It happens here in today’s video: https://youtu.be/Bb2AzBF5xDQ?si=Mcyo7mrEn0aZxYyb&t=1797

This has been the topic of conversation in SOME CRCs since I was a boy.

It was the impetus behind the famous “burning the wooden shoes” article from 1980.

1. When Clay was in East Lansing it dawned on him that he spoke more about Calvin than he did about the University next door. Their CRC was ethnocentric. He felt it a mark of success when in a new member’s class someone asked “is this a denominational church?

He doesn’t say it, but this of course was part of a much larger movement. Get the denominational moniker off the sign. Pass for a “community church” to get people in.

2. People come in and hit a wall. They didn’t have the shared experiences that Laremy talked about at the beginning of the video.

Well, he talked about SOME shared experiences. Part of the success of the Netflix show “Stranger Things” was the shared experience of a common culture. Riding bikes, shared music, going to the mall, etc. In the CRC it was the shared experience of Dutch immigration, Heidelberg Catechism, etc. The “wall” people hit was not having grown up in a shared commonality. What Laremy’s Iowa stories demonstrated was that this shared commonality was an impediment to “outreach”, hence, burn the wooden shoes.

3. The story of Walnut Creek CRC. Our blessings are our curses. Walnut Creek benefited from the now defunct “circulatory system”. In the mid to late 20th century, it brought young, bright CRC young people to the burgeoning suburban San Francisco Bay Area that was about to explode with the technological revolution of the Information Age. Not just Walnut Creek, but also Palo Alto CRC, San Jose CRC. Hayward CRC and Alameda CRC were in Oakland. A bit of a different demographic would impact those churches.

CRC people after the second world war got educated in technology, law, finance, etc. took jobs in our booming economy in our world class cities. They brought with them the shared experiences plus the shared American culture. They were ready to succeed, and succeed they did. This happened in LA, Chicago, New Jersey. In many cases like LA, Chicago and New Jersey the immigrants first did farms (in NJ and Chicago factory work too) and so when some sold those farms for housing development, they grew wealthy faster.

The circulatory system broke down when children couldn’t return home to Wyckoff NJ, Walnut Creek CA, Bellflower CA, or perhaps didn’t want to. They stayed in GR where they met a girl or a guy.

Walnut Creek had a split over a pastor. It was over theology. Those people who had degrees in finance, science, law had different opinions in Genesis and Women in Office.

Walnut Creek had two ministers while I’ve here who were absolutely primed to burn those wooden shoes. Jerry Dykstra, the future Executive Director who would put “healthy church” language into the denomination in the 00s. He vigorously pursued the Seeker vision, and the church went after it whole hog. It wasn’t that Walnut Creek didn’t try to create a safe space for a dangerous message. They did.

When Jerry got called to take that vision and spread it to every corner of the CRC as Executive Director (be careful giving people what they ask for), Jason De Vries, a millennial, who was very interested in church planting added more of an Emergent vibe into the “reach Walnut Creek with the Gospel” effort.

Neither Jason nor Jerry could “turn that church around” so then after Jason left they called Clay for pulpit supply and apparently have called a new minister. They, however, came to classis and asked if they might have financial help to do some building repairs.

Clay is right, hardly any of us reading this could afford to purchase a home anyplace near Walnut Creek, Palo Alto, San Jose, Hayward and Alameda (these parsonages are now very valuable properties, as is the land under the churches) but these churches struggle to afford to call a new minister or to fix up these properties. Not because the retired CRC boomers have not succeeded in business, but because there are so few of them. Most of their cohort has either gone to glory or the glory of West Michigan or the colony area that the circulatory system brought them from. I’m sure they paid cash for their place driving up the values of those neighborhoods. GR isn’t as cheap as it used to be. My guess is that East Lansing by the University isn’t that cheap either anymore.

4. Clay talked about “the CRC I grew up in.” I didn’t want to interrupt, but this is where we get into the “Uneven temporal-cultural Impact Zones”. The CRC Clay grew up in did theology. Dordt continues to do theology, but who’s theology?

Clay of all people knows what it means to get into trouble for their theology.

Again, when I first read the church order I thought “this document is designed to ensure that a theological tradition stays put. This is designed for a church to maintain their theological heritage”.

Did Clay grow up in Lynden Washington or not? Somehow, he didn’t get the memo that theology was not supposed to change. Why didn’t he get that message?

Oh, because in parts of this supposed Dutch Immigrant “mono-culture” theology was supposed to not change and in other parts it WAS supposed to change. Read CRC church history and you will see that almost all of our fights have been about this.

I have messages for both sides.

To the “theology is a science that should keep up with the times” I’d say “hadn’t you noticed the majority of the church that clung to their prayer and wooden shoes? Surely you knew you had a fight on your hands. In fact, your main sense of mission was often to convince the tree-shodden brethren and sisterhood of the need to keep up with the times. “Ever reforming” right?

To the “never give in, never surrender” tribe I’d remind them that there have been surrenders all along the way. Sabbatarianism, Christian Schools, Catechism preaching, flesh-colored stockings, lake houses, vacations abroad, TV, cable TV, the Internet… We change even when we’re not noticing.

The URC fight was about change. It happened at Walnut Creek as well as Ripon. By a narrow majority there were winners and losers.

Along came the Emergent movement. Some went Rob Bell and Nadia-Bolz-Weber and others went Tim Keller and John Piper. Our own boy Louis Berkhoff FINALLY was recognized by broader America (sort of) and there is a market for our cherished “three forms of unity”.

Classis Central California that examines “all kinds of people” is thrilled when they can recite Berkhoff! Doing much “new theology” in Central CA will get you in trouble. The churches from Palo Alto, Hayward, Alameda, San Jose and Walnut Creek and Sacramento struggle to send the 3 delegates they are allowed. The seats are flush with delegates from Ripon plus Hispanic, Korean, Indian delegates most of whom will really like hearing Berkhoff recited to an appreciative audience.

To our surprised many who came in were men AND women of color who WANTED the theological goods long sitting on our shelves. We got to have our cake (ethnic diversity) AND eat it too! Except now some of the group that had won the Women in Office wars and won the Timothy Christian war and won the racial reconciliation war now find themselves on the other side of the vote and this time the votes aren’t by narrow margins.

5. People thought a “confessional conversation” a waste of time. Our assemblies bottom line on application. What may women do and not do. What sorts of sexual and familial arrangements are God honoring. What are we to do about carbon in the atmosphere and Indigenous people’s who got run over by European expansion in the Americas?

But Clay’s question about East Lansing or Walnut Creek remains with us. What are we doing in these places beyond sending out children to make money? The church was, by today’s sightings, a vestigial organ of Dutch culture that we dragged along with us to enjoy the Dutch Immigrant version of member-berries. https://youtu.be/OJoQJKTc3nM?si=eYT0H1LC8Jrp5kC9 “Member midweek catechism class. Member Christian schools, member house-visitation (the church word I can’t really pronounce or spell)…” 
What is supposed to happen in these lovely buildings that we built in now prime American real estate. They might make our now hollow coffers flush again with cash from property sales but what to do with them? Send the money to Grand Rapids to pay for “shared ministry”? 
The question is what is ministry? 
There isn’t much of an ecclesiastical mainline program to get involved with beyond the culture issues on social media, Fox and MSNBC. 
We can double down on Young Restless and Reformed just with the Heidelberg instead of the Westminster. 
How will we decide? 
Is the CRC an institution to afford theological hobbyists (sometimes called ministers) their speculations? Is the CRC a benevolent organization to help the poor and bring social justice? 
Confessional conversations are “define the relationship” moments for ecclesiastical institutions. Votes are very thin things conversationally. 
Spoiler. At the end of this episode (coming out in full this week, I promise…) Clay and I have different takes. I hope that we might be able to have confessional conversations after the votes are taken. I hope that maybe institutional boxes won’t define our relational networks. Clay thinks that once the divorce is signed both sides go away from each other, like CRC and URC. 
What makes today a bit different (but probably not THAT much different) is that our networks ALREADY go beyond our ecclesiastical boundaries. CRC people on the “right” and the “left” are already reading far beyond the CRC. The CRC seldom looks to its own people for leadership. We’re always following some megachurch pastor or some mega-brain theologian or some mega-popular activist. 
Votes will be taken. The Conservatives will (probably, if they can keep their nerve) win, but the issues that divide us within our one house remain for both groups, and what divides us isn’t so much one issue but rather a spectrum of issues around which we don’t divide quite so cleanly. 
The message from South Park is that member-berries can be delicious but must be handled with care. 
Fortunately, there will be no gallows on the Calvin Commons to hang those who lose the vote at Synod. They will still be our cousins, biologically and/or confessionally. Maybe we should figure out what sorts of things we can share even if we struggle to share Synods or perspectives on what the church is for.