This conversation heated up on Voices again. These are a few thoughts for today.

1. There were a number of possible paths that the Study committee could have taken. They choose to give guidelines to outline the implied limits of what the current 1973 report allows. The committee did so with elegance and legal precision. As I’ve said before the report has a haunted quality at points of wishing the CRC would “move the line” but that was beyond its mandate. If the Report is accepted the result will be legal clarification. Now the specific behavioral limits on councils and clergy are implied. If the report is passed they will be explicit. There is comfort, resolution and danger in overly specific clarification and the report knows this. In a number of areas they propose local options and local discretion.

It is important to watch the RCA in this debate. They for a long time have allowed congregations to allow gay couples into membership. Even many conservative churches and pastors would say “I don’t police the private sex lives of our members.” This is a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that is common in many churches and it covers straight and LGBTQ individuals. They seem, however, to hold office bearers to a different standard.

It was interesting in reading the Wikipedia post on Abraham Kuyper how some of these subtle differences between the CRC and the RCA go back into that history.

The RCA it appears is heading towards a showdown on this issue centering around the “council” that will meet this Spring. It may result in whole classes leaving the RCA. If that showdown does not occur there are indications that there may be a quiet, de facto split by conservative congregations and especially Asian, African-American and Hispanic congregations leaving. Unless the “council” can arrive at some new word or way it seems this is what is coming for them.

2. At this point it is clear that the church in the West will have established camps on this issue. LGBTQ individuals who wish to fellowship in a congregation will be able to find Christian churches and communities that welcome them. There will be a “settling out” point in this conversation where things move from a stage of heightened activity to one of more quiet foment or resigned parting of the ways. We see this on other issues like WICO. Churches will gets specific on what will be tolerated and what will not. Because this issue moves in many in such an implicit way the church will have to deal with broader ramifications of this going forward. As in KWOO classes there will likely be a steady drip drip drip on this issue as positions calcify.

Individuals who identify with the LGBTQ experience will then have choices to make. Those who tend to be theologically conservative in other areas will likely be the most frustrated and conflicted. People on this journey will go in different ways. Whatever you think of where Wendy is today on her individual opinion I appreciate her pastoral heart. Most of us who pastor, whether as professional clergy or not know that individuals have twists and turns in their stories and ideas apart from broad trends. Each person will have to deal with the circumstances that they individually possess as with just about anything. Faithful pastors, family and friends walk in relationship with others. Individual stories inform communal norms but do not control them. It is one thing for an individual to say “this seems right to me” it is another for a thing like a church to as a community work its process of communal Biblical interpretation.

3. A few pastors have come up to me and said “this report is no help at all.” What they mean by that is that they weren’t really looking for a legal outline of the lay of the land or for Synod to start to get more specific on the 73 report. They pastor in a context where the church is assumed to be bigoted and immoral given our reticence in flying the rainbow flag. In a place like Sacramento we are out of step with “history” and quietly assumed to be bigots. These pastors are not looking to abdicate their theological position. They are looking for a report that helps them publicly articulate a vision of human sexuality that isn’t Roman Catholic nor “true love waits” sometimes campy and trite evangelicalism. The report doesn’t offer that either. The minority report seemed to want to go there more. In remembering the Synod debate leading up to the report it seemed to me this was what Synod was looking for too. There are bits and pieces of this around. Here is a Banner article written by a member of the Folsom church which is part of our cluster but these pastors are looking for something more.

I don’t think the CRC or the RCA is just simply going to be able to produce such a thing because we need it or want it now. These things take time. Our context is young. these things are formed both by communities and leaders who arise with the gifts and context for vision to take shape and get traction. This is compounded by the fact that this vision will likely need to arise out of people who have been on an LGBTQ journey. Given our present epistemological context a group of mostly straight mostly CRC clergy isn’t really going to cut it. What this means I think is that we’re all going to be living in the wilderness of conflict for an indefinite and possibly long time. Endurance is a vital Christian virtue and skill that God seems fit to train his church in through many trials and snares.

4. The heart of the contemporary “solution” to questions raised by LGBTQ persons is to resolve the conflict by declaring “there isn’t a problem. The problem is with the prohibition.” That avenue itself is a popular one today on many different fronts. Wisdom has a way of revealing itself over lifetimes.

We should also remember that “there is nothing new under the sun”. What began (and in many conversations remains) an imagined slight accommodation, such as expanding traditional, monogamous, lifelong marriage to same sex couples has rapidly continued to migrate. Consider a piece like this. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/01/gay-open-marriages-need-to-come-out-of-the-closet.html

Deep in our imaginary is a subtraction story (OK, I’m channeling Charles Taylor) that haunts these conversations. You can read it in a piece like this from the SDA “year without God” dude. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/yearwithoutgod/2015/12/30/a-humanist-revolution/

Still, it depends on what Mr. Wehner means, exactly. Clearly Christianity has been enormously important in the development of human moral reasoning in the West. Because Christianity was so dominant in Western Europe, the Enlightenment project itself could be understood as emerging from Christianity—grappling with the emerging scientific worldview as it clashed with traditional religious dogma. It would be very difficult to paint a picture of the evolution of modern ethics without Christianity figuring largely.

This, however, is an historical observation, not a substantive one. The question that must be answered is whether Christianity is primarily “pushing” the ethical or being pulled by it. Is Christianity advancing ethics or is ethics pulling Christianity along? In my view, the latter is more likely. At every turn, Christianity has adapted to catch up to new ethical developments, whether it is feminism, racial justice, or marriage equality. There are exceptions when, for example, some Christians led movements for the abolition of slavery in the United States and the United Kingdom. Christianity does encourage love for neighbor and enemy as well as fostering in-group loyalty and this does at times give rise to progressive social movements (over major objections from the masses, it should be noted).

I know slippery slope arguments can be stupid but our current imaginary almost assumes the church is built upon one, and this is assumed by both sides of the culture war. I don’t hold to the assumption but I can’t ignore that those who wish to stay “ahead of the curve” keep building slopes to ski down. Consider the writing of this guy. http://revjeffhood.com/

I’m watching high school kids change their names and sexual identity every six months. In some ways this is a natural function of adolescence. Things haven’t quite solidified in them, but I wonder if the culture is really doing them any favors. Consider some of the data http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pregnancy-teen-lgbt-idUSKBN0NZ2AT20150514

What kind of a presence does a church need to have in such a space?

Churches are institutions informed by history and committed to a narrative or tradition. In our case this is Reformed theology and the authority of the Bible. We shouldn’t throw away these assets in a context of hyper change.

Churches (and I think Reformed churches with a strong sense of God’s sovereignty) should be able to be a non-anxious presence for individuals on many journeys. We have a theology that says the world may be in tumult but we trust in our Lord whose Word tells us of him. We will work our two books slowly, communally, informed by saints of the past and saints around the world today. We will not fear. We will not panic. We will be generous to individuals by giving them the space they need while not feeling the need to change what we should be slow to change. It is a sign of contemporary weakness of self that demands that those around me mirror for me how I think I need to see my self. “Unless you affirm me as I am today I can’t be with you” is an immature posture to assume that ultimately leaves one lonely.

So we need to do our work but not lose our heads. pvk