Wide Mercy—Radical Discipleship: Interacting with Lewis Smedes

Written by Craig Hoekema

In May of 1999, Lewis Smedes wrote an article for The Reformed Journal (at that time called Perspectives) that has been influential for how some think about the Christian Reformed Church’s position on same-sex marriage.  The essay was entitled, “Like the Wideness of the Sea?”—a reference to the breadth of God’s kindness as articulated in Frederick Faber’s hymn, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.”

Remarriage and Same-Sex Marriage

Smedes proposed that there’s a parallel between how the CRC has handled remarriage after divorce and how it ought to handle same-sex marriage. His thesis might best be summarized in his statement, “It does seem to me that our embrace of divorced and remarried Christian people did indeed set a precedent for embracing Christian homosexuals who live together.”  The parallel, as Smedes saw it, is that in both instances you have Christians who are seeking to fulfill a God-implanted desire for intimacy in a way that, although not what the Creator originally intended for his children, is the “only way available to them.”  In addition, Smedes contended that the biblical case against same-sex marriage is weaker than the case against remarriage after divorce.  Therefore, since the CRC changed its approach to the latter, it should do the same with the former.  

Before articulating why I don’t think the parallel holds, it’s worth clarifying that, in spite of Smede’s title, the wideness of God’s mercy isn’t what’s at issue.  Lest one get the impression that any of this depends on one’s view of how merciful (or not) is God, let’s be clear that this is a question of how the church is to teach and guide its members.  As surely as scripture affirms the immensity of God’s mercy, it also affirms the church’s solemn responsibility to disciple the flock of Jesus Christ exclusively according to His will.  Neither one of those convictions diminishes the other.  In fact, one cannot call it ‘mercy’ to endorse what Christ has forbidden and warned will fall under His judgment.  Mercy actually requires an unwavering discipleship away from such behaviours and sometimes stern warnings of eternal danger.  

The CRC On Remarriage

But much more to the heart of the matter is whether or not the parallel Smedes argued for is compelling.  If one’s only exposure to the CRC’s position on remarriage after divorce is through Smedes’ article, he or she would get a misleading impression of what Synod (1980) has actually said about these matters and why.  Smedes pointed to three factors that paved the way for what he called the church’s “amazing reversal of its age-old exclusionary practice” regarding remarriage after divorce.  The first is that more sons and daughters of the congregation were getting divorced and remarried.  The second is that we started to see the Lord’s Supper less as a signal of our spiritual health and more as a gift for sinners.  The third is that we started to see “the cruel consequences” of our “practice of exclusion.”  One might get the impression from Smedes’ article alone firstly, that the CRC simply dropped all qualms about remarriage after divorce, and secondly, that we did so primarily because of an intuition that we needed to be more accommodating. However, neither of those things is accurate. 

What Smedes didn’t mention is what Synod 1980 actually said about divorce and remarriage or the detailed attention to scripture that formed the foundation of their conclusions.  We must agree with those who emphasize that the CRC’s position on divorce and remarriage is careful, nuanced, and calls for local Councils to engage discerningly without a simple prescriptive law for regulating all situations.  We must also agree with those who emphasize that the CRC’s position reaffirms the permanence of marriage, the priority of reconciliation, and it counsels firmly against any remarriage that conflicts with biblical teaching.  Put succinctly, Synod 1980 said that some remarriages after divorce do not conflict with the will of God, but some do.

Why did Synod say this?  It wasn’t simply an intuition that they needed to be more accommodating; rather, it was because they recognized that scripture itself teaches both the permissibility and impermissibility of certain remarriages after divorce.  Just over one third of the 1980 report is spent examining Matthew 5:32, 19:9, and 1 Corinthians 7:10-16.  The first two passages are Jesus’ condemnation of remarriage after divorce, “except in the case of sexual immorality” (often referred to as the “exceptive clause”).  The third passage contains Paul’s statement that believers are “not bound” if their unbelieving spouses choose to leave them.  Though it’s debated whether Paul’s statement implies a permission to remarry, Jesus’ statements clearly do constitute such permission in some cases.  The challenge, as Synod acknowledged, is that these texts provide no simple law by which to regulate—at a denominational level—when remarriages do or do not violate the will of God.  Thus they issued a call to local Councils to engage each situation discerningly and according to scripture (by no means a simple task nor one that readily yields clear and easy answers).

The Parallel Breaks Down

It’s here that Smedes’ parallel between remarriage after divorce and same-sex marriage breaks down.  When it comes to marriage as a male/female institution, there is no ‘exceptive clause’ in scripture, nor any references to marriages that are “not bound” by the parameters of being male/female unions.  To the contrary, the male/female nature of marriage is affirmed in scripture without exception from creation onward. As such, unlike the question of remarriage after divorce, we have no scriptural basis for saying that some marriages are male/female, but some are not.  

Though Smedes argued that Romans 1 cannot be read as a condemnation of same-sex marriage, he acknowledged the creational norm for marriage when he called homosexuality “an anomaly, nature gone awry.”  Therefore, Smedes positive case for the church accepting same-sex marriage comes down to a contention that not to make such accommodation in a broken world would be too cruel to be right.  That’s a fundamentally different precedent from Synod 1980’s careful attempt to hold the church to the teachings of scripture—even as they acknowledged that the practicalities of said teaching can be far from cut and dried. 

Mercy and Discipleship

Lewis Smedes had a profoundly pastoral heart, as is evident in so much of his life’s work and which is why his writings have been so beloved in the church.  Very few of us as church leaders do not resonate deeply with his concern that under-shepherds never ask more of the flock than the Good Shepherd Himself has asked of them.  Yet we must be equally cautious about making accommodations to Christ’s call to discipleship based on intuitions of what’s too cruel to be right.  Christ’s metaphor for the life of discipleship was that of picking up an instrument of torture and death.  It was Christ who taught that to follow Him we must be willing to sacrifice anything from possessions to family to our very lives, and Christians the world over still testify in droves to how serious was Jesus.  Yet try as any of us may, we can never be more pastoral or merciful than He.