The Christian Reformed Church Fights Over Homosexuality

The Southern Baptist Convention and the CRC as a Denominational Comparison

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. Well, many of you know that last week was the Southern Baptist Convention. And I did a number of videos on what took place at the Southern Baptist Convention, I think three of them at least.

And a lot of the audience, I think, or a good portion are Southern Baptists or were Southern Baptists. But obviously the Southern Baptists are not the only denomination out there. They may be the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, but there are areas of this country where they have significantly less influence and there are other Protestant denominations with a whole lot more influence.

And one of the denominations that I know we talked about last year and they have their convention around the same time, or I don't think they call it a convention, but their annual meeting is the CRC, the Christian Reformed Church.

And they're very influential, especially in Michigan and the Grand Rapids area, but also in parts of Canada and the Midwest. And they represent a certain stream of the Dutch Reformed tradition. And they had their meeting and some of the same issues that have been coming up in these other denominations, like the Presbyterian Church in America and the Southern Baptists are also coming up in the CRC.

And so to help me report on this, we're going to show you some clips and you can make up your own mind, but to help interpret this, we have Pastor Lloyd Hempstreet who is a pastor at Coopersville Christian Reformed Church in Michigan.

He's also he works with the Abide Project, which is kind of like, for those who don't know like the Gospel Reformation Network or the Conservative Baptist Network, it's the more conservative group in the CRC.

And he has volunteered to help us understand what's going on. So thank you so much for joining us, Pastor Hempstreet.

Yeah. Well, thank you, John, for inviting me on to have this conversation with you. And I really appreciated your video last year. We still talk about some of the language you used as an outsider. You were able to look into our denomination and see, hey, that's that's kind of how they speak to one another.

Yeah, that's us. So anyway. Yeah, the library voice thing, right? Yes. Yes. The library voice and NPR voice. You mentioned it as last year. So yeah, I just got back from it. We call it Synod is what it is.

We have 49 classes in the US and Canada. Each class is allowed to send four representatives, four delegates to Synod. And so we had right around one hundred and eighty eight delegates meeting at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And that's where we get together for a week to do the the business of the denomination in our broadest assembly. So so that's what we just got back from.

Calvin University, Synod, and the CRC's Denominational Structure

And is it at Calvin University every year?

It is not at Calvin University every year. However, the denomination owns Calvin University. And so that's the cheapest place to host it. Makes sense. I believe not next year, but the following year it'll be out at Dort College in Iowa, a Dort University in Iowa.

So so it moves around Chicago and Iowa and sometimes across the border in Canada, too. But the cheapest, easiest place to do it is local to the headquarters in Grand Rapids. Makes sense.

I know this is a little off topic, perhaps, but Calvin University, I mean, Kristin Demez teaches there, right? I mean, it's this is true. Are you when you go into Calvin University, even though it's owned by the denomination, is there a different.

I remember last year, I think like even some of the professors were against the decision that there are the denomination who owns their university made. I just was wondering if you feel like you're on like the liberal turf or something if you're there.

There was discussion along those lines, and that is a little bit of what we have going on. At the same time, Calvin University elected a new president last year, and that president is being very intentional about.

He doesn't want the the college, the university to just go a separate way. He wants to work together with the church. And so if the church is changing direction, he seems open to say, hey, the university needs to come along.

So we're in process at Calvin University, I would say.

Confessional Status and the CRC's Rejection of Same-Sex Marriage

OK, so the church, you said, is going in a certain direction. Walk us through what happened last year and then what happened this year in regards to the hot button issue, which is the inclusion, I guess, of people or beliefs, churches who want to maintain that homosexual marriage is somehow legitimate or biblical, right?

Correct. Correct. That is the discussion we've been having for a number of years. Going back to 2016, a report came where they tried to take the denomination affirming and that got shot down, said we're not going that way.

We're going to have a different committee. That committee was supposed to report after five years in 2021, got delayed because of COVID. So 2022 was the big discussion kind of in our denomination. During that time, there was a church that said, well, let's try this out.

And so they went ahead and in 2020 elected an office bearer that was in a same sex marriage, as it's called. And so we had not only the theoretical, but also the real case going on. And so that was what was discussed at Synod 2022.

I was not a delegate to that one. I was just watching on like everyone else. And last year we made decisions and we said, no, this is confessional status. That means that under Scripture, the confessions are the second highest ranking item in our denomination.

And we said that when the Heidelberg Catechism, question 108, talks about the issues of unchastity, it's saying that any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman covenanted together for life, that is out of bounds for God's people.

And that's not how we're to live. And so that is what we stated of pornography, polyamory and homosexual sex, we said, are all included in unchastity. And so it's not an acceptable argument in our denomination.

Along with that, last year, they went ahead and addressed that church that said, hey, we're going to try and do this on our own and said, you need to immediately rescind the decision to approve this office bearer, this deacon.

And you need to come into line with the denomination. So that is what took place in 2022 in an encapsulated form.

So that was because there were, as you say, there was a church that actually had employed someone who was in this homosexual relationship or marriage, I suppose, as they thought of it. And obviously we wouldn't consider that to be a legitimate marriage.

But there was people in the denomination wanting to push it this direction. And so this was kind of like a defensive maneuver to say, hold on. No, we already have stated beliefs on this. This is what they are.

And that was supposed to end it. Right. That was it.

But it didn't end it. You would you would hope that would end it. But no, it didn't end. The church said they found in our church order, they said, well, we have the right to an appeal. So about two weeks later, they said, well, we appeal to Synod next year.

And they tried to put off any sort of discipline in that manner. And then there were just numerous churches and classes within our denomination that said, no, Synod got this wrong. And they wrote overtures.

That's the process in our denomination. So there are around 22 overtures or so that said something along the lines of, hey, confessional status was out of line last year. We can't go that far, whether it's we lower it to another level where office bearers would have more freedom to disagree or whether we reverse it and say, no, God blesses same sex marriage.

There was kind of the gamut among what was being written. But that was what Synod this year had the opportunity to respond to. All these 22 overtures coming from classes, some that didn't pass the classes that was just from an individual church or some even from individual members.

All were on the all were on the agenda this year.

Classes, Overtures, and the Fight Over Conscience

Is it is a class or a class? Is that like a presbytery? It's like a group of churches or a region?

Gotcha. Yeah, about 10 to 10 to 30 churches, depending on where it is.

OK, well, let's watch a few of these clips together. This is the first one. This this is was actually on CNN. And you might hear Anderson Cooper's voice at the end of this. Apparently, the gentleman you're about to hear, his son works for CNN.

So on Father's Day, they decided to give a tribute to his father and his in their minds, bold stand, I suppose, against the CRC.

Just to give up, put it in line, we had the big discussion on reaffirming confessional status on Wednesday, and that came down that, yes, we're not moving away from that. So this was Thursday morning that this took place.

OK, on behalf of the pain that was caused to many in the LGBTQ community, including my son and the message that was sent for so many people that they're not welcome in the CRC, I will be leaving Senate in protest.

That is what Ryan is thinking about today, this Father's Day, a father who did something really, really hard to stand up for his son. Happy Father's Day to Ryan's dad. OK, so this is the CNN spin on it that this was this bold move.

So he does that mean that this pastor has left the denomination or was that just kind of like a in protest? I'm not going to be part of the meeting anymore.

Correct. The latter. It was OK, stepping down as a delegate. I'm not sure what ramifications might come from or may or may not come from that. You're not supposed to just walk off. But that's that's what he chose to do in that in that situation.

And going forward, we don't know yet what that means for his connection to the denomination.

But that was what he was. He the only one. Or were there more?

He was the only one that started Thursday morning with that. And things got ugly Thursday throughout the day. It's all available on the CRCNA. You go into their live videos and you can watch the whole Thursday afternoon debacle that that unfolded.

And five or more other delegates ended up leaving and walking out in protest by the end of the day.

The Father's Day Protest and Walking Out of Synod

So, OK, so, yeah, so we don't have time to watch all of those. But let's watch this next one is a gentleman. I don't know if this individual walked out or not, but he's making a speech in favor or I should say against the CRC's stand on homosexual homosexuality.

Right. So I'm speaking again. I'm Dave Apo from classes Hackensack speaking against the motion, the parameters of my discussion. First, I think what we keep hearing is that, you know, we're being you have to be faithful to the Bible or do pastoral work.

I think that's, frankly, disrespectful to the people who, after reading the passages, after reading the Bible, have come to a different conclusion as to exactly what it means. It is true that Senate had made a decision about this, but, you know, a good number of people did not believe that the interpretation given by the Senate was correct.

Therefore, Senate made a decision and said, this is how we're going to interpret that and you're bound by that interpretation. And our church order addresses that, it says, I'm bound by the language of the confession itself.

And not by interpretations of it or pronouncement. And if a question arises about what a confession means, we go to the assembly and we have to acquiesce as loyal members of the denomination, we have to acquiesce in the decision of the assembly.

Acquiesce means we will submit to it. And that is, and be bound by it. That is exactly what the minority report is saying. The advice given from the assembly is settled and binding and we're bound by it.

But we are not bound. One person said, you know, win well, guys. The traditional position won the day last time. And now we're bound by that. But I had a boss once who you could never end a conversation with him because when you talked to him about something and you gave him your advice and you gave him your opinion, and he disagreed with your opinion, instead of being able to say, you're a call boss, he wouldn't let you leave the office until you agreed that you had been wrong.

And nothing ever got done. There's a good number of the people who had a different opinion. You won. Your conclusion is binding. We will follow it. But it is, frankly, unfair, unkind, unhelpful to say, not only do you have to follow the opinion that is not your own, you have to say, you were wrong.

Your conscience is bound. You have to have an epiphany now that cleans your conscience from all the reasons why you thought you were right. Thank you. And erase that from your mind and admit you were wrong.

That is not what our confession is about.

Thank you, David. Okay, so I'm as an outsider, I definitely need some interpretive work on this. So it sounds like what he's saying is that, hey, we can stay in the denomination. If we disagreed with that decision, we can keep believing that homosexual marriage is perfectly fine.

We're, I guess, going to follow because we have to follow the rules of the denomination. And so I don't know what that would entail, but we can't contradict that somehow. But at the same time, there's this space, I guess, for us to operate where we can still hold the conviction that contradicts the denomination's view.

What in the world is he talking about?

That was in a discussion on Wednesday dealing with this idea. Is this, does it have confessional status? Are all office bearers held to it? We have a covenant of office bearers, and it says, not only will I believe these things, but I'm bound to teach and promote these things as well.

And so by saying covenant status, we're saying this is who we are as the denomination, and we have to go along with it. What the other side was arguing for this year, because I think it was the biggest reach they could try and hope to get, was language of settled and binding, which means, well, the denomination said it.

So publicly, that's what we have to do. I don't have to actually believe it in my heart. I don't have to actually promote it. I just have to kind of follow the rules. And so that is what he was arguing for.

Do we really have to say and agree that this is what God's Word teaches, or is it all right as long as we don't go in, you know, ordain the deacon in the same sex marriage, as they want to call it? As long as we play by the rules publicly, can we still disagree and go our own way in every other way?

So that was the argument that was being had.

I just don't know what that looks like. Like, if you're a pastor in a denomination, someone comes to you and says, hey, I want to marry my boyfriend, and it's a guy. And you're someone, let's say the pastor thinks that that's perfectly fine, but the denomination doesn't, what does the pastor do?

I would think the pastor couldn't honor that. The pastor would be forced to say, well, I can't marry you. So I don't know what advantage it would give him to say, we don't agree. Okay, you don't agree, but does that practically change anything?

I guess that's my question.

I don't know how much it changes other than it gives space for continued opposition. Yeah. That he could bless and encourage in your scenario and say, oh, that's great, and God's blessing be upon you.

I just can't do it publicly until we get things straightened out in the denomination. And we're saying, no, this isn't something that you can just continue to advocate against and work against and try and overthrow.

This is who we are, and this is where we're going to stand.

So you basically have some pastors who don't agree, but they're going to keep it quiet, and they're still in the denomination, and they can operate behind the scenes to try to get things turned around.

I think that's what's happened in other places and other denominations. I'm guessing that's the same operation tactic here to take the moral high ground and to say, well, you're forcing our consciences or something.

I mean, you wouldn't do that on any other issue, would you? You'd be like, well, there's people here who don't agree that Christ is Lord or he's God. We think he's just a human, but you wouldn't have that on those issues.

But for some reason on this issue, they want to downgrade it to this conscience, I guess, element. All right, so I think the next video, maybe we'll skip this one for the sake of time, unless you want to.

Let's see here. It was just a gentleman who was basically making a good point that this will suck all the attention from the denomination where it should be, which is on the gospel and matters of discipleship and so forth.

And he says, hey, we keep arguing over this same-sex marriage stuff, and it's not good for the denomination. And he was making a fairly good point. So this is the youth, I guess. Explain to me what the youth organization is.

CRC has a youth group or something?

Well, it's at Synod. A number of years ago, they wanted representation from different voices in the room. And so they set up women advisors until there were enough women delegates since the Christian Reformed Church ordains women office bearers.

And so they had women advisors that they haven't had recently. They have ethnic advisors that, I mean, once again, have the opportunity to speak, but they don't have voting privileges. And then they have young adult representatives.

And so this guy is one of the young adult representatives. And, of course, one of the arguments that we were hearing multiple times from the other side is, you know what? The youth will leave the denomination if we don't just bless same-sex marriage the way that the culture is and that we're driving the kids of the denomination all away.

And so when the young people got up, most of them spoke in a different, very different way.

Young Adult Testimony on the Power of the Gospel

Yeah, and that's fascinating. Let's play the clip and then we'll talk about it.

Among my peers, I had this opportunity to speak into some of the biggest decisions today. As a young adult myself, when I read this, I don't know if I can endorse, but I like this overture or this recommendation, I should say.

Sorry. I like this for many reasons. If I could start with a personal anecdote and take too long, I personally have endured the church discipline process. I wasn't on similar issues like this, and one of the struggles was feeling trapped and incapable of really changing my life and my beliefs to be redeemed in behavior.

What this does, in my opinion, is, first of all, it doesn't speak to an immediate, sudden change from today. There is time. It's not specified here, although it's been assumed once today decisions happen, then it starts.

There is time, if I'm understanding this correctly, and I think I am. And what this does is it speaks to two things. It speaks to the transformative responsibility of Christ's church as instituted by his spirit.

It speaks to the long-suffering of Jesus Christ for the elect. It speaks to the endurance on the cross of the pain that we also go through. And secondly, it speaks to the profound power of the gospel, where it can bring healing anywhere that we can find nowhere else.

I believe this recommendation brings hope to those struggling in darkness. This brings hope of life that no longer looks as broken as before. And it's only found in the gospel. And I think we can all agree on that.

And with this motion, the Christian Reformed Church of North America proclaims its belief in the power of the spirit at work in us. That it's more than mental assent, but a change of heart and posture towards the one true God.

And there really is hope. This is my last exhortation, I suppose. A similar sentiment was given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 -11. Or do you not know, and this is the bad news comes first, right?

We have the law, and then we have grace as the Heidelberg Catechism is laid out. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The thought doesn't end there, everyone. Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And I hope that speaks to whoever's on the fence.

Do we believe in the transformative power of the gospel or not?

Thank you. Alright, so that was a young person representing the young people in the denomination and making the case that to adopt an inclusion or normalization of homosexuality would be a contradiction to the power of the Spirit and the power of Christ.

And that was very powerful. I mean, he seems like he really believes what he's saying. It's just interesting to me. I'm wondering, I think a lot of people are probably wondering, I mean, does he represent the youth in the denomination?

Do they all feel that way? I don't know how he became the spokesman.

Yeah, young adult advisors are recommended by a council, one of our 1 ,000 churches. They found a young man that was willing to go. And so they suggested him in the denomination, did a little vetting and said, sure, he can come in and speak into this issue.

So that's how he got there. And yeah, what we see, what was being argued at that time was, let's put a pause on implementation. It's confessional status, but let's take three years. Let's take five years.

Let's give everybody time to just figure it out. And he's like, we don't need time. We need God's Spirit to change and transform our hearts and our lives. And we can follow the process. And nobody was calling for everybody that didn't agree that they had to walk out at the end, even though some chose to do that.

But we were trying to put into plan, hey, we're going to go through the steps of discipline. We're going to walk with you, but we're going to call you to grow in Christ and follow in his ways. And that young man was able to give testimony to how God had done that with him on a different issue and how he's seen that power at work before.

And so he has confidence God can do it again. Yeah, very encouraging.

Spanish-Speaking and Korean Voices Defending Confessional Fidelity

There are two more. I don't know if we'll play them all, but maybe you can explain. A gentleman who's representing, I guess, he's speaking in Spanish. So is he from a Spanish-speaking church, or does he represent a Spanish-speaking contingent in the denomination?

Yeah, he's from a Spanish-speaking church, and he's part of a rather conservative Spanish-speaking alliance in our denomination. And so our denomination has generally been in decline for the last 25 years or so.

But two of the areas that it's growing the fastest is in minority churches and minority church plants. Some of those are Spanish-speaking or Latino background. And another large area in the denomination is Korean.

And all together, I believe it's right around 20 percent or so of our denomination is now ethnic minority. And that's a growing edge of the denomination.

That's fascinating to me since you're in the Midwest mostly, and the Midwest is not known for their numbers of minority people. So that's fascinating. And so he's there. There's also someone else, another gentleman here.

Maybe we'll play a part of this. This is, I think, a Korean pastor, right?

He is a Korean pastor, not delegated. He was serving as an ethnic advisor. Many of the Koreans still struggle. There's a live translation going on for Synod so that they can follow along and vote in accordingly.

But he was able to speak in part on behalf of the Korean delegation.

His speech is a little longer. Let me just go to kind of halfway through it. Let's play a little bit of a clip of it.

May not be as pastoral decision as many of us think. We think having a clear teaching of the Bible from the pulpit and from the teachers of the Bible is more pastoral. We hear a lot of vocabularies such as hurt and healing and reconciliation.

While those are all biblical words, of course, many of us see it as the sin and repentance framework. Thank you. Can you give me just one more minute? We are in position that true pastoral care is only possible upon clear understanding of the Bible.

And we find it difficult to understand how pastoral care is possible without clear understanding. And lastly, we heard a lot of plea for unity. But any decision deviated from Synod 2022's decision will break the unity of the Korean church from the CRC.

And we also heard a lot about the decline of our denomination, which, of course, we lament and we want to see the reverse. But we would rather want to be part of a CRC that is, let me put it this way.

We would like to be part of the CRC that is true to God's word, regardless of its size.

That's fascinating because he sounds like what he's saying is we will leave the CRC if you reverse this. We're not going to be part of it.

That's what he was laying out. And another Korean pastor got up and spoke at a different section. And he was like, you know, we didn't join the Christian Reformed Church because of the status that it gave us in America or anything like that.

We joined the Christian Reformed Church because you held to these three forms of unity and the Heilbert Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Cans of Dort. And you took that seriously. And so if that's what you're about, that's who we want to be.

And that's how we want to follow the Lord together. But if you're going to throw that out, you know, there were other arguments made. Well, you know, our children, our grandchildren will leave the church.

And isn't it more important that we just keep the family together? And so that's kind of the contrast that we have going on. Many that were multi-generational in the denomination, delegates that got up and spoke about their parents and the different churches in the denomination that they planted.

And so we all still belong here versus those, you know, I grew up outside the denomination. I grew up with Baptist background and it was in my 20s before I came into the denomination and saw the beauty of the confessions and said, okay, this makes sense for how I've been reading God's Word.

And felt the call to enter ministry after that time. And so it's often those that are saying, hey, this is why we are CRC because of the confessional understanding and how it helps us understand God's Word versus those that are saying, well, we've always been CRC multi-generations here.

And so shouldn't we all just have room to continue on no matter exactly how we look at the confessions or how tightly we want to be held to them?

The CRC's Direction, Reformation, and the Debate Over Revoice-Like Ideas

Are you encouraged by this year's meeting? I was, I was.

Did not get every single vote that I was hoping for, but, you know, seven out of eight or so of the biggest votes, I would say, all went our way. And so while we saw a lot of work and it appeared God was bringing some level of reformation to the denomination last year, it appears it's continuing, but it's not all done yet.

And it would have been nice to say, oh, we checked the box off. It's done. Nope. There's, there's still going to be more work to do and more discussions to be had continuing to synod next year. But it does appear that God is changing the direction that this denomination is heading.

And so I'm, I'm encouraged by that.

I want to ask this because the PCA and to some extent the SBC, although they've had other issues front and center at their annual meeting, they have an issue with the same sex attraction kind of softening that you can be a Christian and faithful and homosexual of some variety and not be practicing it, but that's who you are intrinsically somehow.

And, um, and, and, and I, I think that's probably correctly identified as a stepping stone to, uh, actually endorsing the behavior. Cause I don't know how you maintain that God created you this way and that it's legitimate and fine, but you just can't operate accordingly.

That makes no sense. So, um, I guess the question I have is you're fending off some pretty overt stuff right now, like normalization of same sex marriage and saying that that's fine. I mean, that's like PC USA stuff.

Like that's, that's so, so do you, is that sort of revoiced theology? Uh, is that in the denomination? Is that accepted? Is that rejected?

Is that even being debated or. It's not, it's not being debated because of the level of the debate that we're having. And so we aren't able to talk about it in that, with that level of, um, precision and nuance because we're on, we're, we're on, you know, like you said, PC USA.

And so, so yeah, there, there was a 1973 report on human sexuality in the, uh, in the denomination and it used language that was cutting edge at that time. Uh, of course the debate has moved on a lot in the last 50 years.

Some look to that 1973 report and say, well, this is full endorsement of revoice and, and desire and, and so forth. Others say, no, the language isn't going in that direction, but that is a discussion that, um, we had one overture that was trying to deal with it this year.

And it got dismissed, uh, just like it did last year because that's not the discussion we're having at this time. So there was talk that, Hey, at some point in time, we're going to have to get into what is desire and how does that play out?

But, but we just aren't able to yet.

Prayer for the CRC to Remain Faithful to Scripture

Gotcha. Okay. Well, um, I would encourage everyone in the audience, pray for the CRC. Um, you know, thank God that, uh, it looks like at least as far as the direction goes, it's going in a better direction.

It's, it's not certainly not going backwards. Right. Um, and so that's really positive. Uh, I mean, what, what do you want people to pray for? What, what, what do you have to say to those who maybe aren't in the CRC and what they could pray for then those who might be listening, you are in the CRC.

What should they do?

Yeah, no, I would say, um, we, we, we covet your ongoing prayers that, uh, we would continue to set God's word as the standard by which we live and that we would be faithful and holding one another accountable to that.

That's the vows that we've made as a, as a confessional denomination. And it gets hard when we're talking about, oh man, are we going to kick out my great aunt's church or something like that? That's, that's where it really becomes difficult.

How do we follow through with discipline? But at the same time, as we hear in God's word, it's through discipline that he works and he works even to the restoration as that young adult, uh, advisor was able to give testimony to.

And so that we'd be faithful and, and, and follow through would be the biggest prayers for ongoing prayers for the Christian Reformed Church in North America. Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you.

I appreciate it. Pastor Hemstreet. Thank you for interpreting all of what we just saw and, uh, for, uh, just being part of the listener audience there and, uh, reaching out to me because, um, yeah, I, I wasn't even sure if I was going to cover any of this, but I'm glad I did.

So thank you.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it. All right. God bless. Thanks.