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I’m confused. I’m still unsure what I’m supposed to repent of. I’m not same-sex attracted. I’ve committed no sins in your eyes. I don’t want to leave because you drew a moral line. I want to leave because you drew an immoral, un-Christlike line that in practice refuses to accept any innocent-until-proven-guilty do-unto-others logic.

I want to show a lot more mercy than you do. That is all. Is that a sin? Am I indeed in rebellion against God’s duly appointed authority, is that my error? I still respect the just hammer of church discipline when it is brought down on self-indulgent, arrogant, greedy, licentious, exploitative, bigoted people of any ilk or perspective. What am I supposed to repent of to allow me to stay? Of my up-close-and-personal experience that you all treat church order like a weapon to be wielded instead of a shield for the innocent and the vulnerable and the repentant and the forgiven?

I am and have been increasingly repentant of having once reveled in the exercise of power and privilege in the name of Jesus. Humility calls me to leave. It would cause me to fall back into prideful sin to stay.

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Dear Neil, yes, it is a sin to show "mercy" where God does not. To fail to call for repentance and to applaud instead is a sinful act. True, saving mercy only comes through repentance. If we don't call active homosexuals to repentance and faith in Christ (repenting of sexual sin as just one of their overall sins) we are not offering them true mercy. Rather, we are shielding them from it. So yes, one should certainly repent if he tells people they are doing something beautiful when God says it is sinful. To do so is, in effect, to put a stumbling block before them, which Jesus hates.

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Aug 19
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It's ironic for me to say, that you, "Calvin," are demonstrating relativism. You seem to think that reading the Bible and saying, "It means X and not Y" is prideful. If this is what you think, you learned it from the secular world, not from the Bible. God is the God of Truth. He can write truth in a book and give us the ability to understand it. Homosexuality is right or wrong. God says it's wrong. Be on His side, not mine.

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Aug 19
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I apologize for assuming your handle was a pseudonym.

So, are you saying homosexual activity is sinful, but I'm not articulating that truth in a loving way?

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I am most thankful for the compassion expressed by the author of this article for his Church, the CRC. If the CRC were to continue in unmooring itself from its biblical foundations in order to make peace with the world, it would simply join the lot of mainline churches that have preceded it in that direction. Thus, becoming indistinct from the world, and therefore serving no purpose other than to parrot, “me too!”

Instead, the author seeks to extend a hand of understanding and fellowship to those who call themselves affirming. I take him at his word, that he wishes to see the church fully restored. But true restoration comes only when Scripture is at its heart.

We must meet in Christ and on His terms, not our own.

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Rev Golding,

I'm having a difficult time squaring what you have written here with your "Unity Isn't What you Think It Is" Banner editorial from June 2023.

In the above article, your argument seems to be that through humility and submission to the Church, it is not only possible for people to become more complete Christians, but that they can also do great things.

In your June 2023 essay you explain that "third way thinking... doesn't work" because it causes "convictions to be violated." You specifically reference the local option of women in office as the prime example of how convictions are violated. You also make clear that you oppose women in office for Biblical reasons.

Based on what you wrote in 2023, what you are asking affirming Christians to do, namely stay in the CRC despite strong Biblical conviction otherwise, is incredibly hypocritical. How can you ask people to stay out of “humility” when you yourself never fully respected the decisions of Synod around women in office? Did you ever seek to correct or discipline those who walked out when women preached in churches in which they were called? Did you preach the same “humility” to those who refused to hear a female pastor speak that you are now asking of those you have just kicked out?

Many Abide pastors openly preach against female pastors and officebearers. Classis Minkota openly opposes their seating at the start of every Synod. Where is the call for “humility” for them?

I’m not going to pretend that what I write or anyone else writes here will change people’s convictions, but please don’t ask people to stay out of “humility” and “repentance.” Abide clearly has never “humbly” considered or respected Biblical interpretations outside of their “clear” understandings, so please spare us the open hypocrisy of asking us to do what you don’t.

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Dear Mr Graansma, thank you for your comment. I think you misunderstand my view. I am not suggesting you and others stay out of humility. Rather, I am suggesting that you repent for having a false view of human sexuality, as it is described in the Bible. This repentance would require humility, but I am not suggesting humbly staying is enough. Repentance is essential. I think the same way about women in office. I think it's a sin and proponents should repent. I think it is clear in this article and one from 2023 that you mentioned that this is my position. Therefore, I don't think I am being hypocritical in this particular case (though I surely can be given to that particular sin in other instances). May the Lord guide us to see our sin and repent, for His glory and our good—and the good of our neighbor.

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Ahh yes. Another Abide pastor telling me I've misunderstood them. It's amazing I ever got through school while being seemingly illiterate.

What is it I am to repent for? For earnestly seeking the best way to live out scripture in my life? For challenging church authority when what the CRC sees as"clear" has and is causing so much suffering?

You seem to be arguing that now that a clear line in the sand has been drawn, those who disagree should stay in the CRC out of repentance and humility. Believe me when I tell you I have repented for the harm I was complacent in causing to LGBTQ peoples. I've humbled myself in realizing that I, and the church I was once part of, are capable of causing great harm.

I'd suggest that out of humility, you might consider the spiritual damage you may be causing to the young man you discuss in this article. I volunteered in youth ministry for years in the CRC and I also work closely with LGBTQ youth as a high school teacher. I've seen first hand the damage that non-affirming religious communities have on LGBTQ young people. I've humbled myself and repented of the harm done to them and dedicated myself to doing better by them. Perhaps it's time you do as well?

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Dear Paul, yes, some LGBT people lose self-esteem and consider suicide because their sexual desires are not validated. On the other hand, some LGBT people feel freedom, like the young man I mentioned, in hearing a clear message that they can follow. This young friend of mine is flourishing in the Church and in his walk with the Lord. He has no desire to embrace his sexual sin. He is glad to lay down those desires for Christ. It is absolutely possible to deny one's sexual desires. So, we can't point to people's responses as our guide to how we deal with this issue, since people respond in different ways. More to the point, if God calls martyrs to die for the sake of Christ, is it really so unreasonable that He calls others to give up their sexual desires?

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If God could call people to be martyrs, surely he could be calling you to reconsider the harm you are causing? I don't know the person you are talking about, but I do know stories of many people harmed by the closed minded "love the sinner, hate the sin" mantra. They are my friends, family colleagues, students, and fellow congregants.

I'd encourage anyone reading this to look at the stories told by LGBTQ+ people (Hesed is a great resource), who have come to understand the harm caused to them by non-affirming churches. While I wish the best for your friend Rob, there are countless more stories of queer people who have found joy and new life by escaping churches like the CRC.

As I initially said, I have no delusions of changing any Abide peoples' minds. My only hope and prayer is that any closeted LGBTQ+ people still in the CRC will come to know there is a much bigger, better, and more loving church outside of the CRC that will love you for who you are. There are better ways forward than what Abide demands of you.

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Paul, I've read those stories and heard them myself. Have you heard Becket Cook's story? What about Rosaria Butterfield?

https://www.becketcook.com

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Yes I am familiar with Becket Cook's story. I find his message to be very problematic and actively harmful to many LGBTQ+ peoples.

As I mentioned already, I'm certain I cannot change your mind on what you and Abide have declared as "clear". I simply hope that closeted individuals in the CRC do indeed see the incredible depth of your hypocrisy (which you admitted to yourself), and realize there are alternative and better communities (Christian or otherwise) open to them outside the CRC.

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I am writing this as a committed Canadian Christian, who is a convert, and someone actively involved in evangelism. Abide has made a terrible mistake. I think many in the Canadian church also see this as a hostile move led by American conservatives, who seem to be more committed to a particular style of political conservativism, rather than Christian values.

I know that many of my closest friends and colleagues in Christ have already left or are deeply considering leaving. I am also extremely nervous about what Abide will do next. I believe that we have done good work to advance the kingdom here in Canada, though I no longer feel welcome.

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Dear Colin, I am very sorry you do not feel welcome. I understand the frustration in seeing what you perceive to be Kingdom advances reduced by Abide. I can assure you, from the bottom of my heart, this movement has absolutely nothing to do with politics (or "American conservatives" as you say). This has everything to do with our best and most prayerful attempt at understanding God's Word. We genuinely believe God does not condone same sex activity. Ask yourself, if you had that same persuasion, what would you do? I know we disagree, but I beg of you to practice some charity as you evaluate motives. We are not motivated by hostility but a desire to follow God and His word. Please, Colin, I ask you to try your best to understand what our motives truly are, whether you continue to disagree with them or not.

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Thank you, Rob for your plea. I have no doubt about your sincerity. But as someone who has been largely on the periphery of all that’s been going on with Synod, it seems to me that the very reason the denomination has come to such a dividing point has been from a lack of humility. Your post puts forward as an ideal “the blessed fruit of a growing denomination” and the workings of these past Synods have been directed to preventing the sexuality issue from getting in the way of that. To put it in plain terms, the acceptance of gay marriage would risk alienating the part of the denomination that is growing— the Hispanic and Asian congregations. [You do also address the issue of the”dwindling,” “dismal,” state of the church.]

In the past, whenever the church has focussed on its own growth in order to ensure survival, it resorts to power schemes and tactics. And it winds up “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” [Mark 7:7]. I fear that this is the direction the denomination is headed. God’s deepest desire for this church is not that it grow but that it love and serve him. The church’s growth is God’s concern and doing.

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Dear Doug, honestly, I hadn't thought at all about the fact that our growing minority sectors would leave if we affirmed homosexuality. That is a good point, but it was not within my purview. My point is less pragmatic and more theological. That is, if the Church is filled with genuinely repentant hearts, God may bless us more with the power of His Spirit. I am thinking more along the lines of the Great Awakening and the repentant posture of Christians during the groundswell of that glorious movement (so repentant, in fact, that Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," with its emphasis on God's wrath for our sin, wasn't all-that strange of a sermon).

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Thanks for responding to my comment. Again, I appreciate your religious fervor for God’s Kingdom, but I wonder if it needs refining. A few more comments …

You say that the issue at hand is a theological issue. In my understanding, theology deals with questions concerning the nature of God - what we can deduce from Scripture and the Created Order. I feel that the issues surrounding sexuality and marriage that were the focus of the recent CRC Synods are not properly part of that theology. Theological concerns are relevant but these questions fall more in the area of ethics — how do we as human beings discern right from wrong and so live well together for the benefit of all. There have been many issues in the history of the church where the conflating of ethics into theology has just lead to confusion and bad judgment.

Your emphasis on ”repentant hearts”also concerns me. Not that there is anything wrong with a deep sensitivity to the importance of repentance. But your overall emphasis seems to be that “if the Church is filled with genuinely repentant hearts, God may bless us more with the power of His Spirit [emphasis mine].” The logic behind this thinking is that the Church is not growing because we have unrepentant hearts in our midst. The bestowing of God’s blessing depends on the ability of the Church to discipline and purify itself. This was also the stance of the Pharisees during the time of Jesus. They strove to strictly follow every letter of the Law so as to purify themselves and thereby hasten the coming of the Messiah.

This thinking reminds me of a pivotal section in the HSR. The Report attempts to measure the homosexuality issue up against the “heart of the Gospel.” Which it summarizes as “the call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.” This has a deep theological ring to it, but in fact this strikes me as about our response to the Gospel, and not the Gospel itself. For me, the Gospel is about God’s love, grace and mercy extended to all who would receive it. The underlying position of the HSR is that the focus of the Gospel is about how we respond to the Gospel. We are in some aspects the initiatory and primary agents in our salvation. Again, it is our responsibility to purify ourselves and thereby enlist God’s blessing.

This probably sounds like a side question, but it again rests on how we distinguish ethics from theology. If our concern is to encourage greater repentance and thereby God will bless us more with the power of the Holy Spirit, then I am curious why the other sins of unchastity as listed in Heidelberg Confession 108 have not been brought forward to be considered as salvation-issues? I am thinking specifically of pornography.

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Thank you for these thoughts. Personally, I see theology as pervading all of life. Ethics provides theological questions because ultimately they seek to answer, "What does God want us to do?" The answer to that question is always rooted in who God is (theology). But, I don't think that's the heart of your post and we could disagree on that point without being hindered from moving forward, as far as I can tell.

I think the key question you raise is why we focus on this specific sin and not others if the goal is purity and growth. To give any positive answer to that question is to admit that our goal is similar to the Pharisees--purity in order to hasten the Parousia. I don't think Purity will do that (i.e. quicken the Lord's return), but I do think it will open us up to be blessed with more Church growth. So there is dissimilarity and similarity with the Pharisaical goals. I think the reason Jesus spoke with the Pharisees more than the Sadducees is because the former were closer to the heart of the matter. Purity is indeed important, but Jesus made clear purity comes not from outward observance but the inward heart. The sadducees weren't all that interested in purity, in whatever form, so Jesus didn't have much to say to them.

So, I think we should indeed focus on all areas of purity in the church, not just sexual. I think pornography should absolutely be in our crosshairs as something that is potentially even more dangerous than LGBT issues.

The difference, however, that I didn't hear you mention, is that we all agree the other issues in HQ 108, etc. are sins that need to be dealt with. The reason we're having this conversation is that some think one of those activities (LGBT activity) is not a sin. Therefore, it is that rejection of sin-status that is causing all the focus.

That said, we should chew gum and walk at the same time by speaking against all sin, not just the one sin some of us think isn't a sin.

On the other hand, I am struck by the emphasis the NT places on sexual sin. The topic occurs in 15 of the 27 books (more than half) and it occurs a striking 14x times in Revelation, which deals with endurance and purity in the face of persecution. Jezebel, the great threat to the church, was teaching her followers to commit sexual immorality. The NT indicates that sexual sin has unique power to damage the church. This makes sense since it taps into a core human desire and has the potential to leverage that desire as a mechanism to draw us away from Christ. E.g., it will be a lot less likely for someone to give up their faith in order to maintain their habit of cussing. But giving up sexual activity is a taller order and has more spiritually damaging effects. Again, that applies to all sin, especially pornography. But, it means this discussion on LGBT issues is eternally significant in more ways than one.

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Hi Rob. Just a few comments in response.

I still have questions about how important church growth seems to you. It is easy for that to be a driving concern, particularly when congregation sizes continue to diminish. Here is a bit of my recent experience. My wife and I joined a CRC congregation about 10 years ago. The church had been struggling after a number of splits. There were 35-40 attendants on a Sunday. There were virtually no young kids. Our spirits were low and the prospect of closing was on the horizon. So we tried a number of ‘programs’ to attract new members from the neighbourhood. That didn’t have effect. So after 3 or 4 years of this approach we came to the point of saying — let’s just stop worrying about the future, let’s just try our best “to be church” - even if it’s just for ourselves, let’s let God take care of the future. And now, even with going through Covid, God has brought us people. There are 70-75 people on a Sunday including 6 young kids. There is a new spirit of openness and discovery among us. So this is all to say that I think that it was once we gave up our focus on growth that God gave us growth.

This is my worry. When we speak of Church growth as a blessing from God, almost a sign of God’s approval that we are being faithful — the danger is that it is easy to think that growth on our part would earn God’s blessing with more growth. As prideful humans we like to think we can earn some credit in all this. That our contribution, our agency, is of primary importance. “A person can receive nothing at all unless it is given from Heaven.” John 3.27

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It looks like we are having a continued discussion of one hundred years ago about common grace. It’s clear to me that abide feels that only the “elect” are in Gods favor. I do not wish to continue my lifelong membership in a Denomination that sees some as “in” and others as “out”. That is not Christlike and is unacceptable.

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Phil, you are wrong. Christ very clearly taught about who was in and who was out: “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:31–33). It is the height of folly and lack of love to fail to teach people about this reality of Christ. To tell goats they're sheep is pure hatred, which is why it is a primary tactic of Satan. Jesus warns us of the fact that many think they're Christians when they're not: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” (Matthew 7:22–23, LSB)

Abide is very concerned that some are being told they are in the kingdom when they are not. We will be judged by God for our teaching (Jas 3:1-2). Any logical Christian would do everything in his power to ensure he is not teaching people they are Christians when they are not, since this will be the result: “Now He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:1–2, LSB)

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This comes across like a jerk begging his/her ex to not go after repeatedly treating them like crap while telling them it was for their own good.

Am I naive if I think there aren’t people on the “winning” side in this fight who are actually rejoicing that they have played a role in tearing the denomination apart? They’d probably call it cleansing or purifying I suppose. If you thought this wouldn’t happen, then yes, I’d say you were naive (and maybe delusional). This action was planned for years, and the result predictable.

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Andrew, I supposed you're right that some would rejoice. But, I haven't met any. My peers all somberly pray for genuine repentance and true faith. We will not rejoice until the CRC is marked by that, not just "purity."

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Your arrogance is astounding. I had to read the article 3 times just to be sure it was real. I am glad in the comments you posted on your beliefs about women preachers because that gives us the opportunity to explore a thought experiment. Imagine in the early 90's that instead of giving each congregation their own autonomy around women in church office Synod decided to declare that every congregation must allow for women preachers and elders. And not only that, but that every deacon, elder and pastor must agree with this stance or be placed under discipline and forfeit their seat in church leadership. THEN imagine I wrote an article begging for you to stay and humble yourself and repent! Even though your interpretation of scripture would dictate that you have nothing to repent of! I have read countless thought pieces and spoken with MANY people in the CRC over the past decade around these topics. Never have I encountered something so offensive.

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Abide only has one answer regardless of the question: “Because we are right and we 100% know it, and if you don’t agree with us (which is impossible since we’re right), go to <a different denomination>.”

And it’s all done in the name of love and protection of the (modifications recently made to the allowable interpretation of) THE CONFESSIONS (and Jesus too, but still mostly the confessions, because if we don’t first get the confessions just right, we can’t experience Jesus).

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