No Longer in the Same Boat

Summertime is the season for boats, or at least boating analogies. Angela Reitsma Bick and I have a book (to be released this September) that features boats as a spiritual analogy for the deconstruction and reconstruction of faith. We write mostly about canoes that run aground or get capsized.

That’s how it feels in the Christian Reformed Church (CRCNA) for a number of people post-Synod 2024. Lost at sea. Even shipwrecked.

This editorial was written weeks before Synod but was tweaked for the electronic version. The original delved into the meaning of that idiom, “Whatever floats your boat,” which is another way of saying “do whatever gives you pleasure.” According to the internet, “Whatever floats your boat” rose in popularity the 1980s after the sexual revolution. Similar phrases pop up every decade, from “Whatever tickles your fancy” to “Different strokes for different folks” and, the current favourite, “You do you.”

“Do what works for you” or “each to his own” are rough equivalents that suggest at least a lack of constraints or, more fully, a robust human autonomy. Some might say this represents one side of the sexual ethics divide: affirming the freedom to express one’s sexual desires or gender identity as one feels inclined. “Whatever turns you on” would be a superficial take on it.

That is not the CRCNA today.

Bizarre boats

There is more to consider.

If you think about it, rather than liberal open-mindedness, the phrase “Whatever floats your boat” more accurately suggests indifference. The speaker just doesn’t care. “If that’s your thing, go ahead.”

That’s still not the full meaning according to ESL learning websites. They say English speakers often use this idiom sarcastically or dismissively – as if the speaker doesn’t understand the inclinations of the person in question. So while on the surface it can read as an endorsement of American individualism and consumerist libertarianism, it is also a critique of such, and, in fact, a way to say “What gives you pleasure seems bizarre to me.”

It’s the impulse to “live and let live” but not in the most generous way. It is essentially a subtle criticism given with a wave of the hand. Rather than affirming, it communicates disapproval. It assumes we navigate the cultural seas in very different vessels.

Perhaps that seems like over-analysis to you. One takeaway could be that whichever way you interpret the idiom, it doesn’t make for a good church body. If it’s superficial individualism it’s not Christian accountability. If said with a quietly sarcastic tone, indicating we have no comprehension of how these clueless people could live with themselves and think that way—then it’s a form of disdain for our brothers and sisters.

“Whatever floats your boat” is in the cultural water, but not any way to do church.

Rocking the Boat

The debate on sexual ethics has been going on for years, if not decades. My home congregation is divided on the matter. Over the last few years, we have had listening groups, congregational meetings, intense council debates and sent Overtures to classis and the Christian Reformed Church’s annual Synod. We are still together (so far!), but not because we believe “whatever floats your boat.”

Maybe we are still together because “nobody wants to rock the boat.” This idiom is not referring to an individual watercraft but a communal vessel, and we are all in this confined space together on a vast and potentially threatening ocean. It suggests we are avoiding conflict in the storm of cultural tensions. Maybe for the short term there is wisdom in it, but not for the long term when it comes to pivotal matters. That mimics a culture of echo chambers where we refuse to cross over the gap and talk.

Our local church has had a few tense moments. I was reminded of this when someone in our fellowship asked me to step aside for a conversation. 

I was a little surprised when he said: “Remember that heated conversation we had two years ago in the foyer? I think I crossed a line there and I’d like to apologize. My emotions ran away with me.”

This is not avoiding the difficult matters of community but engaging it. I asked him if I needed to repent of anything from that moment, and we went on to understand each other better.

This can happen in any congregation near you. It may rock the boat a little, but it can also be a port in the bigger storm.

As of mid-June, however, the whole denominational boat has been rocked in a full-bore shakedown. Some are jumping ship while others feel walked off the plank. Some feel rejected, betrayed, sideswiped and simply tossed overboard. Others seek to build a new ship, one made in Canada. Still others remain treading water, unsure where to climb aboard.

All in the same boat

I was dwelling on II Cor 5:14 recently, where Paul talks about those in Christ becoming a new creation through Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. Verse 14 offers a good image in The Message version. It reads: “Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat.” 

Everyone is in the same boat. Perhaps this is Adam’s boat, the boat of common human brokenness, common shame and guilt. I distinctly remember watching a documentary film in 1993 in the basement of Calvin University chapel that told the story of a young man who left his parents to find love in California. He came home with AIDS and died with his parents holding his hand.

I had very little in common with this prodigal son, or so I thought. So I was surprised by my tears as the credits rolled up the screen. His demons were not mine, but I instinctively recognized the feeling of being alone, seeking who knows what in the wrong places, and having your life capsize in a storm.

It’s common, in Reformed circles, to talk about common grace–that something of God’s good providence upholds the world beyond the church. This concept was often coupled with the antitheses – the theological conviction that forces of good and evil are at loggerheads in this world. Synod 2024 has decided this is a moment of antithesis. Different boats, unless you repent.

As many part ways in months to come, we might talk more about what you could call common brokenness—as a complement to common grace. Whether we are left or right, affirming or conserving, we all cast a shadow. We all need Jesus Christ, because Christ – not Christianity – reconciles what is divided and offers a fresh start. We are his sinful saints, his bumbling ambassadors of an often awkward reconciliation. Friends and family will be ecclesiastically separated now and what used to be internal reconciliation may now be truly an ecumenical event.

Reconciliation may only be partial this side of the new creation. It may be a coming to terms where we agree to disagree because our moral codes are too different regarding fundamental human relationships. God is bigger than any human code, however, and we could find the charity to bless each other on our separate paths.

In many ways, we are no longer in the same ecclesial boat, and that is a tragedy. But we are certainly in the same storm of polarized North America, and hopefully we can meet in calmer waters some day.