Lately, I have had people approach me —often people who have encountered my blog for the first time—to say that they find what I have written troubling. They are not hostile. Their approach is diffident and respectful. They do not wish to contradict me, but they find the idea to be unthinkable that the church could give its approval to sex between any but a married heterosexual couple. They believe, they tell me, that the recent Christian Reformed synods have been correct in their rulings, correct not only in condemning same-sex marriage but in requiring that no one holding office in the church be permitted to say anything to the contrary. This they contend is merely biblical and has always been the settled opinion of the church.

In our all too brief conversations, I always say that I would be glad to discuss these issues with them at greater length, but, alas, we usually are in a place where such a conversation would not be easy or appropriate. And I add that I would like to continue to be in a church where we could in fact have such a conversation, believing together that even if we cannot agree, we belong to the same Lord. It’s this freedom to discuss the issue that the recent synods have denied us. And so, after a too brief conversation, we part cordially but equally dissatisfied. And so I thought, perhaps, that I ought one more time to address these issues—to give my side of the conversation. In doing so, I thought one post would be enough, but it has rapidly turned into three. This is the first of these.

Dear friend, had we the time (and the synod’s permission), I would first say that queer sex is not the issue or, at least, not the only issue. It has become the issue because it is at the center of a culture war. And because some in the church want to make sexuality into a wedge issue, splitting the church so that they can have the church they want. 

The church they want is “young, restless, and Reformed” (see Collin Hansen, Young, Restless, Reformed, 2008), although that movement is no longer so young and certainly not always Reformed. The issues that the CRC synods have pushed are those that have been at the center of the YRR movement for all of its brief life: penal substitutionary atonement and sexuality (note in this regard that the first Abide synod, 2022, had both of these on the agenda). 

The YRR movement—both in its original YRR form and in the form it has taken in the CRC—is inherently legalistic. Legalism is always a way to grab and maintain control. The god of the YRR movement is angry—a god to fear. Have you noticed how in speech after speech at the recent CRC synods delegates have piously claimed that they are only trying to save queer people from this angry and judgmental God. Saved from God, not to God.

This is how penal substitutionary atonement and moral legalism come together. Penal substitutionary atonement presents God as needing to be appeased—an angry God who by all rights should condemn his rebellious creatures to everlasting punishment. A God of fire, not love. And this God will not abide unrepentant sin, which is the way they regard queer sex, even if it is sex within a committed relationship. 

It’s not hard to detect in this a variety of theological special pleading. What they are after is social control. They want to push back on all that offends them in the culture—offends them. Especially freedom of expression in sexual matters. Their god is offended by queer sex because they are offended. An angry penal substitutionary god suits them well. They can pose to queer people the choice between celibacy and the wrath of this god. 

And in the CRC they have hung this on the Heidelberg Catechism and the idea of unchastity. In Q&A 108 (see also Q&A 87, much cited at Synod 2024), the venerable catechism says that “God condemns all unchastity,” something with which anyone must agree. By definition “unchastity” is wrong; it’s what the word means, after all (“un-chaste,” from the Latin castus, “pure”). But what is chaste and what is not? That’s where the rub is. And so Synod 2022 provided a list of what they regard as unchaste: “adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex.” 

Nothing particularly odd about this; it’s what synods do all the time. But they were not satisfied merely to declare with the authority of the synod that this is how they read the catechism. They wanted to say that this is tout court what the catechism means.  A neat trick, as it turned out: they gave to their interpretation of the catechism confessional status. This is like taking a text from Paul, say Romans 3:21-26, a text about which there has been a long history of commentary and controversy, and saying that this—this being what the synod declares—is what the text means. No other interpretation can any longer be entertained. Romans would in that case include not only the original text but the language of the official interpretation of the text. CRC Bibles would have to be footnoted so that when the reader got to Romans 3:21-26, they would be directed to the footnote which would tell them what the text means. The original proposal to Synod 2022 wanted to do just that, provide a footnote for Q&A 108 of the catechism saying what Q&A 108 means. Synod decided not to do so, but mostly for technical reasons, not because it is manifestly absurd.

Even if you agree that the Synod 2022 was right in its interpretation of Q&A 108, this is rather a lot of weight to put on a synodical ruling, especially one that flies in the face of earlier synodical rulings about the authority of synodical rulings (see Synod 1975). But there is something else wrong with it. The argument proceeds entirely from a legal reading of the authority possessed by a synod. It lacks what one would expect from a Reformed church: a careful and deep engagement with scripture. Anyone worth their Reformed salt would say of the actions of Synods 2022-24, who cares what these synods claim about Q&A 108? It’s not about exegeting the catechism; it’s about the Bible. What we want to know is what the Bible says? I take it that this is what you are saying, too. It’s about the Bible.

At this point, you may wish to remind me that Synod 2016 had appointed a study committee “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality” and that Synod 2022 had received a report from this study committee purporting to do just that, and that it had done so at great length, 175 printed pages. Surely, the biblical argument had been taken care of. Synod 2022 seems to assume that it had. 

But (I would say in response) if you think that the report of the Human Sexuality Committee was an attempt to engage in a scriptural conversation about human sexuality, you would be quite wrong. Note what Synod 2016 asked for. They asked the study committee “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality.” To “articulate,” not to discover or explore biblical ways of approaching sexuality. Not to read the Bible for the sake of reading the Bible.

They said “to articulate” because they were already sure not only that there was such a thing—a biblical theology of human sexuality—but that they knew what it looked like. The biblical theology they wanted articulated was the theology the CRC had already adopted in 1973 about in its first report on homosexuality. In effect, Synod 2016 was saying, make a biblical case for what we already think. And to be sure that if was this that the study committee would do, they required that all the members of the study committee agree with what the CRC had previously declared about sexuality. No open minds allowed. This was not a strategy to explore what the Bible says about human sexuality but a strategy to use the Bible to prove what the synod wanted to be proved.

In all of this, the Bible itself with its diversity of voices bridging a diversity of cultures and the span of many centuries, simply gets lost. Synod 2022 never engaged the Bible except to use the Bible as a hammer to condemn those who would speak against their rulings. And this flies in the face of what is fundamental to the Reformed movement: sola scriptura, which is not so much “the scriptures alone” as “the scriptures first, before confessional claims and synodical rulings. 

In doing so, the synod failed to hear the texts that are typical cited against homosexuality. They used them, but they didn’t really hear them. If they had listened to them, they might have discovered that these texts are quite different from what the church has supposed them to be. They might have heard a conversation about human sexuality in which some of the same questions we are asking today were asked, not so much to give definitive answers, but to bring to the surface the issues with which any approach to human sexuality must come to terms. In engaging the Bible, they might have been forced to engage today’s culture in new terms. 

But all that supposes that they were interested in what the Bible says rather than using the Bible to clobber those they wished to clobber. And, so I propose, still thinking about our conversation, that we actually go to the texts, to the Bible, not just to find answers but to discover the questions that are behind these texts. Not to use the texts to answer our questions, first of all, but to see what the texts are asking so that, in turn, we can see what the texts are saying. And, then, engaging these questions and answers, to see how we might ask the same kind of questions, and come up with answers of our own.  

So, my friend, let’s dive in. To Leviticus. Daunting as it may be, Leviticus belongs in our discussion. I’ll give you a hint. It’s about holiness. What’s holy and what’s not? But that’s for our next conversation. 

I hope you will come back. You might find it more interesting than you expect. And more fun.

Clay