NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS “Juicy stories” out of the “old country” (Netherlands) are easy to come by these days. They always shock some of us who identify the Fatherland with godly grandparents. I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone use profane, blasphemous words in the Dutch language. I felt like telling him that anyone knows you might swear in English; you pray in Dutch.
Here’s another of those shocking stories which indicate that some revision of naive notions about the place my forbears left is needed. It is found in a news account (the clipping doesn’t identify which paper). It is entitled “Congregations may not ‘discriminate’ against homosexuals.” We translate:
LUNTEREN – It is hard for homosexual preachers to get a call to a congregation. This situation must come to an end. That is what synodical delegates of the Gereformeerde Kerken (the Dutch denomination) with which the Christian Reformed Church has closest ties, JHP) have recently decided with a large majority of votes.
Various speakers during the synodical discussion bemoaned the fact that it again appears necessary to devote special attention to discrimination against homosexual pastors. The Synod of Delft already in 1979 sent a letter to the churches asking that homosexuals be granted unimpeded access to the office. Formally, therefore, the matter is regulated. But practically the situation leaves much to be desired.
For that reason Rev. K. Smit of Heemstede placed the matter officially before synod. He asserted that there were instances in which contacts had been made between a congregation and a candidate, that these went well up to the point that it became known that the prospective spiritual leader of the congregation was homosexual. And if the congregation then hears that two men or two women will be living in the parsonage the vacant congregation often pulls back, even now.
A homosexual student had also registered his complaint with the denominational deputies appointed to maintain the relationship between the church and the theological faculty of the Free University (Amsterdam). The deputies did not feel authorized to deal definitively with this situation. An amendment proposed by Rev. Smit was needed to bring about change. His motion was adopted. The deputies are now commissioned in consultation with the curators (of the Free University, I presume, JHP) to appoint a blue ribbon committee for consideration of the problems arising from resisted service—possibilities for homosexual pastors. This committee is to report at the next synod.
This story reveals something which continues to impress me—the fact that proponents of such ideas as the acceptability of “alternative sexual preferences” are ready to enforce their convictions upon an often reluctant church. There is something of a radical crusading spirit at work here . And it takes place alongside an obvious unwillingness to take a strong stand on issues of a confessional or doctrinal nature.
It looks as if life will be increasingly difficult for the poor soul who takes seriously such a passage as Romans 1:26, 27, who cannot imagine that some more up-to-date understanding of human nature renders a homosexual relationship acceptable to and within the Christian fellowship.
A GOOD OVERTURE – By the time this appears Synod 1986 of the Christian Reformed Church may well have completed its work. In the interest, however, of keeping what we think is a very serious issue before the minds of our readers we reproduce now a well-reasoned overture prepared by the Archer A venue (Chicago) consistory. It reads:
The Archer Avenue Christian Reformed Church overtures Classis Chicago South to overture Synod 1986 as follows:
1. To declare that the stated clerk exceeded his rights and responsibilities when he sent cablegrams to Prime Minister Botha of South Africa expressing “our deep disturbance” and to Mrs. Boesak expressing “our sorrow” at the arrest and detention of Dr. Allan Boesak.
Grounds:
a. The arrest took place on August 27, 1985 and the cablegrams were sent on August 29, 1985. Clearly, Synod itself was not able to consider this matter in this period.
b. The Synodical Interim Committee was not consulted prior to sending these cablegrams.
c. An article in The Banner of September 30, 1985 reports that in an interview the stated clerk said that it was on the basis of “his belief (emphasis added) that the Christian Reformed Church should take a stand on Boesak’s arrest” that he sent the cablegrams.
d. The personal beliefs of the stated clerk do not necessarily become the official stand of the Christian Reformed Church, even though many members may agree with that belief.
2. To declare that the Synodical Interim Committee erred when it “approved the work” of the stated clerk in sending these cablegrams.
Ground:
The Synodical Interim Committee is charged wi th overseeing the work of the stated clerk. When he exceeded his authority, it should not have placed a stamp of approval on his activity.
3. To declare that the stated derek is to address official correspondence and use his title as a spokesman for the denomination only on such matters as he has been given approval by explicit, official action of Synod or of its duly empowered interim committee.
Ground:
Such a clear statement should help to avoid confusion during similar situations in the future.
w/s president William G. Vis w/s clerk: Jack Leffring
We applaud the Archer Avenue consistory for presenting this overture. In our opinion one of the greatest dangers threatening any church is the evil of “Rule from the top,” or hierarchicalism. It takes obvious form in the churches of the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions. It comes to a radically opposite and contradictory mode in, say, the churches of the Baptist and congregationalistic tradition, communions which recognize and enforce no real authority except that of the local congregation. In our country with its strong individualistic emphasis, such types of local control are very popular.
Ours (the Reformed community) is a government by duly elected elders and deacons, who form “the council of the Church; that by these means the true religion may be preserved, and the true doctrine everywhere propagated, likewise transgressors punished and restrained by spiritual means; also that the poor and distressed may be relieved and comforted, according to their necessities. By these means everything will be carried on in the Church with good order and decency, when faithful men are chosen, according to the rule prescribed by St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy” (Belgic Confession, Art. XX).
As we have commented earlier, the tendency is to disregard this kind of biblical church government. The world insists on thinking that a church is just another kind of social organization, and that it, too, must have a “boss” or “leader” who runs things and makes the important decisions. It always surprises certain people when you tell them that you cannot speak for all the members of the congregation simply because you are the pastor.
It is high time that all church officers remind themselves that we are not so much “leaders” as “servants” (Matt. 23:11). Not servants of “the people” or “popular opinion” but of the Master (Matt. 23:10).
I hope that I may report soon that Synod 1986 unanimously endorsed the Archer Avenue overture!
“HAVEN FROM THE HELL OF NEW YORK STREETS” – This is the heading of an article (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 27, 1985) which deals with the work of Bruce Ritter, Roman Catholic priest who is founder and director of Covenant House in New York City. This is a place of refuge for thousands of young people, victims of the vice and corruption of America’s greatest city. Ritter runs similar institutions in Toronto, Ft. Lauderdale, and Houston. He has no trouble finding people to help.
“In the last 20 years we’ve seen the development of an enormous multi-multi-multi-billion-dollar sex industry. We live in a sex-for-sale society that shows kids it‘s okay to become sexual objects; it’s okay to become the merchandise in the sex industry, of which we are patrons.” Those are his words.
Covenant House is, he says, “an intensive care unit for dying children.” He has seen children, age 9 to 19, “raped, battered and prostituted from the streets where broken or corrupt runaways” find themselves. He adds that many of these are not so much run-aways as “throw-aways.” Their families have dumped them in a day when Paul’s words “without natural affection” (Rom. 1:31) are too often confirmed.
It’s a gruesome story. Exploitation, abuse, death (“You can’t live on the street a long time . . . Six months is literally forever, and in a year, its over,”) are the order of the day. “What happens on the street happens quickly.” The distortion of the personality is so profound that it really is irreversible. So many rotten things happen to kids on the street that they lose permanently the ability to relate to anybody else on a profoundly human level . . . After you’ve been bought and sold a thousand times, you can’t really value yourself very much. You can’t wash that away with a shower or a couple of weeks vacation.
Ritter does not shrink back from faulting American society for its “laissez faire” attitude toward and practice of human sexuality. He bemoans the current lack of moral sensitivity among Americans of this generation. He dares to say such things as:
Everybody who watches a hardcore porno film has to know that they are part of the problem. They are just as responsible for the moral murder of the people who make that film, for the exploitation of the people who make that film, for the absolute degradation of the people who make that film, as the drug addict is responsible for the whole bloody series of murders and police and judicial corruption that is involved in the drug traffic. If you snort cocaine, you are part of that chain, and you cannot walk away from it; and if you’re buying these porno films you’re part of that chain of corruption and violence and lust and prostitution and profit to organized crime, and you cannot walk away from it.
I’m disgusted at what happened to kids who come in here. I’m disgusted with the fact that tens of millions of Americans will adopt such irresponsible attitudes toward human sexuality that causes the abuse of these kids.
From the vantage point of where I live (Chicago suburbs) Ritter’s description of the world we now occupy seems very accurate. American society today does show increasingly the evidence of alarming corruption.
The thought that I can’t quickly erase is this: Why is it that sometimes Christian communions appear more insistent to emphasize this kind alarm with respect to sin when things are relatively less urgent than in times such as ours?
How can we revive the sense of corporate responsibility and guilt Father Ritter by bitter experience has learned while helping the wayward on Times Square? How can we re-learn what the Catechism declares when it asks us to say, “I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbor?” So that we can take refuge in Him who is the only One who can wash away our sins and give us new life? I think we need a very careful review of such basic biblical Truth so that we might be of some help to people so obviously in need.