On Religion: Sadly, Churches Divided By Doctrine Are Going To Split
(ANALYSIS) After decades of progressive dissent, the leaders of the Christian Reformed Church in America finally took a firm stand against the Sexual Revolution.
Not only did the 2022 CRC Synod, voting 123-53, condemn “adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex,” it added the small, but influential, denomination's long-standing teachings on these moral issues to its declaration of faith.
The report added: “The church must warn its members that those who refuse to repent of these sins — as well as of idolatry, greed, and other such sins — will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Dissenters should “repent of such sins for the sake of their souls.”
Dissent continued, especially in congregations with strategic ties to Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the 2024 CRC Synod, it was clear the denomination would lose several dozen congregations, out of 1,000 in North America.
The Grand Rapids Eastern Avenue congregation proclaimed: “While all members of the church must at all times be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, it would be disingenuous for us as a church to deny, minimize, or hide a fundamental and intractable disagreement between a significant number of members in good standing in our church and the CRC's decision to make a particular interpretation a confessional matter." Thus, the "only way we can remain a Christian Reformed congregation with integrity ... is under protest.”
Head-on collisions are inevitable when believers in a religious institution proclaim — in word and deed — clashing stands on ancient doctrines, said the Rev. Michael Clary of Christ the King Church in Cincinnati. While he is a popular social media commentator on Reformed theology, he leads a Southern Baptist congregation.
Splits will occur because of core beliefs on both sides. Progressives truly believe doctrines must evolve to avoid causing pain to modern believers. Orthodox thinkers in various traditions truly believe they cannot edit what the New Testament describes as the "faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
Ecclesiastical divorce is not the worst outcome, Clary argued in a viral X thread.
“Remember this phrase: the left 'pulls' and the right ‘holds’ ... Progressivism is like a conveyor belt that pulls people to the left. Conservatism is like a tether that anchors people to the past,” he wrote. “This tension cannot be maintained forever in a group of tight-knit relationships, like a church.”
Among progressive “mainline” denominations, the United Methodist Church was the latest to change its teachings, with the denomination's establishment winning a multiple-decade struggle with a global conservative coalition.
Clary stressed that divisions are most painful in smaller, local “churches, where everyone knows each other and differences are harder to hide. ... In larger churches, tensions can ride out a while longer because they are big enough for people in both factions to find community with others who think like them.”
If tensions are obscured with a “pulpit policy of ‘criticize both sides,’” this "applies a winsome band-aid to a mortal wound. In either case, eventually, the tension breaks. ... The wood is cut, dried, and ready to burn. All you need is a hot cultural moment to light the match. Maybe a presidential election."
In that context, Clary stated his thesis in the bluntest possible terms: “Churches that have significant constituencies of Republicans and Democrats cannot maintain unity for long.”
Of course, there are some Democrats — in Louisiana, for example — whose convictions do not clash with traditional Christian stands on abortion, gender, marriage and other hot-button issues, said Clary, reached by telephone. Also, there are Republicans whose stands increasingly mesh with those of Vice President Kamala Harris and establishment Democrats.
“I wanted to be as clear as possible about the language that pastors will hear during arguments in their pews,” he said. It also complicates matters for Republicans that former President Donald Trump is “a seriously compromised candidate.”
Clary’s bottom line: Pastors who openly defend conservative Christian teachings on morality will be accused of veering into politics. It matters that his church is blocks away from the University of Cincinnati.
“The political implications of Christianity cannot be avoided in this age,” he said. “The arguments we're all having are about how to defend these doctrines in the America that exists right now — period.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.