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OK, I’m Game

I’ve been wanting to talk.  Today Bryan Berghoef on his blog Pub Theologian wrote a piece to discuss, well, lots of things. Let’s walk through it.

Some may say “shouldn’t you do this privately?” Bryan and I don’t know each other personally. We’re blogging about issues. I don’t intend to attack Bryan in any way and if he responds I don’t expect to take offense at what he says. I hope we can do some writing about these issues. I call this fun and I suspect he does to because he likes to blog, so here we go. I hope the open conversation is helpful for others to overhear and participate in the comments, on Twitter and on Facebook.

The CRC Position

Bryan starts out by quoting the CRC website. The language of the CRC website pretty faithfully reflects the conclusions of Synod over a string of reports listed on the page.

I wonder how many gay individuals had a chance to review that before it went to press. I’m guessing not too many.

Probably none. Likely not many straight people either. I’m not sure who writes up these position pieces for the CRC website. I assume someone is tasked with this summary and someone else has to sign off on it.

The principle of talking with people if you’re addressing a group I think is a good one. My impression is that whoever penned this (or distilled it from Synodical statements, which were probably penned by advisory committee delegates to be wordsmithed on the floor of Synod) was probably trying to be both faithful to the Synodical intent, generous and gentle. Failure in this is of course in the eye of the beholder. “Disordered” is certainly not the worst word that I’ve seen, maybe there is a better one. I’m sure whoever is in charge of wording on CRC position pages on the website might be open to suggestions.

Bryan continues,

That is a hurtful and embarrassing statement. I am ordained in the CRCNA. This statement does not represent me.

Hurtful Continue reading →