Regardless of what you think about the past few synods of the Christian Reformed Church of North America and their decisions regarding human sexuality, it’s clear the majority supports the idea of the CRC becoming a more confessional denomination.

Synods 2022, 2023, and 2024 have all declared the importance of the CRC’s historic creeds (The Apostles’ Creed, The Nicene Creed, and The Athanasian Creed) and confessions (The Belgic Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, and The Canons of Dort). These synods have emphasized particular interpretations of those creeds and confessions and the various biblical doctrines they articulate. The synods have also made clear the expectation that CRC office bearers and, to a lesser extent, CRC members, abide by those interpretations.

Valuing Our Confessions

I’ll confess (pun intended) I have long appreciated that the CRC is a confessional denomination and appreciate how the creeds and confessions articulate what we believe. And specific to serving as a pastor, I appreciate the guardrails that the creeds and confessions give to my preaching and teaching.

I value our confessions. I study them and choose to submit my life and doctrine to them. I believe others in the CRC should study them and submit their lives and doctrine to them too.

A Tale of Two Classes

Early in my ministry, though, it became clear to me that not everyone in the CRC felt that way.

A number of years ago, I was in a classis meeting and on the docket was a discussion about an interim pastor who was serving one of our churches. The church in question had experienced an acrimonious split from their previous pastor. In the aftermath, the church had made their youth pastor their interim pastor. He was a winsome, gifted preacher and his ministry was bearing fruit. The church wanted to make his appointment permanent.

There was one problem, however: He wouldn’t baptize his children. He came from a believer baptism background and, despite a period of training in the CRC’s covenant theology, he remained in favor of believer baptism. While he promised not to preach or teach against the CRC’s position, he informed our classis that he intended to remain firm in his biblical and theological convictions. In light of that, the classis discussed whether we would allow him to continue serving as the church’s pastor.

That discussion went back-and-forth for a long time with classis members on both sides. Some felt that, given the fruit of his ministry and how well he was doing, the classis should allow him to continue serving as the congregation’s pastor. Others felt, given his personal convictions, we could not, in good conscience, allow him to continue. Both sides expressed their views, got a bit frustrated, and started to get a bit heated. Finally, the pastor in question, who had been sitting and listening to all of this, said that rather than cause further division in the church (and, by that, I think he meant both in the congregation he was serving as well as our broader classis), he would resign. This, in effect, ended the discussion, and, after a few more comments, classis expressed its agreement (reluctantly for some) and moved to take a break.

During the break, as I perused the coffee and cookies, I overheard a few of our delegates talking. “It’s refreshing to see someone stand so firm in their convictions,” said one. “I think we made a mistake. We should have tried to keep him.”

“Yes,” another said. “He certainly stood strong in his convictions. And that’sadmirable. But what about our convictions? Aren’t those worth standing up for too?”

A few years later, at another classis meeting, I observed an examination for licensure to exhort (an exam for someone to preach in one of our churches). At one point in the exam, the candidate was asked about the creeds and confessions. (This is a common question.) “Yeah,” the candidate replied, “I think I might have read one of our confessions. I remember going through the Heidelberg Catechism when I was in high school. But I haven’t read it since. And I don’t think I’ve ever read The Belgic Confession or the Canons of Dort. So I’m not really sure what those two are about.” The exam continued, and eventually the candidate left the room, and we began to deliberate.

Once again, the room was split. Some, especially a number of us pastors, felt that since this candidate was applying to preach in a CRC pulpit, he needed to at least have read the creeds and confessions. According to CRC polity, preaching is done in accordance with the creeds and confessions. “How can he do that,” we asked, “if he’s never read some of them?” Others, though, felt this wasn’t important. “He’ll be fine,” they said. “He aced the rest of the exam. What does it matter if he hasn’t read all the creeds and confessions?”

Once again, things started to get heated. At one point, one of the delegates from the candidate’s church got up and said, “You ivory tower pastors. All you care about is your theology and your creeds and confessions. You know all that stuff. But you don’t know this man. We do. He’s a good man. He’ll do a good job. Who cares if he’s never read the creeds and confessions? You should just let us have him.” And let them have him we did. After a bit more discussion, in a narrow vote (the narrowest I’ve ever seen in a classis meeting), we voted to pass the candidate and grant him licensure to exhort.

Inconsistent Confessionalism

All the talk in the CRC about creeds and confessions is a recent trend. Both of the stories I related took place before 2022, the year Synod voted to make its interpretation of “unchastity” in the Heidelberg Catechism apply to homosexual sexual activity. Both incidents took place before the Human Sexuality Report (HSR) was published. Both incidents might have taken place before that report was even commissioned (I truthfully can’t remember; my recollection of the timeline of those classis meetings and where they fell in the broader timeline of the HSR’s commissioning and development and the related synodical conversation is a bit fuzzy).

What isn’t fuzzy, though, is how the same churches and classes eventually responded to the HSR and synod’s decisions. Despite their less stringent confessionalism around covenantal theology, infant baptism, and preaching, all of those churches and classes were strongly in favor of the HSR and that its interpretation of the word “unchastity” be given confessional status.

These churches and classes never seemed to care that much about the creeds and confessions before and had, in fact, actively sidelined and disregarded them. But now they suddenly cared. Why the shift?”

A Confessionalism of Convenience, Part 1

In the days before the HSR and questions about confessional status, in the days before Synod 2022 and fights about gravamen (the CRC’s most recent confessional-related battleground), the creeds and confessions were, to many in the CRC, documents that were paid lip service to but not actually engaged.  

When the debate over human sexuality in the CRC picked up and Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 108 provided a mechanism to single out and prosecute those in the denomination who disagreed with a traditional position on human sexuality, the creeds and confessions started to matter much, much more.

Putting My Cards on the Table

In order to say what I’m about to say, I should put my cards on the table.

I am a traditionalist on sexuality and gender. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. I believe that sex is reserved for the confines of marriage. I believe that those who find themselves outside the confines of a marriage between and man and a woman should embrace celibacy. I believe that’s the best and most reliable way to interpret scripture, and, as I said above, I also believe in the CRC’s creeds and confessions. I read them. I study them. I endeavor to abide by them and submit my life and doctrine to them.

A Confessionalism of Convenience, Part 2

Precisely because I believe all of that, I do not believe in the inconsistent application of the CRC’s creeds and confessions.  

I do not believe the creeds and confessions should be wielded when it suits our purposes and ignored the rest of the time. That is not what it means to be confessional. That is not what it means to give the creeds and confessions priority. And that is not what it means to abide by or adhere to them. For far too long, we’ve cared about the creeds and confessions sometimes and ignored them at others.

As much as some in the more traditional camp in the CRC like to argue that the CRC’s positions on human sexuality have always been confessional, that we’ve always been confessional as a denomination, and that the recent debate over human sexuality is simply a return to our roots, I know that’s not the case. I know, because I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it.

A More Recent Example

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, I’ve heard an outpouring of support for Israel in the CRC. This is neither new or surprising. After all, both major political parties in the United States have historically supported the modern nation-state of Israel, and the majority of evangelical Christians have historically supported the modern nation-state of Israel too.

What is surprising, though, are some of the arguments I’ve heard CRC people using to express that support. “Israel is God’s chosen nation here on earth,” they say, “and so, as their ‘cousins’ in Christ, we need to advocate for and stand up for them.” Going back to anotherclassis meeting I once attended, I heard an elder from a CRC congregation make that argument. I don’t remember the exact context or why it came up, but I do remember this elder chastising the rest of us for not being more supportive of Israel. “I know it’s not Reformed,” he said. “I know it’s not CRC. I know it’s not what we believe. But I think it should be. I think we should support Israel. I think we should support Israel, because they’re God’s chosen people. I think that’s biblical; I think it’s right; and I think it’s wrong that we don’t believe that.”

There are many people in the CRC who would agree with that elder and with the idea that the CRC should be more supportive of the modern nation-state of Israel because they’re still God’s chosen people. The problem, though, (as that elder actually acknowledged), is that that is not what the CRC believes. It’s notthe CRC’s theology. And it’s not Reformed either.

The reason it’s notwhat the CRC believes, not our theology, and not Reformed is because it’s not confessional. The idea that the modern nation-state of Israel is God’s chosen people, a la John Hagee, the Left Behind series, and premillennial dispensationalism, directly contradicts Article 27 of The Belgic Confession, which says:

We believe and confess one single catholic or universal church—a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ, being washed by his blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects… And…this holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or certain people. But it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world, though still joined and united in heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith. —The Belgic Confession, Article 27 (emphasis mine)

The modern nation-state of Israel is not God’s chosen people. The church of Jesus Christ is. Through Christ, the church is the inheritor of God’s covenant, the heirs of his promises, and “the Israel of God,” as Paul says at the end of Galatians. Modern Israelis may become part of that “Israel of God,” the church, through Christ. But they are not God’s chosen people on the basis of their ethnic or religious heritage. Or, at least, post-Christ, they aren’t anymore. And yet, many CRC people think they are.

Will the CRC now root out all office bearers and members who hold a dispensationalist perspective on Israel?

I doubt it, because that’s not the fight folks in the CRC currently care about. That’s not the confession the CRC is currently litigating. And that’s not the type of confessionalism the CRC is currently emphasizing.

Instead, for those of us in the CRC, ours is a confessionalism of convenience.

True Confessionalism

But it shouldn’tbe.

Again, as someone who loves the creeds and confessions deeply, abides by them, and chooses to submit myself to them, I would love for the CRC to become a more fully-fledged confessional church. I would love for those in the CRC to study and prioritize our creeds and confessions. And I would love for the CRC to use them, truly, as the guides and guardrails we say they are.

But, to do that, the CRC would need to become much more consistent in our confessionalism, choosing to apply our creeds and confessions not only when they’re convenient, but all the time. We need to stop picking and choosing which aspects of our doctrine are important, weaponizing pieces of the confessions, and using that for our own purposes. We need to become truly confessional, choosing to adhere to and abide by the creeds and confessions not just when they line up with what we think or want to believe, but even when they don’t.

If we’re going to go this route in the CRC and declare ourselves to be a strongly confessional church, then we need to be consistent in our confessionalism, allowing the creeds and confessions to govern our lives and our doctrine not just when it’s convenient or easy for us, but all the time.

Anything less than that would be less than truly confessional. It would also be duplicitous and hypocritical. And that, it turns out, isn’t very confessional either.