Peripatetic Pastor

Tag: Synod

  • THESES ON DENOMINATIONAL LIFE (1)

    Introduction: Trouble ahead.  It’s no secret that denominationalism, a form of church life invented by Americans for America, is in trouble and has been so for some time. Denominations are splitting (or have already split), several over the issue of same sex marriage. Others are rocked by sexual scandal, lately the Southern Baptists and including notably…

  • WHAT HAVE WE LOST? THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH POST -SYNOD 2022 (Part 1)

    In the larger scheme of things, the dissolution of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), should it eventually happen, is ecclesiastical small potatoes: one more immigrant denomination absorbed into the morass of American evangelicalism. But it makes me sad if for no other reason that for many years, in the old prizefight metaphor, the CRC hit…

  • READING SCRIPTURE THROUGH THE EYES OF PAUL

    Informed Imagination in Practice Reflections on Synod 2022 A note for readers for whom “Synod 2022” in the title above means nothing. The synod in question is the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church that met most recently this past June. On its agenda was a report prepared by a committee appointed to…

  • PASSION

    When I arrived in Grand Rapids in the middle 60’s, the locals called him “Littlefaith.” His name was Duncan Littlefair. Littlefair, the Reverend Duncan Littlefair, was for 35 years, from 1945 to 1979, pastor of Fountain Street Church in downtown Grand Rapids. Fountain Street was a large and flourishing congregation under Littlefair’s leadership, filled with…

  • SYNOD 2022 ONCE AGAIN: Is there a hole in the center of the decision on confessional status?

    Dear readers, a short preface for the post that follows is in order. I am publishing this post (as also the one that preceded it) in an effort to understand and respond to an action taken by the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church declaring the position of the denomination on sex between members of…

  • CLOSED DOORS AND OPEN WINDOWS

    Where I live in the Pacific Northwest, summer comes slowly, often not arriving until the end of June. Today, June 24, is the first real summer day of the year. We have the windows open. A gentle breeze blows across the waters of the sound. The waves sparkle in the late afternoon sun. On a…

  • 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…