The Real Issue About Gravamen
The Real Issue About Gravamen
Written by Patrick Anthony
In any discussion, it is important to be able to steelman your opponent’s view. As someone who came to the CRC from the PCA, who is not Dutch, and who served on Committee 8 at Synod 2023 and signed the majority report, I have spent a good amount of time trying to wrap my mind around the real issue at the center of the gravamen discussion. What is it that’s really dividing the two camps?
There was a time when I believed the other side was being disingenuous. I suspected LGBTQ affirming officebearers were using gravamen to essentially take an exception to the confessional status of “unchastity” in Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 108. I thought they were (knowingly or unknowingly) twisting the original nature and use of gravamina to step outside of the CRC’s history of confessional subscription.
I no longer believe that is the case. Sure, there may be some outliers doing this, but I am now convinced the vast majority of officebearers in the CRC, including so-called “progressives,” can affirm the Covenant for Officebearers. They believe our confessions “fully agree with the Word of God” (Church Order Supplement, Article 5). They can affirm “without reservation all the doctrines contained in the standards of the church as being doctrines that are taught in the Word of God.” (Church Order Supplement Article 5, A 1). They agree “no one is free to decide for oneself or for the church what is and what is not a doctrine confessed in the standards” and that if there is ever a question, they are thankful “the decision of the assemblies of the church shall be sought and acquiesced in.” (Church Order Supplement Article 5, A, 3).
So what’s the difference? Well, the difference is whether it’s even possible for fallen sinners to believe something “without reservation.”
On one hand, if it is possible to affirm our confessional standards without reservation, then a confessional difficulty gravamen (CDG) is simply a way to allow for the possibility that an officebearer may develop a doubt or difficulty subsequent to their ordination. However, since one must affirm all our doctrines without reservation in order to be qualified as an officebearer in the CRC, a CDG must necessarily have limits, requirements, and a process that will move officebearers back into alignment with the qualifications for their office. On the other hand, if we should expect that fallen human beings will inevitably have a certain level of doubt and struggle when it comes to doctrine, then a CDG is simply a way of acknowledging that reality while doing the best we can to maintain the highest level of fidelity to our confessions. In that case, it makes sense for CDG’s to be more loose, undefined, and ongoing. Since difficulties are inevitable, in this understanding of CDG, we maintain our confessional identity because the subscriber promises not to teach against the confessions despite their difficulty.
For the so-called “progressives,” a CDG is a lifeline. It’s how they remain faithful to the Covenant for Officebearers. It’s the only way they can take those vows in good conscience. They are absolutely not trying to deceive anyone. They want to remain unified in doctrine and life and they are making a great sacrifice by keeping their doubts and difficulties private. They are handing over immense trust to our historic doctrines and institutions.
One retired CRC minister who sees things differently than me says this about affirming the confessions without reservation:
“But can one do this? Is it even possible? Can anyone actually affirm anything, let alone all the teachings of the confessions, ‘without reservation’? Aren’t reservations part of thinking? For me, they are. Ask me my name, and I’ll have reservations about my answer.” 1
Thus, for those who agree with this statement, a CDG is not a way to get around the confessions. It’s a way to live with them.
Once I realized this, I became very sympathetic. Especially for those who are truly struggling with real doubts and difficulties about how to think theologically, biblically, pastorally, socially, and morally about LGBTQ issues.
But we do differ. I believe one of the qualifications for being an officebearer in the CRC is being able to hold to our doctrines without reservation – which means without doubts or difficulties. While I understand the humor in the statement, “Ask me my name, and I’ll have reservations about my answer,” I have great confidence that our confessions accurately teach what Scripture teaches and emphasizes. Scripture tells us there is a faith (i.e. a set of doctrines) once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 4). There is one Gospel (Gal. 1:9). Pastors must keep a close watch on their lives and teaching, why? To save themselves and their hearers (1 Tim. 4:16)! If that’s the case, we better have confidence in our doctrine! God gives us His Spirit so that we will understand (1 Cor. 2:12) and we do have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Faith itself “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Finally, (and I could go on), an elder is someone who “hold[s] firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9).
Holding to our doctrines without reservation and without doubt or difficulty, is simply one of the main qualifications of being an officebearer.
It is true that some doubts and difficulties do not go away this side of heaven. That may mean someone with certain doubts and difficulties is not able to serve as an officebearer in the CRC. Officebearers are free to have doubts and difficulties about doctrines not addressed in our confessions, but what qualifies someone to serve as an officebearer in the CRC is the ability to wholeheartedly affirm the doctrines of our confessions. In order to maintain this qualification, a CDG process must have a time frame and be moving toward a resolution, otherwise, a situation is created where an unqualified officebearer could serve the church in perpetuity. Clarifying that gravamen are temporary and that there is a process by which gravamen should reach their resolution helps determine whether the necessary time needed to grapple should take place as a non-ordained church member rather than an officebearer. Timelines and processes do not undermine the “pastoral and personal” nature of gravamen; however, they do define whether the person possessing the ongoing difficulty should struggle as an officebearer responsible to teach, or a church member who needs to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save [their] souls” (James 1:21).
Patrick Anthony completed his MDiv at Talbot School of Theology. He was ordained in 2017 and pastors Immanuel Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA.
" a situation is created where an unqualified officebearer could serve the church in perpetuity." That is what is happening and it is ridiculous to allow this to continue.
It's all in the language! When God met Moses at the burning bush he did not actually provide Moses with a name. A name would beg comparrison with the hundreds of Egyptian gods as well as those of Midian and neighboring tribes. He would tell Isaiah that His thoughts are not ours and neither are his ways ours. A whole lot higher. He is the one who is able to do far more abundantly than even our imagination. Job may have been a righteous dude, but when the Lord confronts him, he realizes how igorant, how uninformed he really was . . . and is. A measure of uncertainty of questioning is ultimatly a relfection of humility that we cannot pissible understand and accurately depict and speak about God. We do our best using what we know and our limited vocabulary, but we must come up short. It is hubris to think we have it all absolutely correct. But let's set this aside and move to the HSR.
This is not simply theology, it is personal. If I have a sibling, or a child, or another family member or a close friend who is LGBTQ+, then to affirm the confessional stance and traditional understanding of "unchastidy" creates or at least potentially creates a relational tension. So here I take exception. It is not simply a matter of crtiquing how one thinks but how one lives. There are individuals whom I know who never would ahve questioned that understanding until someone close to them "came out." It forced them to deal with an issue that otherwise may never have acught their attention. Indeed, it was not an issue for hundreds of years until the attitude of society began to change.
(Quickly written. Please forgive gramatical and spelling errors. It's been a long day. :))