Episode 138: Gravamen Discussion with Cedric Parsels (Part 1)

“The CRC has never…officially allowed office bearers to take exceptions to our confessions. Confessional Difficulty Gravamina were never intended to be used in that way. Those who are using it in that way are abusing the Church Order. And I think more seriously, whether consciously or not, they're engaged in something that's immoral because when you become a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, you take an oath. And that oath is that you unreservedly will believe, promote, and defend the doctrines of the church.” —Cedric Parsels

Summary of This Episode

This week features the podcast’s first return guest. Jason is joined by Rev. Cedric Parsels (Episodes 35-36) of Dorr CRC in Dorr, MI. Over the last year, Cedric has been digging into historical materials to better understand and to share with the churches of the CRC what a gravamen or gravamina (plural) are and are not. Many, at least until recently, had never heard or thought much of these words, let alone know what they’re about. They’re found in the Supplement to Article 5 of our Church Order, which defines two types—a “confessional-difficulty gravamen” and a “confessional-revision gravamen”—as well as the procedures for officebearers to submit them.

Why is this word trending now? Because Synod 2022 clarified what the Heidelberg Catechism entails in Q&A 108, all officebearers should be expected to comply with that. However, Cedric explains how the 2022 FAQ, coming out of the Office of General Secretary, did not serve us well. In fact, it seemed to promote that officebearers could file a gravamen, with the understanding that those entail stating disagreement or taking exception with a confessional doctrine and, if their church or classis accepted it, they could continue in service without any issue.

Yet as we heard from Patrick Anthony and now from Cedric, this was never the intent. A confessional-difficulty gravamen is meant to be a way of expressing doubt over some confessional matter so that one may ask the church to help them resolve their doubt and the Council or Classis provide time and space for that to happen. If doubt cannot be resolved and the officebearer is convinced the confession is wrong, then they are to resign or submit a confessional-revision gravamen. This comes by way of an official overture appealing to Synod.

The origin of gravamina that we have in the CRC today came out of Synod 1976 but is part of history predating our denomination. Cedric shares that to understand the 1976 decision and “Harry Boer case” we have to go back to the Netherlands. The Synod of Dort, which established the original Form of Subscription the CRC previously utilized, practiced strict subscriptionism to the Three Forms of Unity (distinctive to Dutch Reformed polity). Throughout the 1700s, that practice continued, though, some church leaders who disagreed with confessional doctrines flew under the radar. A significant change happened, however, when a new king took the throne and the Dutch church officially shifted their understanding from, “We agree that all things contained in these confessions are in agreement with the Word of God,” to, “We believe all these things insofar as they are in agreement with the Word of God.” This is part of what set up the Afscheiding in the early 1830s, a division or secession from the state church, and is in the background for the initial wave of immigrants who came to America and started the CRC. There is documentation from the early days of that group that they expected and practiced unconditional agreement.

Jump to the CRC in the 20^th century, and there were issues in the 1940s and 50s that some officebearers had doubts about parts of the Three Forms of Unity, but there was no way to deal with those. Cedric explains how eventually Harry Boer, who had issues with the doctrine of reprobation, intended to overture to revise the confessions in the early 60s. There was at least one other controversy at that time, so he delayed, and eventually began to write in The Reformed Journal about subscription. These matters built up until Synod 1976 brought up the church order change for gravamina—introducing a confessional-difficulty gravamen so people could wrestle in a clear way with doubts—and Boer’s issues with reprobation. After the fact, Boer decided to forego any confessional-difficulty gravamen process and overtured for a revision of the confession.   

Jason and Cedric note that difficulties do come up with officebearers from time to time. Whether a person files a confessional-difficulty gravamen or approaches their pastor with a difficulty or doubt they’re having with one of our confessions, that’s intentionally a private matter and opportunity to be pastoral. That’s where things should start. However, when one is so convinced a doctrine is wrong, then the overture for revision becomes public and even adversarial as the burden of proof is not on the church, but the officebearer to show where the church’s belief is in error. More next time about the use (or abuse) of gravamen/gravamina today.