My last Synod as a member of the CRC

It didn’t have to happen. Nobody in Jubilee Fellowship Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in St. Catharines, Ontario, originally wanted it to happen. But on June 23, 2025, 97 percent of our members voted to leave the CRC. The decision took a long, agonizing time. Yet staying became impossible after Synod 2024 summarily put all protesting and affirming congregations’ officebearers under its novel term “limited suspension.” 

At a May 16 congregational meeting, the first vote to leave garnered 91 percent approval. Council wisely set June 22 for the Church Order-required second vote, three days after Synod ended. Not a few hoped Synod would offer some leniency in its decisions of 2024 and not  discipline churches that welcomed all members to the full blessings, rights and duties of congregational life. Two classis-appointed pastors met with council and even attended our May 16 meeting. They did their work with love and grace. Classis Niagara will meet in the fall to decide how to respond to Jubilee.

Jubilee had spent 12 years studying the Bible, reading and discussing several books on the theme. Covid slowed the process but consensus – our method of making decisions – to accept and affirm all members grew. Over the last two years, several congregational gatherings and a full-day retreat helped determine our direction. During this time, a noticeable number of people began worshipping at other CRCs or congregations with traditional stances on same-sex relationships; others who questioned this direction stayed and continued to fellowship, engage and learn. We miss those who left, but, by and large, relationships were not ruined. In the end Jubilee’s commitment to seeking consensus was working. People might not agree with this movement, but they will not stand in the way, and they continue to be part of our faith community.

As I said, this separation was not necessary. Others have noted that choosing the “local option,” as Synod decided about ordaining women to church offices, would have permitted congregations now leaving to remain in the CRCNA. A significant motivation for congregations to separate are Synods 2023 and 2024’s hasty, though very deliberate, actions and not infrequent ambience of disrespect and some hostility. Synod’s hard declarations condemning life-long committed and chaste same-sex marriages stretched canons of confessional interpretation beyond recognition, especially the claim that same-sex relationships are grounds for losing one’s salvation. That decision belongs to God. 

Those Synods anticipated 2024’s decisions to severely limit the use of gravamina; they also set deadlines for compliance on persons and congregations, and discipline for non-compliance. The most ill-considered decision, in my opinion, moved the authority from councils to classes and Synods. This shift turns on its head the authority of local councils, undermining their ability to lead their members and manage property and assets. Did delegates even begin to think about the legal implications of one body assuming control over the rights of other incorporated institutions? 

The goalposts have moved

Then came Synod 2025’s still more draconian decisions: 1) Drastically shrinking The Banner’s mandate by publishing only articles that promote and defend CRC theological, ethical and doctrinal decisions. Freedom of honest expression to disagree and discuss has disappeared. 2) Setting up “rubrics” for members of denominational boards. Do long, faithful servants with sound reputations suddenly need minute dissection? 3) Merely “noting,” but failing to appreciate – and even throwing suspicion on – the work of the Canadian Justice ministry, specifically the Blanket Exercise, and this during the month of June: Canada’s Indigenous History Month. The Blanket Exercise is a key element of both KAIROS’s reconcilation work and the Canadian CRC’s Hearts Exchanged program, which both teach Indigenous history and culture.

As others have said, the CRC in its current form is a big departure from the church many of us have known since birth. The lopsided votes on the issues I mentioned above, and more, show a church divided, most significantly along ideological/political lines. Room has shrunk for thoughtful, prolonged and rigorous discussion before coming to seemingly set-in-stone determinations. 

I am deeply saddened that Jubilee, and at least 23 other congregations in Canada, are in the process of leaving the denomination that nurtured us in intellectual thoroughness and careful spiritual discernment. It’s not that we don’t merely feel unwelcome and respected. Rather, the goalposts of faithfulness and obedience have moved into ever narrower boundaries, forcing us out. Can this do any good for the denomination’s ministry to a world agonizing in hatred and division? Will this ever more rule-bound denomination attract lonely, hurting people looking for comfort and peace?

In closing, I am relieved to note that in St. Catharines, since Jubilee Fellowship decided to welcome all and make that a public tenet of congregational life, more gay persons have begun to worship with us, with one family officially joining. Now with at least six families of African, Caribbean and Hispanic origin regularly attending worship and church programs, when I occasionally preach, I see growing signs of Revelation 7’s prophecy of many tribes, nations and languages.