Two years ago, in a move that surprised almost everyone, the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) voted 123–53 to affirm that “unchastity” in the Heidelberg Catechism includes adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex.
“What now?” asked an article in the denominational publication, The Banner, two weeks later. “How will this decision play out?”
It was a good question. Some wondered if the vote wasn’t an accurate reflection of the denomination but instead a “coup” by a few well-organized conservatives. The FAQs released by the denomination included ways to change synod’s decision and ways for pastors, elders, or deacons to stay in office while disagreeing with the denomination’s position on sexuality. They could submit a “confessional-difficulty gravamen”—which is “a personal request for information and/or clarification of the confession”—to their church council.
In 2022, the CRC affirmed that ‘unchastity’ includes homosexual activity / Photo by Steve Herppich. Copyright © 2022 The Banner, Christian Reformed Church in NA. All rights reserved. Used by permission. // TheBanner.org
In other words, you could tell your church you weren’t sure about the CRC’s position on sexuality, then continue to serve indefinitely.
In 2023, a fresh batch of synod delegates took another run at the issue. The vote splits looked much the same as the year before, and the confessional status of the definition of “unchastity” was upheld.
Then, as time was running out on the last afternoon, a vote was finally called on gravamina—to clarify they were temporary, not a permanent way to operate in the CRC while disagreeing with her confessions.
It felt rushed; the discussion had only been 10 minutes long. And to progressives, it also felt predetermined; the conservatives had won every vote so far. Emotions were running high when a handful of delegates said they no longer trusted the body, took off their name tags, and walked out in protest.
Out of time, synod voted to delay the issue another year. The CRC had never done that before. To conservatives, it felt like the liberal members had just won more time to maneuver their way out of church discipline.
Jason Ruis at Synod 2022 / Photo by Steve Herppich. Copyright © 2022 The Banner, Christian Reformed Church in NA. All rights reserved. Used by permission. // TheBanner.org
“I was weeping,” said Jason Ruis, chair of the committee that proposed limitations on gravamina. “I thought we just saw the death of the denomination. I thought the vast majority was in agreement with what we were putting forward, but it got hijacked again by a small group of people. I thought [fellow] conservatives were going to say, ‘I’m done with this. Let’s go someplace else.’”
But they didn’t. This summer, the gravamen issue was the first that synod took up. By a vote of 137–47, they gave office-bearers three years to work through their difficulties. Synod also voted 134–50 that publicly affirming churches needed to stop and to publicly repent within a year or, at the most, two.
Next year, only delegates without gravamina will be allowed to serve in regional gatherings or at synod, effectively ending the debate. For a denomination that has slid leftward since the mid-1990s, this has been a remarkably quick and decisive shift back to orthodoxy.
“To feel like I’m part of this denomination, and part of that reshaping that is happening right now, is super exciting,” California pastor Patrick Anthony said. “To be the one denomination that was going liberal to have it not happen—why would God be so gracious to us?”
Dutch Reformed to Mainline-ish
Founded in 1857 by Dutch immigrants, the CRC draws from an old, rich history of Reformed theology and love of education. Less than 20 years after it began, the CRC founded a college and seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and named them both after John Calvin. Later, another CRC-affiliated college would name itself after the synod in Dordrecht, Holland, that outlined the five points of Calvinism. (I sit on the board there.)
Membership in the CRC grew fairly steadily until 1992, when it peaked at more than 315,000 members in nearly 1,000 churches. The average church size was 300.
And then things seemed to fall apart.
Chart created by Neil Carlson of DataWise Consulting
In 1995, after 25 years of arguing over women in office, synod finally said each congregation could decide for itself. Thirty-six complementarian churches left, and their 7,500 attendees formed a new denomination—the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA).
The CRC’s numbers never recovered. Over the years, more conservative churches left to join the URCNA, and the CRC’s numbers began to follow the mainline path of decline. Fewer babies were born, fewer teens enrolled at Calvin University, and fewer young people stayed in the denomination.
The CRC also followed the mainline in a decline in personal piety. For about 25 years after the split, CRC members reported reading the Bible less, praying less, and having fewer personal and family devotion times.
Perhaps most concerning were the implications for belief. Studies show mainline church members are less likely than evangelicals to believe the Bible is the word of God. Was the CRC losing that too?
Progressive Leadership
Certainly, with the rise of Donald Trump, prominent CRC leaders were distancing themselves from American evangelicalism. “I Never Was an Evangelical, and I Never Want to Be,” CRC member and Calvin professor of English Debra Rienstra wrote in 2017. Her colleague Kristin Kobes Du Mez published Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation in 2020.
“I devoted more of my career than I can believe to help recover and nurture the better part of the CRC tradition in the hope that it might occupy some space between both the mainline and Evangelical sides of American Protestantism,” Calvin professor emeritus of history James Bratt wrote in 2022. He, Rienstra, Du Mez, and Calvin philosophy professor James K. A. Smith have all signaled LGBT+ support. In 2021, about 150 Calvin professors and staff told the administration they opposed a CRC report supporting biblical sexuality.
Until 2020, those faculty were required to be members of a CRC church. Because of geography—the CRC headquarters was four miles down the road—they often ended up in the same churches as the CRC leadership. In that corner of Grand Rapids, there are 21 CRC churches within about 10 miles of each other. Their classis, or regional body, is called Grand Rapids East.
Derek Buikema was president of synod 2024 / Photo by Steve Herppich. Copyright © 2024, The Banner, Christian Reformed Church in North America. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission // TheBanner.org
“Many denominational employees are part of those churches,” said Orland Park CRC pastor Derek Buikema, president of synod this year. “And a significant number of professors and members of administration at Calvin University and Calvin Seminary also go to those churches. Classis Grand Rapids East churches dominate the ethos of the entire denominational apparatus.”
In 2011, Grand Rapids East asked synod to revisit its historical perspective on human sexuality. When it declined, members in two of its churches founded All One Body, an organization that advocates for “unrestricted membership and full participation” in the church of those living LGBT+ lifestyles.
Five years later, Grand Rapids East released its own report, which it also submitted to synod. It explained the advancements in scientific and theological thinking and recommended the CRC allow for diverse views on sexuality.
That same year, another classis—this one from Alberta, Canada—suggested synod appoint a panel of LGBT+ advisers. And another report, this one official, advised synod to allow CRC pastors to use their discretion when asked to attend a same-sex wedding or make their facilities available for a same-sex wedding. CRC pastors should also be allowed to officiate civil same-sex ceremonies, they said.
But the 2016 synod wasn’t amenable. The delegates turned down the LGBT+ advisers and voted by a 60 percent majority to tell pastors they couldn’t officiate, participate in, or allow their buildings to be used for same-sex weddings.
In response to Grand Rapids East’s report, they appointed an official study committee on human sexuality. Every person on it, they said, must “adhere to the CRC’s biblical view on marriage and same-sex relationships.”
Conservative Synod
The committee had five years to do its work—and then six, when Synod 2021 was canceled for COVID-19. During that time, Neland Avenue CRC—a member of Grand Rapids East—installed a female deacon who was in a same-sex marriage (perhaps hoping to force the issue at synod). Calvin University students elected an openly gay undergrad as student body president and a Calvin professor officiated a same-sex wedding for a Calvin staffer at a campus-based research center.
Everybody was watching for the report. In late 2020, it was released. In 175 pages, it explained the creation, fall, and redemption of sex. It explored issues from pornography to gender dysphoria to homosexuality. And in the end, it said that “the church’s teaching on premarital sex, extramarital sex, adultery, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex already has confessional status.”
Even though that was the committee’s mandate, conservatives were surprised.
“I remember saying [to the other pastors], ‘How many of you honestly thought the CRC would come out with a report this sound, this biblical, this faithful?’” pastor C. J. den Dulk told The Gospel Coalition. “And nobody there raised their hand. Nobody knew they would do it. We were like, ‘Thank you, God. This is so good.’”
How many of you honestly thought the CRC would come out with a report this sound, this biblical, this faithful?
The Banner was less enthusiastic: “Sexuality Report Released to Churches, Suggests Historical Position Is Already Confessional,” one headline said. Churches and classes also didn’t take it as a settled matter and sent more than 60 overtures to synod asking for the report to be rejected, accepted, or changed. Two more networks were formed—the progressive Hesed Project and the conservative Abide Project.
“Whatever Synod 2022 decides, the discussions around the report will be the most significant and controversial synod deliberations in a generation,” a retired Banner news editor wrote.
They were. With LGBT+ protesters milling outside, 70 percent of synod voted to affirm the human sexuality report’s conclusion that the Heidelberg Catechism’s “unchastity” includes homosexual sex. Next, 76 percent voted to instruct Neland to rescind the term of their deacon in a same-sex marriage.
“I was surprised it got 70 percent of the vote,” said Ruis, who was there. “I had this gut feeling it would pass, because even though all the public-facing institutions don’t tell you, everywhere I go CRCs are mostly pretty faithful. That’s why I had optimism, but I was nervous the progressive wing had been organized and co-opted a lot of things.”
In California, Anthony perked up. He didn’t grow up Dutch or Reformed—when his CRC wife wanted to baptize their baby, he was determined to prove her wrong. He dug into her theology, fell in love with it, and eventually took a call at a CRC church. He was wary of the denomination’s leftward lean, though, until 2022.
Hey, he thought, the CRC might end up being a theological home for me after all.
Confusion in the CRC
Between the leadership and the synod votes, it was hard to tell exactly what the CRC was. Evangelical or mainline? Progressive or conservative? Affirming or orthodox?
Bratt called the vote a “coup” by the “Theobros” or “Coup Boyz.” Neland appealed synod’s decision and left their same-sex deacon in place. A number of Calvin faculty, including Du Mez, signed confessional-difficulty gravamina, and Calvin’s board voted to accept them.
Still, Iowa pastor and Abide contributor Kurt Monroe was “very encouraged,” he said. “A number of us were beginning to actually think this vote split was a more accurate representation—that The Banner didn’t accurately reflect the denomination as a whole. That was the hope, anyway.”
Synod 2023 “was the question mark,” he said.
2023: Delay
A lot of Synod 2023 was checking the work of 2022—delegates voted again to uphold the definition of “unchastity,” not to delay the implications of the human sexuality report, and to ask classes to make sure their churches were in agreement. With a 73-percent majority, they denied Neland’s appeal.
By this time, it was clear the votes weren’t the result of a coup. In 2016, 2022, and 2023, the conservative vote had consistently and overwhelmingly won.
But so far, there was no response to the gravamina taken by CRC office-bearers in churches and at Calvin University.
Pastor Kurt Monroe / Courtesy of First Christian Reformed Church of Sioux Center’s livestream
“A lot of people in the denomination who personally believe what Scripture teaches about sexuality don’t agree with what Scripture says about discipline,” Monroe said. He worried the CRC could end up waffling like her sister denomination, the Reformed Church in America (RCA). After years of back and forth, the RCA synod affirmed that the “unchastity” the Heidelberg condemns included same-sex activity. But at the same time, its classes were ordaining a man in a same-sex marriage and its pastors were conducting a same-sex wedding. Neither side was able to garner the votes for a clear majority, and by 2021, the denomination had fractured.
That’s why, when the progressive delegates walked out and synod punted the gravamen decision, Ruis was crying.
“I wept for the rest of synod,” he said. “People didn’t understand. Some people were like, ‘I know that was hard for you.’ Yes, it was hard to see all the work our committee did come to nothing. But I was weeping because I thought the denomination might be dead unless God does some miracle here.”
“I’ve been delegated to synod four times now, and each time increasingly feels like war,” pastor and Abide clerk Aaron Vriesman wrote after Synod 2023. “The CRC’s existential crisis has been building for some time. Each synod is a battle of opposing visions for the CRC, with diametrically opposing values. While synodical sermons trumpet Christian unity and the worship times lead us to rejoice together in one circle, the reality among the delegates and throughout the CRC is a battle for the soul of the denomination.”
2024: Battlefield
In 2024, Buikema was voted synod president. One of the first issues he took up was the gravamina. The committee, which had last year’s notes, was ready. They presented a unanimous recommendation that the “gravamina are not meant, nor should be used as an exception to the confessions.”
During the discussion, Grand Rapids East delegate Ryan Schreiber pointed out that his Sunday school teacher, famed philosopher Alvin Plantinga, held a gravamen for his disagreements on reprobation and election.
“Alvin Plantinga is perhaps the brightest mind in the Christian Reformed Church from the last century,” Schreiber said. “Alvin Plantinga is a world-famous philosopher on behalf of our church. Why we are famous is he debated on the world stage the most powerful atheist philosophers at present time. He lifted theism, or belief in God, as reasonable on the world stage. And that’s why people come to Calvin University. That’s why people know of the Christian Reformed Church.”
Does the CRC still want to be “the church of Alvin Plantinga?” he asked.
Patrick Anthony addresses synod 2024 / Courtesy of the CRCNA synod livestream
Anthony, who didn’t grow up in the CRC, answered. “The truth is, theologically we just heard Alvin Plantinga is located elsewhere in the body of Christ,” he said. “He may have been raised in the Christian Reformed Church, but I am not Dutch and I am more Christian Reformed than Alvin Plantinga.”
In the end, 74 percent of synod agreed with him. Office-bearers with gravamina could have three years to align with the confessions or leave office, while affirming or protesting churches got one year. During that time, they aren’t allowed to be delegates to classis or synod.
And just like that, the battle was over. The CRC is evangelical, not mainline. It’s conservative, not progressive. It’s orthodox, not affirming.
Maybe it always has been.
“What changed in eight years is less that there was a shift in the denomination and more that those who have an orthodox understanding of marriage and sexuality finally said, ‘We have to step up,’” pastor and Abide chairman Chad Steenwyk said. The vote splits “reflect who the CRC is in our congregations.”
But it doesn’t reflect everyone.
What’s Next
“RIP CRC,” wrote one pastor after synod.
While that’s perhaps a little dramatic, things will look different at next year’s gathering. Twenty-eight of the 1,000 churches in the CRC are affirming, according to All One Body board member Trish Borgdorff. Of the 19 listed on the All One Body website, five are in Canada. Another eight are members of Grand Rapids East.
Some of those churches are already preparing to leave the denomination. Better Together, a “third way” group that invited churches to declare themselves “in protest,” will gather leaders later this month to talk about the future.
Pastor Chris deWinter reports to synod for the committee working on Calvin University issues / Courtesy of the CRC synod livestream
At Calvin, “a breakdown of trust has occurred between Calvin University and some of our church members,” a synod committee noted. To help rebuild it, the university board is supposed to “develop languages and processes in alignment with those in the CRC” and report back in 2025. All 31 members of the board are approved by synod.
Five days after synod, Calvin administration met with faculty.
“We don’t expect any immediate impact on faculty or students in 2024–2025,” university provost Noah Toly told the student newspaper. “I’m encouraged that there’s a path forward in which we build on the policies and procedures we already have in place.”
“I came away trusting that the university leadership and the board of trustees want to continue to carve out a place and a way for Calvin University to be the kind of institution it’s always been,” Smith said. “Now they [the board of trustees] have a year to propose a way for that to happen that would satisfy the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church.”
That seems easier said than done.
“They’re in a tough spot,” Anthony said.
Vision for Ministry
About a month after synod, conservative leaders met at an Abide convention in Iowa. They talked about the past and the future.
“These guys came of age in the era of the Young, Restless, and Reformed,” said Buikema, who spoke at the convention. “They’re Calvinists, but there wasn’t a ton of material on Calvinism produced by a denomination that was sending church pastors to Saddleback and Willow Creek for conferences.”
Instead, many of these pastors learned Reformed theology from Kevin DeYoung, John Piper, or Mark Dever. DeYoung’s church voted to move from the RCA to the Presbyterian Church in America in 2015.
“They introduced us to Berkhof, the Puritans, and the confessions,” Buikema said. “The younger generation has been shaped by the YRR movement much more than by the denomination.”
Going forward, “it’s incumbent on the CRC to cultivate a positive theological vision for ministry,” he said. “We shouldn’t expect the denominational functionaries, or the seminary, or the college to do it—although if they do, that’s wonderful. But churches should expect to be active in that.”
As they do, they need to prioritize “holiness, integrity, compassion, and gentleness,” he said. That’s for the sake of those who leave—“We want them to know the CRC loves them and cares about them and invites them back.”
But it’s also for the sake of those who stay. “We can’t fight just to fight—then you’re just the Orcs,” he said.
Accident of History
“How many denominations have gone this far down the road toward theological liberalism and then put on the brakes in a significant way?” Monroe asked.
None.
Once a vote on sexuality comes up, “every other denomination has gone affirming,” said Collin Hansen, executive director of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. “No other denomination has pulled back from that precipice.”
Buikema has a theory on that: “It’s an accident of history,” he said. “When the mainlines started to go liberal in the 1970s, it was still a positive thing to go to church.”
That meant the liberals were around to fight.
Even when the CRC split in 1996 and began moving left, “70 percent of people still had a church membership somewhere,” he said. “By 2019, that’s 47 percent.”
In other words, the CRC’s liberals were largely gone by the time a vote was called.
“If you start your theological drift in an era when all liberals are becoming religiously unaffiliated, you can’t successfully complete that move,” Buikema said. “This is a picture of reformation at a time when we see very little of that. The narrative is almost always the opposite. To move into being confessionally reformed is beautiful and extraordinary and cause for rejoicing.”
“So many people were praying the last several years for God to intervene and for his will to be done,” said Andy Sytsma, who chaired the gravamen committee in 2024. “This is one of those unseen—and hard to document—parts of the story, but it’s one I hear people mention. Yes, to God be the glory, great things he has done!”
“God has been exceedingly gracious to the CRC,” Monroe said. “We certainly don’t deserve it. I am very, very grateful.”