Faithful

by Christina Brinks Rea

When we launched Better Together: A Third Way, we had no idea the response we’d receive! We are a group of Christian Reformed pastors who have a deep appreciation for the Reformed tradition and a strong loyalty to the CRCNA – and who hold different perspectives on human sexuality, particularly LGBTQ inclusion. We share a fervent desire to see the CRCNA hold together in the midst of the current cultural storm.

One of the charges lobbed at us from different quarters, including most recently in the Reformed Journal, is that we are watering things down, siding with the status quo, being “tepid,” for the sake of maintaining unity. We are sacrificing conviction, our detractors say, to hold to a tenuous middle ground.

But that is not who we are, and that is not what we’re doing. We are a group of people with strong and conflicting convictions. Some of us are adamantly affirming, advocating unashamedly for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people whether married or single, based on our understanding of the Bible. Some of us are just as adamantly traditional, convinced that the biblical vision for holiness in marriage can only be lived out in the context of a union between one man and one woman.

What is unique about us is that we are unwilling to disrespect, ostracize, shun, depose, or excommunicate one another because of our differing convictions. What is unique about us is that, despite deep-seated and apparently irreconcilable differences, we do our level best to understand, sympathize with, work with, and love one another. We know that some of us must be wrong, given our contrary convictions; what is unique about us is that we believe the circle of God’s saving grace is large enough to fit all of us - those who are getting it right and those who are getting it wrong. We are committed to holding our different and contrary convictions under the lordship of Jesus Christ, believing that “he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:14). 

It is a narrow and difficult path, we admit. We have had to ask thorny and awkward questions about power, compromise, and who bears the burden of our unity. Sometimes we don’t feel particularly peaceful. Sometimes we sense the height and breadth of the walls between us. Sometimes we can’t help but feel the hostility. But still we press on, trusting in Christ’s finished work on the cross, though we don’t always see tangible results in our denomination, in our congregations, or even in ourselves.

We understand that others may be cynical, pessimistic, jaded, realistic. And perhaps one day we will be, too. But today is not that day. Today we are hopeful. Today we are optimistic. Today we are naïve. Today we are unabashedly unrealistic! Today we declare that our disagreement does not invalidate our unity, but instead offers us an opportunity to demonstrate it.

No doubt we will make missteps. No doubt others will look at us and say we’re tone deaf. No doubt others will look at us and say – Meh. But we press on. Mother Theresa famously said that God did not call her to be successful, but to be faithful. We also do not feel that God is calling us to be successful, and we may very well not be - whatever “success” looks like in the CRCNA right now. But we press on, in the hope that God will find us faithful.