Since our previous post on the Belhar Confession there have been several comments made that are insightful and helpful. Recently, the Belhar Implementation Team from 1st Seattle CRC sent out a communcation with some of their research to the churches. We encourage you to take a look at that, as well as the study report from the Inter-Church Relations Committee (IRC) printed in the agenda for Synod. To give some balance to the evaluation you will find the following links helpful:
Kevin De Young in the RCA Church Herald
Richard Mouw of Fuller Seminary
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Via Dave Watson in Kent, WA
Classis GR North Communication:
Synod 2009
c/o The Rev. Gerard L. Dykstra
2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49560
RE: Belhar Confession
Brothers and Sisters:
The Interchurch Relations Committee is recommending to Synod 2009 that the Belhar Confession begin a process towards becoming a Fourth Reformed Confession, for final approval at Synod 2012. We are opposed.
The document addresses a particular set of circumstances dealing with and resolving issues between a black reformed church and a white reformed church in South Africa in the later half of the twentieth century. The Belhar Confession is a product of a particular place and time. It should be left at that. At most, we might consider adopting it at a secondary level like the Contemporary Testimony.
We recognize the value of the key themes addressed, namely Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity. Surely these are themes all of us can support. Unfortunately, the Belhar Confession also contains language which will almost certainly open the door to increased disputes in the Church.
The language in this confession may be likely to be subject to much broader interpretation and application in the current North American context, and that is where our Classis sees it to be fraught with danger. The broad scope of words and phrases pertaining to unity and justice can easily be used to press a more liberal interpretation of some issues, now and in the future. For example: “Therefore we reject any doctrine … which explicitly or implicitly maintains that descent or any other human or social factor should be a consideration in determining membership of the church.” (emphasis added) This sentence, given Confessional status, could provide support to those who wish to continue in sin. Would not those that choose to cohabitate without marriage or, most certainly, the practicing homosexual make use of this phrase to justify their not being excluded (disciplined) because of this “human or social factor”? In fact, the Rev. Allan Boesak, one of the primary authors of the Belhar Confession, has already gone on record stating that the language of the Belhar Confession mandates admittance of homosexuals living in committed relationships both into church membership and the ordained ministry.
While a significantly smaller concern, the emphasis and language used when discussing unity could suggest that there is no room for theological disagreements. “…anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted.” might provide support for those in favor of a proposed merger with a church down the street, no matter how incompatible the doctrines might be. To argue against such a proposed merger would seem to violate the unity theme.
As previously stated, the Belhar Confession is a very good document designed to address the particular circumstances of twentieth century South Africa. Please leave it at that.
Yours in Christ,
William G. Vis
Stated Clerk
Classis Grand Rapids North
Article referencing the Belhar Confession and concerns surrounding the RCA General Synod starting next week.
Homosexuality is back on agenda for Reformed Church in America Synod
by Matt Vande Bunte | The Grand Rapids Press
Saturday May 30, 2009, 8:08 AM
HOLLAND -- For the first time in 390 years, the Reformed Church in America has a confession to make.
The Belhar Confession, a declaration of human unity, justice and reconciliation drafted in 1982 by Reformed brethren amid apartheid in South Africa, will be up for approval when the church's General Synod starts meeting next week.
Some in the RCA say the confession speaks to the 166,000-member church's need to become more diverse as it pursues growth goals. But the Belhar's text also might speak to an ongoing debate about homosexuality, which is back on Synod's agenda for the first time since 2006. And that could give some Synod delegates pause.
"I've had many conversations with people across the denomination who are worried about that," said the Rev. Carol Bechtel, a Western Theological Seminary professor and sitting Synod president.
"One of the things I noticed in my travels (as president) is how the Belhar is not confined to the original context that gave it birth. They very deliberately left out the word 'apartheid' because they didn't want it eternally moored in that specific situation."
Bechtel said the church's confessions "rise up out of our encounter with the Bible in history," expressing faith at a moment in time in a way that bears witness to the future. She said the Belhar emphasizes unity, justice and reconciliation in ways that the RCA's three current confessions, the last of which was adopted in 1619, do not.
So the Belhar might give the church a clearer voice on political conflict in Palestine, violence in Africa or, perhaps, homosexuality. The confession was drafted under the leadership of Allan Boesak, who last year quit the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa after that Synod rejected his claim that the Belhar supports full church participation of gays.
Officially, an RCA report on a three-year dialogue on homosexuality suggests continued discussion.
"We talked. We've learned a lot about how to talk. And we need to keep talking," Bechtel said. "That will frustrate some people at both ends of the spectrum, but this is where the Belhar is relevant.
"It counsels a kind of loving conversation that's firm, but open, as opposed to just lobbing Bible verses at each other," she said. "We're being called to genuine engagement and a patience with each other that is borne of a concern for unity and reconciliation."
General Synod, the RCA's annual meeting of church leaders, convenes Thursday through June 9.
About 250 pastors and elders are scheduled delegates.
Among other topics to be discussed is a possible merger of The Church Herald and RCA Today.
The Herald is in dire financial straits now that it is a subscription-based publication.
"There are enough people saying 'Look, there are treasured pages of The Church Herald we don't want to lose,'" said Paul Boice, RCA communication director and editor of RCA Today.
"We can create something different, something better, combine the best of what we need."
Via Dave Watson in Kent, WA
Reformed Church in America adopts Belhar Confession, first since 1619
by Matt Vande Bunte | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday June 08, 2009, 3:13 PM
HOLLAND -- The Reformed Church in America has taken a stand that race "or any other human or social factor" should not divide followers of Jesus Christ.
After about two hours of debate this morning, and years of prior study, the church's General Synod voted 166-65 to adopt the Belhar Confession, a declaration of human unity, reconciliation and justice written amid apartheid in 1980s South Africa.
The confession is the RCA's fourth "standard of unity," the first one written since 1619.
"Thank you for affirming a confession that strengthens the vision of your call," the Rev. Godfrey Betha told delegates in Hope College's DeVos Fieldhouse after the vote. "May this confession, alongside the other three, strengthen the glue that holds the Reformed Church in America together. Glory to God. I thank you."
Debate was divided, with some opponents claiming the "ambiguous" confession could open a can of worms regarding the church's ongoing discussion on homosexuality. A motion to table the confession until the next annual meeting was rejected 137-91.
The Rev. Carol Bechtel, synod president, said confessions sharpen the point of Scripture and poke people with it. The Belhar Confession distills and articulates the church's belief, making a public statement.
"It's also a way of saying to the world 'Hold us accountable,'" said Bechtel, a professor at Western Theological Seminary. "We're stating publicly that this is the way our faith is expressed."
General Synod is meeting through Tuesday.
E-mail the author of this story: localnews@grpress.com
(via Dave Watson)
Saturday, July 4, 2009
A New Confession for the CRC?
Lent is over, only if you want it so. Limiting purposeful devotions to God for a short period of time can be helpful, especially if it leads to deeper commitment. Lent continues if you wish it so.
Our spiritual ancestors, Israel, spent 40 long years in the desert, let’s call it a divinely chosen and then enforced time of Lent. A life time of Lent. God came into their midst and they began to learn about life with God.
In its long Lenten walk with God the Christian church has confessed its faith and committed that faith to writing. Thus the Christian Reformed Church has subscribed to the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort since its birth in 1857, having inherited them from their ancestors in the faith. Now the Synod of the CRC recommends the Belhar Confession to the churches for study in preparation for debate and vote on its approval as a fourth confession at the Synod of 2012.
John Bolt, professor of theology at Calvin Theological Seminary and advisor to the Synod of 2009, addressed Synod of 2009 on the Belhar recommendation. The text of his address follows:
"Mr. President
Thank you for the opportunity to raise a number of concerns I have about the recommendation before synod.
"I enthusiastically share the vision of the Belhar Confession in its powerful affirmations of section 2 [nature of the church], yet when I go to Section 4 [task of the church], I have concerns that the Belhar is an inadequate instrument for that purpose. Specifically, I fear that proposing making the Belhar a fourth confession for the CRC, in an honest desire for unity and reconciliation, could nonetheless have the tragically ironic consequence of creating discord and disunity where it does not now exist.
via Dave Watson (cont.)
"Statements such as “God has revealed himself as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace on the earth” followed by “God . . . is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged,” and then applied to the church’s obligation to follow God in “standing by people in any kind of suffering and need, which implies, among other things, that the church must witness against and strive against any form of injustice” including “witnessing against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others”—are at one level of course true but they are partial truths and unable to serve as a full statement of the gospel. They beg the question about who the “poor” are in Scripture and to whom it applies today, and who decides who the real victims are. All too often it is simply assumed that demographic analysis of economies provides the answer and that God’s peace and justice for this world must be understood in categories of class and race. Here the wonderful affirmation of Section 2 that “true faith in Jesus Christ is the only condition for membership in this church” seems in tension with the more global and universal reach of the subsequent discussion of unity, reconciliation and justice in general. To heighten the issue here consider what happens if we substituted the evil of abortion for that of racism and said something along the lines of “God has a preferential option for the unborn and requires that his people be pro-life; that in the United States this is now a status confessionis requiring the church to stand with the unborn and vigorously oppose all those who tolerate or even promote the culture of death or who rationalize their support for politicians and political parties that do so. The troubling question I have for the delegates of synod—a question that we have not faced yet and need to in the next few years—why are we not making this a matter of status confessionis for us? I am as vigorously and passionately pro-life as I am anti-racist but also would oppose such a move for the CRC. Should that inconsistency however not bother us?
"You see what concerns me about Belhar is that the comments I just highlighted from section 4—when stated so starkly and without qualification—may be at odds with our Lord’s own teaching, not to mention the ecclesiology of the Reformed standards. Jesus did after all also give us those troubling statements in Luke 12:49-53 that he came to bring division and conflict between those who follow him and reject him. The biblical antithesis is not between the economically prosperous and disadvantaged—God is no respecter of persons; rich and poor are both sinners in need of redemption—nor is the justice and peace of Scripture simply the cessation of class, racial or national conflict. As synod this year and the CRC in the next three years considers the Belhar—with whatever proposed status—I believe that we need to ask whether or not it in fact significantly alters and perhaps even contradicts a number of categories that are currently an essential part of our doctrinal standards such as the marks of the church. And we need to ask how different standards relate to one another when there are competing or conflicting claims? (e.g. The PCUSA’s 1967 Confession and the Westminster Standards)
Third part via Dave Watson
"Mr. President,
I believe that a great many questions remain about our understanding of what it means to be a confessional church and how our confessions of faith lead us to faithful discipleship in God’s world. These are weighty and I am not sure we have even begun to deal with them much less answer them. If we fail to deal with them we might reap the harvest that the 1986 accompanying letter to the Belhar prayed would not happen when it said: “Our prayer is that this act of confession will not place false stumbling blocks in the way and thereby cause and foster false divisions, but rather that it will be reconciling and uniting.” That concern should factor into the decision how synod deals with this matter this year and how the church will in the years to come. I pray for the Holy Spirit to grant the delegates of synod and our church courage, grace, and wisdom as we wrestle with this recommendation and its aftermath."
Posted by crconnect
Via Dave Watson in Kent, WA
Those promoters of the Belhar are really tolerant of those who differ.
The REC News Exhange
Vol 46, No. 9 September 2009
URCSA Rejects Latest Attempt by DRC to Recognize the Belhar Confession
South Africa – The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa has rejected the latest formulation crafted by the leadership of the Dutch Reformed Church on the Belhar Confession. At recent gathering of DRC’s General Synod Moderamen, which includes synodical officers and the officers of the regional synods, they declared that the content of the Belhar Confession will be taken along with the three Forms of Unity (classic Reformed Confessions), as the "directing principles" of the DRC.
So far, the DRC congregations and synods have been reluctant to adopt the Belhar Confession outright. In this latest statement, they said the Belhar was a gift to them.
In an article its church magazine, URCSA News, the URCSA leadership said they were not impressed. They were disappointed that the Moderamen did not recommend direct adoption, an option that was presented to them by one of their own regional synods from the Western Cape. They therefore said they saw nothing new in this latest declaration from the DRC. They repeated their view that their main difference with the DRC was that the Belhar Confession was a full confession for them, while for the DRC it appears to be a guideline. (Die Kerkbode)
DR. Mouw has written again on the Belhar
October 9, 2009
More on Belhar
http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/?p=121
Last spring I posted a piece criticizing the proposed adoption of the Belhar Confession as a confessional document by some Reformed and Presbyterian churches in North America. I received a lot of criticism for my position on the subject. And the criticisms came from many good friends who saw my blog posting as a betrayal of sorts.
My critics ought not to have worried about the impact of my comments on the actual votes. Both the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America moved toward adoption at their synods this past summer, and now the Special Committee on the Belhar Confession of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has announced that they are unanimously in favor of adopting Belhar at next year’s General Assembly.
Let me make it clear that I like the Belhar Confession. I served for several years as chair of the Christian Reformed Church’s Synodical Committee on Race Relations, and expended much energy in opposing apartheid policies, as well as the heretical racist rationales for supporting apartheid offered by several white Dutch Reformed bodies in South Africa. By the time the Belhar Confession appeared in 1986, I was living in California, and actively involved in an Episcopal-sponsored anti-apartheid center in Pasadena. Belhar spoke for me, and it still does on the issues to which it was addressed at that point in recent history. My appreciation of Belhar was also enhanced by knowing that it was authored primarily by Dirkie Smit, a solid Reformed theologian who was one of my Afrikaner heroes in the anti-apartheid struggle.
So why am I opposed to our—the CRC, RCA, and PC(USA)— adopting Belhar as a confessional document?
Part 2 of Mouw's latest
When I wrote about this earlier I mentioned that Allan Boesak, also one of the gifted anti-apartheid spokespersons in South Africa’s Reformed community, had recently appealed to Belhar in support of including active gays and lesbians in the church’s ministerial ranks. I might also have mentioned that many fear that Belhar will now be used to reinforce an unnuanced anti-Israeli stance.
I think those worries are real. But my critics, many of whom share my views about same-sex issues and Middle East matters, rightly insist that this is no reason to oppose Belhar as such. What we must do, they rightly argue, is to make sure that Belhar is understood as a prophetic word against racial and ethnic discrimination within the Christian community.
Fair enough. A lot of good things can be misused. But I promise to be ready to say “We told you so” if this happens with Belhar.
My real concern about adopting Belhar has to do with the broader issue of the nature of confessional integrity in our Reformed and Presbyterian churches. I think I know all three denominations very well. I was raised in an RCA pastor’s home, and attended two of that denomination’s colleges and one of its seminaries. I was an active member of the CRC for 17 years. And for two decades now I have been similarly active in the PC(USA).
When I was studying at an RCA seminary in the 1960s, one of my more conservative professors explained the differing views on the status of the Reformed “Standards of Unity”—Heidelberg, Belgic, and Dort—in this way. The CRC, he said, takes them very seriously. If you are Christian Reformed you are expected really to believe what is in them.
This is why, he observed, that when the CRC decides that something in the confessions is no longer binding—such as the Belgic Confession’s statement that the magistrate has a duty to preserve and protect “true religion”—they go on record as saying so. Some people in the RCA, on the other hand, said the professor, tend to see the book of confessions as a kind of museum. They periodically walk through the museum and say things like: “Yes, they really believed that in the past. I respect them for it. I identify with the community that once said that kind of thing.” He made it clear that he preferred the CRC approach.
I think the professor had it right at the time. But today all three of the aforementioned denominations basically endorse the museum approach. Or it may be a little more like a “Great Books” approach. The documents from the past are all there up on the shelf, and we all acknowledge their importance, but some of us really like James Baldwin and others of us prefer Jane Austen.
I
Part 3 of Mouw's latest
personally endorse the older CRC approach. As someone who officially subscribed, in the CRC, to the Belgic Confession, I publicly dissented, as a matter of conscience, from the article that required me to “detest” the Anabaptists, as well as the Heidelbergers’ harsh verdict on the Catholic mass. I was grateful when the CRC declared that these formulations are no longer binding.
These days it is rather common for people—CRC folks included—who have taken ordination vows publicly to express their disagreements with what I take to be essential Reformed doctrines. Indeed, I am often treated as a curiosity of sorts when I make it clear that I still subscribe to the actual doctrinal content of the Reformed “Great Books”—predestination, individual election, substitutionary atonement, the reality of hell, Christ as the only Way.
So, let me put it bluntly. If we—for all practical purposes—don’t care about genuinely subscribing to the actual content of, say, the Belgic or the Westminster confessions, why would we think that adopting Belhar would be in any way binding on the consciences of persons who take ordination vows? When detached from the content of the rest of Reformed thought, many of Belhar’s formulations—as stand-alone theological declarations—are dangerously vague. Belhar deserves confessional status only in a community that takes the rest of its confessions with utmost seriousness.
The most compelling case being made for adopting Belhar is for me the pleas of underrepresented racial-ethnic minority groups in our denominations. They have a right to ask us to declare our firm conviction that racism and ethno-centrism are not only unjust, they are theological heresies. But I fear they are assuming that we are more committed to confessional integrity than we actually are. When all of this debate is over and Belhar—as is very likely—is on the confessional shelf, I hope they will push us hard on whether we really take that whole shelf seriously.
Dr. John Bolt of Calvin Seminary has some more reflections on the Belhar at http://www.crconnect.blogspot.com/
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Belhar Reflections (2)
by John Bolt
In this reflection I want to explore the background to the Confession, in particular the circumstances in which it was written. The documents I will consider are all available on the CRCNA website and include the General Introduction from the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America (http://www.crcna.org/pages/belhar_introduction.cfm); the Accompanying Letter by the Moderamen of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa [URCSA] (http://www.crcna.org/pages/belhar_letter.cfm); the brief statement “Why Consider” (http://www.crcna.org/pages/belhar_why.cfm ); and the history of the Belhar’s development (http://www.crcna.org/pages/belhar_history.cfm ).
For study purposes all these documents are important. My reason for considering them before looking at the actual text of the Belhar, beginning in the next installment, is that taking the Confession’s positive statements about unity, reconciliation and justice on their own, as abstract statements of general truth, would be to misunderstand them and perhaps even falsify them. We must know by whom, for whom, to whom and about what the Belhar was written before we can speak with confidence about its claims.
The Belhar was penned in what was perceived a time of crisis for the gospel in South Africa. The CRC/RCA Introduction speaks of “ . . . another critical issue that threatened the very core of the gospel message. The church and the society in which it ministered were torn by internal conflict, injustice, racism, poverty, and subjugation of the disenfranchised. From this crucible of suffering emerged the Belhar Confession, a biblically based doctrinal standard of justice, reconciliation, and unity.” The Moderamen’s Accompanying Letters speaks in no less stark terms:
"We are deeply conscious that moments of such seriousness can arise in the life of the Church that it may feel the need to confess its faith anew in the light of a specific situation. We are aware that such an act of confession is not lightly undertaken, but only if it is considered that the heart of the gospel is so threatened as to be at stake. In our judgment, the present church and political situation in our country and particularly within the Dutch Reformed church family calls for such a decision."
Bolt (Part 2)
First question: When in the life of the church does a situation become so sinful that the very gospel itself is threatened? False teaching? (If so, all false teaching or only teaching on the cardinal points of the Christian faith. Hint: We disagree with the doctrine of Baptists on the important sacrament of baptism, but do we think that Baptists are “heretics” whose teaching threatens the gospel itself?) What about situations of suffering and persecution?
Here a look at the Belgic Confession’s statement about what the “false church” does (article 29) may be instructive. The language used in promotion of the Belhar was status confessionis; a church is said to be in statu confessionis “when the truth of the gospel and Christian freedom are at stake.” While it was the political ideology of the South African government that led the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1982 to declare that “Apartheid was a Heresy” and that a status confessionis existed in the country, the Reformed tradition does not use this language and the cited definition in the previous sentence is actually taken from the Lutheran Formula of Concord (Epitome, art. X, 6). This is itself rather interesting and reflects important differences between the two traditions when it comes to so-called “matters of indifference” (adiaphora). For the Reformed, matters of worship and church order are of such importance that they must be governed by the Word of God. For Lutherans, they are generally a matter of adiaphora except in times of suffering and persecution.
We believe, teach, and confess that in a time of persecution, when an unequivocal confession of the faith is demanded of us, we dare not yield to the opponents in such indifferent matters. . . . For in such a situation it is no longer indifferent matters that are at stake. The truth of the gospel and Christian freedom are at stake. The confirmation of open idolatry, as well as the protection of the weak in faith from offense, is at stake. In such matters we can make no concessions but must offer an unequivocal confession and suffer whatever God sends and permits the enemies of His Word to inflict on us. [Formula of Concord-Epitome, Article X,6].
Bolt (Part 3)
Before considering the next question, let us pause to consider what is at stake here. The declaration that one is in statu confessionis is a confessional protest against a church that has become false, heterodox, in violation of Scripture and the church’s Confessions. It is a public declaration that one feels obligated to separate oneself from that false church. It is an accusation that is serious and solemn. Those who declare themselves to be in statu confessionis are obligated to spell out clearly where the body against which they level the charge of heterodoxy has departed from Scripture and the church’s confessions; the declaration arises from a common subscription to the church’s Confessions and the ordination vows of its office bearers.
Second question: Do the introductory materials and the text of the Belhar itself exlicitly and clearly reference the confessional doctrines that are denied by the Reformed Churches of South Africa?
In this connection, what do we make of the statement in the Accompanying Letter that “This confession is not aimed at specific people or groups of people or a church or churches. We proclaim it against a false doctrine, against an ideological distortion which threatens the gospel itself in our church and our country. Our heartfelt longing is that no one will identify himself with this objectionable doctrine and that all who have been wholly or partially blinded by it will turn themselves away from it.” Is this not curious? Does the Belhar then combat a “doctrine” that possibly no one believes? How does this threaten the gospel itself?
At this point, it is helpful to consider the actual “rejection of errors” in the Belhar itself (They are found at the conclusion of points 2, 3, and 4). Spend some time with them; ask yourself whether they articulate beliefs that you in fact hold and, if so, whether repentance on your part is called for.
In conclusion, a reminder from my first reflection of the purpose of our studying the Belhar: Simply look at the text and ask whether it speaks for you. After reading and reflecting, can you say, with joy and confidence, “This is what I believe!”? (And, of course, what doctrines I reject.)
Posted by crconnect at 9:22 AM
John Bolt (Calvin Seminary)- Belhar Reflections (3) can be found here:
http://crconnect.blogspot.com/
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