Peripatetic Pastor

Tag: Synod

  • TEXT AND TRAJECTORY: JOHN 14 AND THE REVELATION OF GOD

    What do you look for when you read the Bible? More often than we would like to admit we look for confirmation of what we already think. The Christian Reformed synod did just this in 2006 when it appointed a committee “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality.” This was a dubious project […]

  • RETRIEVING THE BIBLE

    THE PROJECT: I began writing these blog posts (after a long hiatus) as a critique of a certain way of reading of the Bible, a way of reading that seemed to me to bind rather than to free, that has often been used against people rather than for them, a reading represented recently by the […]

  • IS THE CHURCH’S STANCE ON HUMAN SEXUALITY A CONFESSIONAL MATTER PART 3: 1 CORINTHIANS 6

    A The study committee appointed by Synod 2016 of the Christian Reformed Church “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality” was asked by the same synod whether in regard to what the church teaches about human sexuality (with same-sex marriage central to the discussion) the church should declare a status confessionis, ecclesiastical Latin […]

  • IS THE CHURCH’S STANCE ON HUMAN SEXUALITY A CONFESSIONAL MATTER PART 2: THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE

    Let’s go back to where we were (for more introduction, see the previous post: “Is the church’s stance on human sexuality a confessional matter? The status confessionis question”). The study committee on human sexuality (a committee charged by the Christian Reformed synod of 2016 “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality”) was asked whether the […]

  • IS THE CHURCH’S STANCE ON HUMAN SEXUALITY A CONFESSIONAL MATTER? THE STATUS CONFESSIONIS MATTER

    A brief introduction In June the synod of the Christian Reformed Church, my denomination, will take up a long (175 pages) report of a study committee charged five years ago (Synod 2016) “to articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of human sexuality.” In an earlier series of posts, I asked whether there is such a thing—“a […]

  • CARL

    The announcement came electronically, as they do now, in the mail I regularly receive from the denomination. It was a death notice, this one like so many lately, of someone I knew. The announcement said that Carl Kromminga had died at age 96. Carl was my teacher in seminary. He taught Practical Theology, the applied […]

  • DOES THE BIBLE HAVE A PLOT? A Second Take on a Theme

    A bit of clarification is in order. In my previous series, “The Quest for “A Foundation-Laying Biblical Theology of Human Sexuality,” I took aim at a number of assumptions and methods that underlie the approach taken to questions of human sexuality by a synodical study committee in their looooong (175 pages) and controversial report, now […]