The Christian Reformed Board of Publications at its annual February meeting decided to have its liturgical committee make appropriate changes in the Heidelberg Catechism to meet the standards of inclusive language. It is to have this revision of the Catechism available for approval by the June meeting of the synod so that it can be included in the expected publication of a new Psalter Hymnal.
If anyone seeks to revise one of the churches’ confessions of faith, there is a proper (“gravamen”) procedure for him to bring the requested changes to the attention of the churches for their extended study and consideration. Even if such a change is accepted, because of the importance of a change in the “forms of unity” which, like a constitution, are the contracts which bind the churches together, such a change is not valid until it is approved by two synods. Has any church or classis been asking for another revision of the Heidelberg Catechism? Has any gravamen been submitted against the Catechism which was carefully revised and accepted not long ago? Of course not! Although there was reportedly some opposition in the Board, the majority quietly bypassed all such consideration as apparently irrelevant.
If such legal requirements as these were not significant enough to be considered by the Board, we should remember that the C.R. Synod only last year decided “THAT ALL REPORTS OF STUDY COMMITTEES AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF BOARDS OR STANDING COMMITTEES AFFECTING DOCTRINAL, ETHICAL, OR CHURCH ORDER STATEMENTS OF THE CHURCH, SHALL BE IN THE HANDS OF THE CHURCHES FOR AT LEAST SIX MONTHS PRIOR TO BEING ACTED UPON BY SYNOD” (Acts 1985, p. 802). In this case the board proposing the changes does not even itself know four months before the synod meeting what the changes are to be!
In trying to understand this extraordinary procedure of the Board, perhaps we ought to recall that only last year in its treatment of another creed, the Belgic Confession, a special committee, supposed to update its English, was at least partially successful in getting away with just such an illegal change of a creed (Cf. 1985 OUTLOOKS March, pp. 8ff., June, pp. 17, 18). Is one successful illegality now encouraging another?
What is of such transcendent importance about the proposed revision that would justify ignoring all considerations of creed, church order and proper procedure to secure its passage? In this case, as in the one just mentioned, the change is one dictated by the feminist movement. It is evident that when the demands of that movement appear, all considerations of the Bible, creed, church order or synod decisions must give way for them.
It appears that the Board is treating this matter as a comparative triviality . (And perhaps some individual changes of phrase here and there might not appear important). But this “triviality” shows in a dramatic way what is happening to the religion and practice of our churches and their agencies. (A real shift to “inclusive language” would even have to alter the doctrine of the Trinity with its confession of the Father and the Son!)
C. S. Lewis in his little essay on “Priestesses in the church” (in God in the Dock, pp. 234–239) observed that this issue must not be decided by people’s abilities or expediency, but by whether our religion is guided by Divine revelation or whether it is merely a return to the old pagan natural religion that had its goddesses and priestesses.
A main article in the February 21, 1986 Christianity Today, by James R. Edwards, “Does God Really Want to Be Called ‘Father’?” makes the same point.
“Feminist theology . . . has gone beyond its origins in women’s suffrage and civil rights. With Promethean intimations it is clamoring for a resymbolization of Christianity based on categories of feminism. Such theology, to quote Elizabeth Achtemeier of Union Theological Seminary (Va.), is ‘in the process of laying the foundations for a new faith and a new church that are, at best only loosely related to apostolic Christianity.’” Later she is quoted again as saying, ” I am sure that much of feminist theology is a return to Baalism . . . . Many women, in their dedication to the feminist movement, are being slowly wooed into a new form of religion, widely at variance with the Christian faith. Most such women have no desire to desert their Christian roots, any more than many German Christians had when they accepted National Socialism’s resymbolization of the faith in Nazi Germany.” The writer proceeds, “Consider this question from Katharine Sakenfeld in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible: ‘How can feminists use the Bible, if at all?’ The structure of the question determines that the Bible is a lesser authority than feminism.” I am not suggesting that the Board of Publications intends to desert the Christian faith. But its casual dealing with our basic Reformed creed shows that for it the feminist demands take precedence over considerations of Scripture, creed, or church order! Is that not practicing a different kind of religion from that which we profess? Will the coming synod endorse this irresponsible and illegal, sexist revision of the Heidelberg Catechism?