To my affirming Christian Reformed Church brothers and sisters:
I’m so sorry for Synod’s recent decisions. For so many years you’ve gently but firmly advocated for theological positions that lean on grace — from playing cards to dancing to adopted children being baptized to divorced people being in full communion to women in office to the Belhar Confession to the current issue of accepting gay persons in relationships as full members of the church, eligible to serve as Officers. In many of those cases, the main argument wound up being that good Christians can be in disagreement about such issues, based on faithful interpretation of Scripture. This has worked in the past.
But no longer.
You have a year or two to knuckle under or be “disafilliated.” So much passive language there to make it seem like they aren’t kicking you out.
But we can’t deny it: you and your way of reading Scripture and being in the world have been rejected by the Christian Reformed Church. Rejection hurts. A lot.
For so many years, it has been your value to stay in communion. Some of you have endured hateful, abhorrent speech and attempts to get you fired from your job, all by people you were in communion with. You took Jesus’ words seriously when he tells us we, his body, are to be one. You have tried so hard, despite working with people who not only didn’t care about being one with you, but who were determined to purge the church of you.
I know exactly what this feels like, and not just because I was one of those more progressive CRC people who stayed through many Synod set-backs. I was married for 21 years. It was my value to stay and I was proud of the work I put in to have a marriage that seemed, in many ways, to be really good. When my husband was arrested for a sex crime and his infidelities were revealed, I experienced the deep wrenching pain of rejection–compounding rejection for all the years I was working to stay while he was going his own way.
Here is my advice to you based on what I learned through that experience:
Do not bravely deny your grief
Let the waves of grief come. Don’t resist them or try to explain them away. An institution you have loved and learned from and served and fought hard to remain in has rejected you. That hurts. Don’t harden your heart to protect it from the pain. Feel your feelings. All of them. The waves will not pull you under; they are cleansing.
Don’t be afraid of anger
There is a good chance that you are both sad and angry. You might be angry at the denomination, particular factions of the denomination, or even yourself. There’s also a chance that you are afraid of this because you think anger is not biblical. But it is.
Sadness is more socially acceptable. It’s easier to talk about how hurt you are. If you express your anger, someone will likely frown and talk to you about forgiveness. They may even quote Ephesians 4:26 at you. But here’s what a close reading of that passage reveals:
Sometimes anger is the right response.
“Don’t sin by letting anger control you” (NLT), “Be angry but do not sin” (NRSV), and “In your anger do not sin” (NIV). The anger is not the sin. There is a difference between being angry and sinning. Sometimes anger is the right response. The sin would be in letting that anger turn your heart towards bitterness.
This realization is what led me to want to forgive my ex-husband after not even wanting to want to forgive him. Feel your feelings. All of them.
Lean into the mental relief
Relief may also be one of the feelings. Eventually. In particular, the relief of no longer having to twist yourself in mental spirals while you try to interpret the unloving actions of the denomination as loving. You’ve worked hard at trying to see the decisions of Synod and the actions of those who rejected you as still being Christian. You’ve tried to figure out the whys of their ideas of Scripture and their behavior. Because you wanted to be one body, to remain in communion with them.
What a glorious relief to no longer have to do that.
Especially if you and/or your congregation decide to leave, you won’t have to expend so much mental energy on Synod and factions of the denomination. It will take practice, and regularly reminding yourself that you no longer need to obsess about them. But it will feel so good.
Even now, 9 years later, when people ask me why my ex-husband did what he did, I might give a partial answer and then say, “That used to be all I thought about, but not being married to him anymore means I don’t have to. And I love the mental peace.”
Don’t be embarrassed if there’s a little seed of relief in your grief. Lean into it.
Look for where God is at work
You know God is already at work. He never stops. I’ve always found Romans 8:28 to be both one of the most hopeful and most offensive passages:
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (NLT)
Because the Synod decision and your messy emotions are some of those things that will work together for your good, and you’d rather they didn’t happen at all. But God is already acting, marshalling what you need to help you move into a place where you and your ministry can thrive. You may need words of comfort–look for them. You may need words of encouragement–look for them. You may need rallying cries–look for them. You may need fellowship–seek it out.
In that beautiful already-but-not-yet, God is at work and God will be at work for your good, because you love God and are called according to his purpose.
Realize you are God’s beloved
The Christian Reformed Church may have rejected you, but God has not. You are God’s beloved.
Even better, a time will come when you will not have to constantly fight your church governing body about the definition of who is and is not God’s beloved based on who they love. Whether you join a new-to-you affirming denomination or become an independent congregation, it will feel so right to not have to constantly bash your head against a brick wall.
Go forward in hope
For some time, congregational life will be full of hard decisions and drawing of boundaries and legal issues. Even after the dust has settled, life will not be perfect, because we are all humans here. But if you do the emotional and spiritual work along with the practical “what do we do now?” work, trusting that God is already and will be at work for your good, then you can move forward knowing that things will be better. Eventually.