Hope Church voted to disaffiliate. With 90% of Hope’s confessing members participating, the decision to disaffiliate from the Christian Reformed Church passed by 95%.
There was no joy. The vote was not about same-sex marriage; the vote was about the nature of faith and the recognition that ours was no longer acceptable. With neither voice nor vote in Synod or Classis, we realized that we no longer had a place in the CRC.
After the vote, we encouraged members to stay and share. We didn’t relitigate the issues, but we made space for testimony. With the leadership of a couple chaplains and seasoned elders we asked, “How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What does this mean to you?”
There were words of conviction and question, quivering lips, and expressions of affection. There was sadness, befuddlement, and a desire to continue supporting the ministries of the CRC. There was one testimony that captured the spirit of the day.
A wise and weathered man told of his great grandfather, Jan Postman, who with his wife and nine children traveled from the Netherlands to Lethbridge, Alberta, in the early 1900s. From Lethbridge this immigrant helped lug lumber across the Great Plains to build what became the first Christian Reformed Church in Canada in a region known as Nieuw Nijverdal. Tears welled up as the speaker traced the fruit of his family tree from those pioneer roots. In his words,
Three of his grandsons, including my dad, Tymen Hofman, and his brother John, became the first Canadian-born pastors in the CRC. My cousin Ruth, John’s daughter, was the first woman pastor ordained in the CRC. Her brother Marv is a CRC pastor, and I have two nephews and counting who are pastors or have their seminary degrees. Both of my grandfathers were delegates to Synod as elders in their respective classes. When my brothers and I discuss what’s happening in our churches today the term we use is “tossed.” We’re being tossed out of the Christian Reformed Church. No other way to describe it.
Those in Hope’s sanctuary were stone-cold silent. Everyone felt a measure of empathy and gratitude. In his world-weary baritone they heard an echo of their own stories. While many didn’t have the multi-generational history, all knew what it felt like to be tossed out of their faith family.
When Hope’s elders, deacons, and pastors expressed uncertainty about how best to love our same-sex-orientated siblings, the freedom to serve in the CRC – as currently constituted – was removed. Since its inception, the CRC has wrestled with all manner of questions and for the most part has made room for disagreement and discovery. That seems to no longer be the case.
Hope Church is a middle-sized, mostly middle-aged, middle-class, middle of the road congregation in the Midwest. We’ll lament being tossed, but we’ll land on our feet. We’ll grieve, but we’ll remain a Reformed Christian community. While no longer CRC, we’ll still be a Reformed witness in our little corner of the world.
Hope’s story is well-trod territory for Reformed Journal readers. One more post about disaffiliation feels like one too many oliebollen. And yet, for the life of me, I don’t understand how any of this strengthens the witness of the church. For those who led the charge to clear out the “rot.” I still don’t know how any of this prospers the proclamation of the gospel.
But I do know that hope can be hewn from loss. Some who are leaving the CRC feel the buoyancy of new relationships. I hope Hope Church gets there. But for now, we’re mindful of Jan Postman leaving the Netherlands, crossing the Atlantic and three quarters of a continent, to build a new life. He and his brood left behind a home in search of a new beginning. Even as we’re tossed, we pray for the same sturdy spirit and enduring hope.
12 Responses
I totally understand. My ancestors were charter members of Eastern Ave CRC and my grandparents charter members of Brookside CRC in Grand Rapids. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the Abide folks. Most of the leaders are relatively young, and seem to have no appreciation for those of us who have a long CRC legacy. I grieve with you.
Thank you for sharing that poignant experience of hearing a memorable legacy history by the Tymen Hofman son. Ty blessed us in his years at Neland Church, and two of his sons who are still with us continue to bless us in our ongoing ministry.
May the Lord of Hope Church lead it toward a powerful witness of his comprehensive love.
I feel this, but from the other foot. My church left the RCA a couple years ago. I was one of only five votes to remain with the denomination and that was heartbreaking. This year we will be celebrating our 150th anniversary as 4th Reformed in Grand Rapids-
even thinking of changing the name. I’m sure they seek to glorify God in this way but I’m afraid they’ve been led by politics and law rather than by the love and grace we ourselves are given in Christ Jesus. God bless your church as you find your way. God will be with you.
The Hofman clan (both Tymen and John and their spouses and children) have been extended family to me since the 1950s and 1960s. As clergy colleagues, my dad Bill (born Wiebe Douwe Buursma in a tiny village in Friesland 100 years ago this summer) and Ty and John forged a close bond for the rest of their lives. It is a blessing none of them lived to see what’s become of the church they loved and served with conviction.
Yes, Bruce, it’s a blessing that dear Rev. Hofman never lived to see what has happened to the CRC. I’m glad that my dear dad, Dr. Carl G. Kromminga Sr., did not live to see this day, either. I asked him one time how he felt about gay marriage. He told me that adherents of this position were very nice people who had good intentions, but that they were “very seriously misled.”
I was baptized by John Hoffman in 1960 at River Terrace CRC when my Dad was getting his sociology Phd. About 10 to 15 yrs ago I pulled out my baptism certificate only to realize John never signed it. Fortunately his son Gregg sang in Alumni Choir with my husband and was able to get his dad to sign for me. We had a good chuckle about that. So sad that the current group of CRC leaders seem to have so limited an understanding of the Reformed faith of the denomination. I feel it has been taken over by those who are better characterized by fundamentalist Baptist leanings.
My hope, after reading your blog, is that you and your congregation will be blessed beyond measure in the years to come. The ‘tossed out’ approach has now dictated that the Banner may not publish opposing views to the theology of the denomination, as well Calvin Seminary and University being pushed to bring their faculty to heel. This is not the CRC that most of us grew up in, where a wide diversity of voices were welcomed, even when it resulted in serious disagreements and vitroil. We were always able to live in that tension. Thanks for remembering these wonderful people in our past who led with grace and integrity.
In the 1970s the editor of The Banner was Lester de Koster. I remember how often, from his conservatism, he criticized the denominational leadership and even the decisions of Synod. He invented the word “synodocracy.” And yet his dissent was never silenced, and even though he irritated the “progressives” (a relative term, indeed) they never demanded his submission.
Oh, yes. It hurts like hell to find yourself on the wrong side of the door.
Roger, the story of your church’s vote sounds very similar to our experience at First Church of Grand Rapids, one of the four original CRCs. No joy, but plenty of lament, and tears. We did not want to leave, but did feel tossed as well. And, while my family was not part of the Canadian Hofman clan, my Dad, Leonard Hofman, was a classmate of John and Tymen Hofman. They sang in the Calvin Seminary quartet together and toured the US and Canada in 1951-52. Dad passed away two months ago. I’m grateful that he wasn’t tossed.
Ty was my pastor in Muskegon and now his grandson is the pastor of that same church. What a legacy that testimony recounted.
What happened to the CRC where different voices were heard and respected, not out of agreement but out of Christian love?
I served with John Hofman on the Ann Arbor Campus Ministry committee of Classis Lake Erie, when I was a member of First CRC Detroit (along with Doug Vrieland), and with John’s daughter Ruth on the executive committee of the CTS Board of Trustees. John’s son Marv was our beloved pastor at 14th St. CRC in Holland for 18 years. He and his predecessor, Norm Steen, have both been “tossed,” and have therefore disaffiliated from the CRC. Five generations of my family have been faithful members of the CRC, but the current leadership of the denomination has no room for my disagreement with their deliberate misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the clear language of Article 46 of Acts of Synod 1975. After nearly 50 years at 14th St. CRC and nearly 90 years in the denomination, my wife and I have found a warm welcome at Hope Church (RCA) in Holland. To paraphrase Habakkuk 3:17-19, “Though there is no room in the CRC for me, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.”