Episode 167: The CRC's Struggle with Biblical Church Discipline - Tim Blackmon (Part 2)

“John Calvin used to call those three marks the ‘sinews’ of the church. We can assume that there’s widespread denominational agreement on the importance of the preaching of the Word. I also don’t think we’d have to count the votes about the significance of the proper administration of the sacraments. We seem to be convinced of the intrinsic merit and value of those two marks. But when we talk about the third one [church discipline], we get nervous…I think the bigger issue is for us to learn to have the audacity to use the language of correcting faults and punishing sins like Belgic Confession 29 talks about…‘By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church—and no one ought to be separated from it.’ We don't want anyone separated from it. We don't want anyone to go against this. This has to do with the flourishing of our congregations.” -Tim Blackmon

Summary of this Episode

Jason and Rev. Tim Blackmon, pastor of Second CRC in Grand Haven, MI, are back on this episode of the Messy Reformation, continuing their conversation about Synod 2023. Overall, they see the work their committee did as providing a solid foundation that seemed ready to pass last year and, Lord-willing, there’s a similar mindset in 2024. Yet Tim humbly recognizes, “It’s messy. It was difficult. I think everyone in our committee…knows we are susceptible to human error. We offered our recommendations tentatively, provisionally, prayerfully, knowing that they would still need to be open for either ratification or further iteration…But…we did to the best of our ability, the patient, painstaking, and sometimes clumsy—synodical procedures…with an understanding of what the church order and the confessions mean for us…Synod 2024 will develop that…and probably…improve on it in positive ways.” 

Part of why this work is so important is not just how it relates to the present moment for the CRC in regard to the sexuality conversation. It’s deeper as it relates to the three marks of the true church. Tim shares, “John Calvin used to call those three marks the ‘sinews’ of the church. We can assume that there’s widespread denominational agreement on the importance of the preaching of the Word. I also don’t think we’d have to count the votes about the significance of the proper administration of the sacraments. We seem to be convinced of the intrinsic merit and value of those two marks. But when we talk about the third one [church discipline], we get nervous…I think the bigger issue is for us to learn to have the audacity to use the language of correcting faults and punishing sins like Belgic Confession 29 talks about…‘By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church—and no one ought to be separated from it.’ We don't want anyone separated from it. We don't want anyone to go against this. This has to do with the flourishing of our congregations.” Jason points out, the intent of all this is for the good of the church and we have to start helping each know how to discipline.

Looking ahead to the upcoming Synod, there is understanding that gravamen and discipline/disaffiliation are the center stage, inevitable conversations. However, Tim also notes that we should be aware of the confusion that has resulted from concepts and approaches outside of the church order being introduced into synodical discussion. Two concepts that he talks about are “pastoral advice” and “status confessionis.” He’s traced pastoral advice back to the early 1970s. “It meant originally…the logical entailments and the practical implementations of everything that a synod had taught. Later on, that term began to move a little bit more as to mean that it’s a slightly lesser degree.” Status confessionis came out of Lutheran discussions post-Reformation and related to an “emergency situation about which the church needs to make a statement.” It came up in South Africa in the 1980s with the Reformed Church there calling for an emergency statement about apartheid racism. CRC Classis Arizona utilized it appropriately in 2016. But now “that term has morphed, and people mean very different things…I think a lot of the confusion that happened happened because we could not clearly define…those two terms…Now you hear terms like…‘church in protest.’ I don't know what that means…Now we are going to introduce another category that does not belong in our church order?...I think we need to stick with our playbook or change it…Confusion will happen if we start bringing in extracurricular categories to try to navigate our way forward.”

Both of them recognize the opposing sides of the CRC right now are on different pages. Tim observes, “It felt like there was a different hermeneutic, a different exegesis, different convictions at times. Frankly, it felt like there were different religions. There were different fundamental theological convictions.” He shares a Dutch phrase which translates, “A marriage bed with two different faiths has the devil sleeping in between.” While that’s historically been applied to a Protestant marrying a Roman Catholic, it seems fitting for the CRC. “Being in a denomination, doing life together in a covenantal union, is hard enough already as it is. If then you throw in a deep divide on exegesis and hermeneutics, it’s nearly schizophrenic.” While there are major parts of evangelism and leadership that need to be addressed in the CRC, we need clarity brought into this discussion first.

As time has flown by in this conversation, Tim concludes by talking about the exhilarating experience that it has been to lead his people—old and young—with the Three Forms of Unity. He’s found that while older generations may have memorized it, they didn’t necessarily learn to dwell in its beauty. “…We have a treasure trove that we're sitting on. Let’s read what they actually say. Let’s use them in our prayers for evangelism. Let’s use them as convictions that will fuel our preaching and our pastoral care and our ministry because I think they are saturated with [words that are] God-glorifying and consoling troubled souls.”