality is directed to his own sex.” “An important distinction that must be made is the difference between homosexuality as a condition of personal identity and homosexualism as explicit homosexual behavior. That is, we must distinguish between the person who is homosexual in his sexual orientation and the person who engages in explicit sexual acts with persons of the same sex.”
The Committee addresses itself also to the question of the cause of homosexuality. Here are a few key sentences. “The fact is that homosexuality is deeply rooted in the complex developments of personality during the formative years of a person’s growth.” “It is important to understand that homosexuality is not the result of any conscious choice or decision on the part of the person to be homosexual, just as the heterosexual person does not become heterosexual because at a certain age he determines to be so.” The Committee concedes that there are some who may have encouraged their homosexuality by willful choice, but it emphasizes that “whether a person becomes homosexual because of some innate condition or because of his early environment and his response to this environment, or because of a combination of these, the fact is he is not responsible insofar for his resulting homosexuality.”
For the rest this Report says mainly two things: first, we ought to be sympathetically aware of the plight of the homosexual, whose life in society and the church can be very painful; and, second, the biblical references to homosexualism forbid its practice under all circumstances.
How do we read to this Report?
We hope that Synod does not adopt it. Our reason is simple. We cannot see that a church gathering can accept the analysis of this “problem” as offered in the Report. Does this mean that we know it to be completely untrue?
The answer is No. I am not a professional psychologist. I am not in a position to approve or disapprove of study committee reports which rest upon a certain kind of psychological insight recommended by people who may claim such competence.
But shouldn’t we accept trustingly this Report as coming from good Christian brothers?
Again, No. Not because the brothers aren’t good or wise or academically accomplished people. But because the church can and may deal with problems only in its own way, and with view to its own God-given assignment.
To illustrate: the Committee repeatedly declares that the responsibility of people caught up in the homosexualitv problem is minimal because it is “a condition” which results from certain genetic or environmental factors found in a given person’s life. don’t know if that is true. In fact, I sincerely doubt if it is all that true. And, I have no way of determining for sure if it is true.
The only thing I know as a church member is that homosexual conduct is a terrible sin, and that I must urge all involved in it to flee to Jesus Christ for deliverance.
That I know.
The overture which called for the appointment of a Study Committee to study homosexuality came from Canada. Some of us might not know that there is a Council of the Christian Reformed Churches in Canada which meets annually, consisting of delegates from the several Canadian classes. So far as we know this Council has no official standing, although it does have some considerable political and moral influence in the Christian Reformed Church.
The Report is divided into two parts which might be called exposition and application. Here is a rundown of things we consider important and typical:
Under the heading Our Mandate and the Present Scene we are told that the church must take a stand because homosexuality is a growing problem in today’s society. This problem is found among us (“No one knows the number of homosexuals in our denomination but even if we take the most conservative statistical estimates we may conclude that our report concerns several thousand members who are living in this condition,” p. 478). Attitudes among us differ toward these people, and we “ought to develop a genuinely Christian and rehabilitative attitude toward these members.”
The occasion for this concern is the fact that in Canada legislation has been adopted declaring that “homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offence.” Our Canadian Council through its advisory committee on “Contact with the Government: re Homosexual Acts” approved this legislation, arguing that “it is not the task of the government to legislate private morality.”
Under Definition of male and female homosexuality several important statements arc found. “Sexuality . . . is the desire to give and receive in intimacy so that the ‘aloneness’ of a person is abrogated in the love relationship between man and woman as Genesis 2 teaches us.” “Homosexuality is the condition in which the process of maturation does not result i.n an adult who is heterosexual, that is, sexually orientated to the opposite sex: it is instead the condition in which an adult’s sexuality is directed to his own sex.” “An important distinction that must be made is the difference between homosexuality as a condition of personal identity and homosexualism as explicit homosexual behavior. That is, we must distinguish between the person who is homosexual in his sexual orientation and the person who engages in explicit sexual acts with persons of the same sex.”
The Committee addresses itself also to the question of the cause of homosexuality. Here are a few key sentences. “The fact is that homosexuality is deeply rooted in the complex developments of personality during the formative years of a person’s growth.” “It is important to understand that homosexuality is not the result of any conscious choice or decision on the part of the person to be homosexual, just as the heterosexual person does not become heterosexual because at a certain age he determines to be so.” The Committee concedes that there are some who may have encouraged their homosexuality by willful choice, but it emphasizes that “whether a person becomes homosexual because of some innate condition or because of his early environment and his response to this environment, or because of a combination of these, the fact is he is not responsible insofar for his resulting homosexuality.”
For the rest this Report says mainly two things: first, we ought to be sympathetically aware of the plight of the homosexual, whose life in society and the church can be very painful; and, second, the biblical references to homosexualism forbid its practice under all circumstances.
How do we read to this Report?
We hope that Synod does not adopt it. Our reason is simple. We cannot see that a church gathering can accept the analysis of this “problem” as offered in the Report. Does this mean that we know it to be completely untrue?
The answer is No. I am not a professional psychologist. I am not in a position to approve or disapprove of study committee reports which rest upon a certain kind of psychological insight recommended by people who may claim such competence.
But shouldn’t we accept trustingly this Report as coming from good Christian brothers?
Again, No. Not because the brothers aren’t good or wise or academically accomplished people. But because the church can and may deal with problems only in its own way, and with view to its own God-given assignment.
To illustrate: the Committee repeatedly declares that the responsibility of people caught up in the homosexualitv problem is minimal because it is “a condition” which results from certain genetic or environmental factors found in a given person’s life. don’t know if that is true. In fact, I sincerely doubt if it is all that true. And, I have no way of determining for sure if it is true.
The only thing I know as a church member is that homosexual conduct is a terrible sin, and that I must urge all involved in it to flee to Jesus Christ for deliverance.
That I know.