The past week was bracketed by two meetings, one on Monday and the other on Friday evening, both of them concerned with the same subject. The subject of interest was last June’s Christian Reformed synod decisions and their expected consequences.

A Feminist View

The first, held on Monday, Nov. 5, in the Calvin Seminary auditorium, was sponsored by the Committee for Women of the Christian Reformed Church. First Sandra L. Vander Zicht, associate editor of The Banner, presented a capable, seven–minute summary of the long synod discussions and conclusions regarding women in church offices. In short, the synod said that while the Bible does teach a male headship in home and church this does not bar women from holding church offices and that women may be admitted as deacons with their work distinguished from that of elders and that churches may put this decision into practice.

Next Rev. Roger E. Van Harn. who was the president of that synod—speaking, he said, “confessionally” welcomed the decisions as a victory of the Holy Spirit, the gospel of Christ, and the authority of God! Although the issue had not arisen among us until 1969, “the Holy Spirit had laid the foundations” (for it) long ago in the Creeds, specifically, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Bible. Because we are saved by grace, any male restrictions obscure the gospel. Since the synod decisions the “pain” which some had experienced with the old restrictions has shifted so that now others are pained by the changes. He counseled sympathy and patience toward them. He explained that the Holy Spirit had “pulled aside the blinders” to make us now understand the meaning of gender. Because the authority of office is that of serving, the office of deacon may now be the leading office of the church.

The last member of the panel was Rev. Louis Roossien, a first–time delegate to the synod. He was amazed at how much of the synod work was done during coffee breaks and joked that perhaps if there were more coffee breaks more work would be done. He suggested further that instead of voting the synod might cast lots and “let the Holy Spirit decide”; in the voting the Holy Spirit seemed to work with confusion. He traced his own experience especially in mission situations. On an occasion where women had early taken leading roles, later men saw the Bible as pointing in a different direction and brought about a split which he considered Satanic. He objected to the local option provisions of the decisions and felt that the churches should work together in ministry and not get into theological argument about such secondary matters as these.

In the ensuing discussion it soon became apparent that the small number of attenders (filling perhaps half of the auditorium) were by no means all in agreement with the speakers. Considerable discussion concerned the inconsistencies in the synod decisions. One woman asked Rev. R. Van Harn for the biblical evidence to which he had referred for the synod decisions to open offices to women. He referred her to the five study reports, and she replied that she had been unable to find it there and that the Bible seemed to support men’s headship and authority. Rev. R. Van Harn anticipated and welcomed the opening of all church offices to women and advocated working for that goal. At this point in history he saw some women who seek office having to pay a price which had never been paid before and he hoped would never have to be paid again. He suggested that women keep on applying for candidacy, perhaps to experience rejection, until some synod would finally give them approval. He thought that the process might take a long time. Will there be a split in the denomination as a result of this issue? He felt that there will not. There is too much denominational loyalty for that to occur.

The Issue is not Women’s Rights But the Bible

Attending the meeting provoked some reflections. Did this rather poorly attended and unenthusiastic gathering represent a growing feminist movement powerful enough to revolutionize the structure and offices of the Christian Reformed churches? This evening’s meeting suggested nothing of the kind. To understand this change we must look in another direction. The speakers had emphatically and repeatedly assured us that the Holy Spirit had been guiding the synod decisions. They had, however, made virtually no appeal to the Bible to prove that this was the work of the Holy Spirit. They had only been telling us their “feelings” about the matter. When asked for Biblical grounds for his position the president of the synod had simply appealed to the reports of study committees. As his questioner had intimated , those study committee reports did not really provide such Biblical evidence either. Although they were ostensibly studies of the Bible, their arguments were often excuses for dismissing the Bible teachings as no longer applicable to our changing culture. Dominating the committees have usually been some of the professors who have also been training the churches’ leaders in the college and seminary. It becomes increasingly evident that the training of ministers in recent decades has stressed understanding of and adjustment to our times instead of Biblical doctrine and ethics. It has been brought to our attention that while the Systematic Theology of Louis Berkhof is being more and more widely used and translated in other church circles, in our schools it is often dismissed as hopelessly out–dated. Evidently the confusion and radical change in the churches’ course is traceable to the growing confusion and Biblical and doctrinal weakness of many of our ministers promoted by such training, rather than to any powerful feminist movement in our churches.¹

A Concerned View

The Friday evening (Nov. 9) meeting in the East Church of Cutlerville, dealing with the same subject of the synod decisions and their consequences, was one sponsored by a committee of concerned Christian Reformed Church members. There had been some uncertainty about the amount of interest one could expect to find in such a meeting in this area, and the weather was exceptionally bad—heavy rain and thunderstorms. To our surprise, the church was crowded to overflowing. At some length Rev. Henry Vander Kam traced, as one closely involved, the origin and development of the proposal to place women in our church offices. The issue had not arisen in our churches but had been injected into them by the Reformed churches in the Netherlands by way of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. The successive study committees, although sometimes doing extensive Bible study, had repeatedly jumped to conclusions that did not at all follow from the studies. Because an earlier presentation of this address was summarized in the November Outlook (pg.10), we pass over some of the details to notice the speaker’s 5-point concluding advice. It was (1) to ask consistories to decide that no women would be nominated for church offices in their churches, and (2) to ask consistories to overture for a reversal of the 1984 decisions. Although such actions might appear to be futile, previous overtures concerned a movement while these will concern decisions. (3) Do not pay quotas to support—teach, defend or implement—the 1984 decisions. This means paying no quotas for our college and seminary or home or world missions, because all of these have been promoting and already practicing the un–Biblical policy. He advised not putting the money in escrow, but giving it to causes that adhere to the Scripture and need our support. (4) Wait for the decisions of 1985 and if these do not reverse the erroneous course, seek a convention to continue the Christian Reformed Church. The time is too late for temporizing. If we do not act now our children and grandchildren may blame us for not acting in church reform while there was opportunity for it. (5) Pray increasingly for the church, in order that God may soon give us a place in a church faithful to Him and His Word.

We Must Act Now!

The remarkably large and enthusiastic attendances at this meeting and at one the night before in Zeeland, as well as at earlier meetings elsewhere, confirm the impression that is also supported by communications from members throughout our denomination that many of the people are ahead of church leaders in seeing the urgent need of such drastic actions as are now being proposed. Unless there is a real movement now to correct the erroneous and destructive course the denomination has chosen, many more people than ever before will be in good conscience compelled to seek church homes outside of it.

The proposal to stop the payment of church quotas may strike some as far too radical and irresponsible. But we must remember that quotas have never properly been the tax-like “assessments” which they used to be called and are still often misrepresented to be. They are recommended average contributions. But are not decisions of assemblies “settled and binding?” They are to be considered that only as long as they conform to the Bible, creeds and church order. W hen assemblies disregard the Bible, creeds and church order, as the recent synod did, the decisions are invalid and may not compel members to support what violates the Word of God.² This is what Rev. Henry Vander Kam has properly pointed out. There have recently been panic requests for support from the World Mission Board and from the World Relief Committee because each finds itself hundreds of thousands of dollars short of its expected contributions. Does this also show the growing loss of confidence of members in our church agencies as these agencies in their practice, show the same confusion of direction and purpose that the synod does?

But some will charge that we who object to the recent denominational actions are destroying the unity of the church. That is not true. That unity has been destroyed. One of the speakers at the Monday meeting referred to the Lord’s prayer in John 17 that His people “may be one.” He neglected to mention the fact that the Lord prayed for the achieving of this unity by “sanctifying” them in the truth of His Word (v. 17). Our church unity is to be a unity of faith in God’s Word and in the creeds derived from it as our “forms of unity.” When the synod disregarded these it was breaking the bonds of faith that tie us together. The feminist issue is not causing but revealing this loss of unity. It is s imply exposing what has been happening to our churches. That will have to be corrected by our returning to God’s Word in our confession and life. Let us pray that this may still be brought about within the denominational fellowship. If it cannot be achieved through appeal to synods it may have to be sought by way of Rev. H . Vander Kam’s suggested “convention” of churches and church members who want to be faithful to God’s Word. We may not settle for anything less than faithfulness to that Word.

Notes:

1 Rev. Clarence Boomsma writing in the Calvin Theological Journal (“What Has Happened Theologically to the CRC?” April. 1984 issue, pp. 41ff) although critical of the militancy of the Reformed Fellowship, expresses his own apprehensions about the indifference or hostility to doctrine that increasingly characterizes Christian Reformed ministers. Because of this, he describes the church as “somewhat comparable to a wheel wit/tout a huh, in which the spokes point in different directions.”

2 We should not forget that in our Belgic Confession (An. XX.XJI) “we reject all human inventions, and all laws which man would introduce into the worship of God thereby to bind and compel the conscience in any manner whatever.” Compare also Acts 5:29.