Grappling with Gravamina, Part 2 | Toward Health

Written By Lora A. Copley

What if Exceptions are the Way to Go?

Our first article made the case that in our CRC history and Church Order, the gravamen process has been more about correction than exception. 

But what if our history is not a healthy history? What if, contra simplicity,¹ some exceptions to our shared beliefs and vows would, in fact, be a good idea? Maybe, regarding confessions, it is “neither right, feasible nor morally necessary”²  for CRC officebearers to agree. 

We think of dear ministry colleagues who are faithful in visitation, skillful in deaconing, beautiful in spiritual disciplines, who love the church and spent years praying and giving to it— are people like this not to serve as office-bearers just because they have a different belief about marriage and chastity than our confessional stance? How much alignment is wise?

A Simple Testimony

Evan Wickham is pastor of Park Hill church in San Diego, a church known both for its strong adherence to a historic Christian sexual ethic and its significant make-up of persons with same-sex attraction. Wickham’s church has been hailed as a premier example of a church including same-sex attracted persons within the historic Christian framework for marriage and sexuality.³

Wickham spoke to exceptions and alignment in a recent interview. His counsel, born of  experience, grabs our attention:

• “The key is to be clear upfront. The whole ‘clear is kind.’ You’ve got to commit to deadly clarity.” 

• “You will feel insane, when you’ve been unclear and you are moving towards clarity [because] you are inviting all this pain…  But a stalemate of ambiguity on this issue -- where churches have some affirming elders and some aren’t and some are neutral, never talking about it-- that is a powder keg going to erupt. How many people will be hurt without a formal clarifying moment, that is loving and kind. Being halfway, haphazard, is way worse.” 

• “No bait-and-switch.”  

• “[It’s about] clarifying leadership requirements- doctrinal and ethical alignment… We need to have everybody on staff, or volunteers, or in a leadership position be on the same page…but [the objection is] if we come out with this, there’s going to be people in leadership who are not going to be able to sign this. It’s a hard spot and hindsight is 20/20, it is like we should have clarified this years ago… But there will be people who can’t sign it. There will be fallout… But it is part of our commitment. We are committed to ‘courageous fidelity to orthodoxy in an age of ethical compromise.’ So that’s the first value.”⁴

Clearly, Wickham would advise against a “gravamen-as-exception” policy for leadership. The healthy ministry, given the urgent importance of sex, gender, and identity in our cultural context, will involve, as Wickham puts it, “a formal clarifying moment” and “doctrinal and ethical alignment.” While not easy, Wickham is striving for simplicity. Wholeness.⁵

Simple (and Hard) Wisdom

Part of the problem with using a gravamen as an allowance for conscientious objections and determined exceptions is that it’s hard to square with the plain wording of an office-bearer’s vows. Even more so, it’s hard to square with Scripture.

Each CRC pastor, elder, deacon (and a good number of other leaders) makes this oath:

we promise to be formed and governed by [the confessions]. We heartily believe and will promote and defend their doctrines faithfully, conforming our … living to them.

And in our vows, we say: 

“We promise we will submit to the church’s judgment and authority.”⁶

These are moral words.  All vows are.⁷

Is it morally necessary to keep a vow?

Vows are hard things to keep—marriage vows, baptism vows, profession of faith vows, and ordination vows. While hard, it’s in keeping vows wholeheartedly (without the fine print of exceptions) that we experience the health of being whole. 

I’m not hearing anyone in this debate say that they’d like to say “yes, yes” in one part of life, and “no, no” in another part. But is that not what an exception is–a  perfunctory “yes, yes” in the sanctuary and classis room and a “no, no” everywhere else? 

I believe our forebearers were on to something when they did not want to see officebearers (or congregations) so fractured, in states of chronic cognitive dissonance. I believe the Church Order and Pastor Wickham’s counsel is not about harsh exclusivity but rather simple health —for the confessional body and for the individual’s convictions.⁸

It’s about “trembling at the Lord’s word” in Ecclesiastes and in the Gospel:

“When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. 

It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it. 

Do not let your mouth lead you into sin.”

“All you need to say is simply Yes or No, anything beyond that comes from the evil one.”

“For by your words, you are justified. And by your words, you are condemned.”⁹  

The Healthy Way

None of the above wraps up the matter and puts a bow on it. As we move into Synod 2024, important discussions will be had about the priority of various doctrines (I think sexual ethics is high up there).¹⁰ We’ll also discuss process and posture too. (I think understanding and honesty is key). The purpose of these articles isn’t to delve into all that. Rather it is to take stock. In taking stock of CRC history, the Church Order, the wisdom of experience, and the instruction of Scripture, it is clear: exceptions are not a healthy path.

Exceptions fester. 

Exceptions represent a short-term solution for a long-term problem. 

Settled exceptions are about a denominational house divided against itself.¹¹

It is healthy for a council and a classis to do the work of learning and engaging a person’s unsettled difficulty on sexuality. It is healthy that these bodies do their homework with an eye toward alignment in the beauty of God’s design. (We aren’t without help in this task. “Scripture is useful for correction”.)  

Gravamen-as-exception is a path towards greater fragmentation, frustration,and dis-ease.

Gravamen-as-correction can lead to greater simplicity, vitality, integrity and -finally- health.

Let’s stay the course. Let’s go for health.   

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Lora A. Copley is blessed to be a wife, a mother to four children and an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church. She serves as a director for Areopagus Campus Ministry, a ministry of the CRC classes of Iowa at Iowa State University.

1. Again, the word “simple” is important to this debate. “Simple” comes from “sim-plex,” meaning “onefold,” without parts. It is a beautiful word. It’s a yes to wholeness. It’s a no to doubleness or compartments (think du-plex or duplicity). God’s Word lovingly calls His people to simplicity and singleness. In math terms, we are to be integers, not fractions.

2. From the “Churches in Protest” letter template of the Better Together-Third Way organization.

3. By Dr. Preston Sprinkle, of the Center of Faith, Sexuality and Gender, in an interview on January 18, 24. Theology in the Raw  with Evan Wickham.

4. All the following quotes are taken from the transcript of the interview of Evan Wickham on Theology in the Raw podcast. January 18, 2024.  

5. Four things stand out to me in Evan Wickham’s interview (and it’s worth listening to the whole thing):

1. The call for aligned leadership isn’t coming from a Pharisaical curmudgeon who has a thing for rules. It’s from one doing “an exceptional job” ministering to and with those inclined to LGBT orientations. 

2. The motive for alignment and clarity is not despite love, it is because of love. It is because Wickham loves people (and Jesus’ truth) that he insists on integrity.

3. Wickham acknowledges this is painful. And we will need to pick our pain. Aligning leadership to shared core values is gut-wrenching. But the alternative is “way worse.” (Especially worse for those most vulnerable—those we are trying to care for and our kids, those we teach.) 

4. Finally, we can do this. We can be “mission true.” Alignment (and discipline) in the CRC will be hard, but not impossible. Wickham embodies this as he, with gentle firmness, insisted his congregation would say what we mean. And mean what we say. Honesty – with its realignments- is the best policy. 

6. From the CRCNA’s Covenant for Officebearers.

7. Really, all words are too. Cf Jesus and James.

8. Should those in settled disagreement with the confessional and denominational stance on the sin of porneia (as including same-sex sex) just refuse to make an oath then?  Here’s what I think - I think gracious separation into places of more convicted alignment is healthier for that individual (or congregation) –and it’s healthier for the denomination too. Far better for those of affirming convictions on sexual ethics to be able to freely express and live out of their conviction with a like-minded affiliation. Exceptions – of essential matters- functionally render shared commitments null and void. How do we then teach or do life together? (Eg. What does a shared curriculum on sexuality or premarital counseling look like? What about policies of officiating/celebrating weddings? If exceptions are a recourse, then are not churches committed to a historic sex ethic more exposed to litigation that accuses bias and animus for not choosing the exception?)  

9. Ecclesiastes 5:5-6a (see the whole unit); Matthew 5:37; Matthew 12:37 respectively. 

10. There is a difference in the prioritization of doctrines. (See Gavin Ortlund’s Finding the Right Hills to Die On.)  No one says credo-baptism is a sin. Neither do we believe differences in millennial views or age of the earth or double-predestination are violations of God’s law. There needs to be clarity among the church’s office-bearers as to what constitutes sin, repentance, surrender to the Lordship of Christ, and the holiness of the church. 

11. Even “Better Together: Third Way” calls differences in sexual ethics a  “fundamental and intractable disagreement.”  (see the suggested Churches in Protest letter template of Better Together).  

In something so fundamental, it seems to me that “an intractable disagreement” solidified as an exception will lead to less unity, less relational capital and more lost opportunity costs –if we choose a jaundiced path.