Episode 270: Synod 2026 — Passionately Reformed Leaders for a Passionately Reformed Denomination
“Synod needs to do two things…One…come up with a good, clear picture of who we want for our next synod president…someone confessionally-aligned, passionately Reformed, deeply theological president…And then I want synod to make a statement… ‘If you don’t bring us that president, we’re going to reject them.” —Jason Ruis
“…He is continuing to build his church, and all the human efforts will not supplant that…Rest on that as a promise, and we need to remember that we are ambassadors of the kingdom here and of the king, [and] ultimately we serve at the pleasure of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who’s given us this work that we should joyfully be wanting to do.” —Willy Krahnke
Summary of This Episode
Welcome to part 2 of The Messy Reformation’s prep with the Agenda for Synod 2026 with Jason, Willy, and Dan. Part 1 covered the Council of Delegates (COD) report and the overtures and communication connected to it as well as one of the Task Force reports. This time, we’ll look at the Task Force to Develop Church Order Procedures to Discipline Officebearers (pp. 293-314) and a number of other overtures. We share a lot of honest opinions in the audio version.
This Task Force offers a good summary of biblical, theological, historical, church order, and other denominations’ practices around discipline, and then offers three primary recommendations. Recommendation C is observing that “limited suspension” has been used recently “under unusual circumstances” and should not be a new category. Recommendation D proposes “de facto disaffiliation” for a church/council who has not followed decisions according to a given timeline. Recommendation E makes a variety of changes to Church Order Article 83 and Supplement to Articles 82-84 that recognize the authority to discipline is “ordinarily” at the local council, which opens up “in exceptional circumstances…for the well-being of a congregation” the ability for a major assembly to suspend and depose with that local council’s initiation.
Dan points out three overtures have been submitted against this Overture 34 from Eastern Canada (pp. 414-416) asks for a review that this won’t conflict with laws, particularly that local authority cannot be infringed on. The guys are in agreement with not liking this overture. Jason sums it up well—pragmatism, necessarily making sure every last law is being followed, cannot overrule God’s truth. This is something we keep seeing come out of certain parts of Canada—and we truly don’t mean to disrespect our Canadian brothers and sisters, but civil authorities cannot have the final word on our church practices. Even in America, we have to be prepared to stand on that. Overture 35 from Holland (pp. 416-420) points out nitty-gritty details that weren’t dealt with but are raised by the report. Overture 36 from British Columbia South-East (pp. 420-423) encourages letting the local assembly maintain its own discipline.
The conversation over Eastern Canada’s overture and differences in culture that have been repeatedly raised leads into looking at Overture 25 from Grand Rapids East (pp. 387-392). Our team expects a lot of discussion and attention of Synod 2026 to be on this overture which seeks to affirm the traditional Reformed understanding of Church and State, which they believe is incompatible with Christian nationalism. The definition they give is “…An ideology that seeks to merge Christian identity with national identity, asserting that a modern state has a special and divinely ordained status and that its political identity is meant to be a particular version of Christianity in which loyalty to Christ is closely bound to loyalty to a nation.” The overture explains how patriotism and civic engagement can be healthy expressions of one’s citizenship. Jason responds by reading Belgic Confession Article 36, and points out one of the issues with Christian nationalism is that there are so many definitions and connotations. One could potentially interpret Article 36 as being Christian nationalist. He does wonder, specifically to the language of the overture, is anybody [in the CRC] doing what they’re stating? Willy pushes a bit farther, raising what Jesus has taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, “‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ What are you praying for in that petition?...How is God’s will done in heaven?…[Christ] has perfect rule and authority in heaven, and we’re asking for that to be done here on earth as well.” This is a pretty delicate matter that we’ll have to see how Synod deals with it.
Next, we turn to overture 33 from Classis Wisconsin (pp. 411-414), which requests a study committee on Reformed ecclesiology. Dan highlights from the overture that it recognizes our context of wanting to address decline and growth, but proposes we need to look at the nature of church and churches first—we need to get back to the basics. Jason highlights the various things that recent synods have been dealing with, usually pragmatically, that could be or could have been served well: assisted suicide task force to give guidance and pastoral advice, church order review task force, in loco committee to address covenant breaking, appeals process task force, virtual church task force, multisite church task force, officebearer discipline procedures task force, membership definitions (p. 412). Dan offers a small hesitation—this sounds good, but how would the information get down to the local church and expressed to them? Jason recognizes it’s probably something “we” need to do—that’s a big we, not just The Messy Reformation, but classes and pastors and officebearers, we’ve got to do the work more than the denomination.
There is some conversation that follows related to overtures 7-9 (submitted by a member of Covenant Life Church (Grand Haven); a member of Christ Community Church (Tualatin, OR); and Classis GR East) to change or undo recent decisions around gravamen (pp. 340-355). Jason and Willy speak for the three of us, “…Why are we still having this conversation? It’s been done.” “…These are all out of order, and should be rejected as such.”
Dan gives his “spicy” take (that really shouldn’t be) in support of Overture 6 from Classis Iakota (p. 340), which essentially calls for confessional integrity for employees in various areas/organizations of the CRC. It shouldn’t be that hard for confessionally-aligned CRC members to be who works for and in our denomination. Jason also ties in overture 15 regarding Calvin Theological Seminary’s Board of Trustees, overture 15 regarding Calvin University’s faculty, and overture 17 regarding Calvin University’s Board of Trustees—all from Illiana—that these people must be confessionally aligned and willing to sign on to that (pp. 363-371). Jason highlights a normal organizational practice, which would make sense in a denomination, is the higher up you are, the more closely you should hold to the principles and doctrines. Dan highlights some of the nitty-gritty involved in Overture 15 that Classis Illiana lays out around regular and adjunct faculty, and the potential dangers they voice. Jason follows this by bringing up overture 18 from Classis Georgetown (pp. 371-372), which asks Synod to articulate the desired qualities in the next president of Calvin Seminary. He summarizes it well, “Synod needs to do two things…One…come up with a good, clear picture of who we want for our next synod president…someone confessionally-aligned, passionately Reformed, deeply theological president…And then I want synod to make a statement… ‘If you don’t bring us that president, we’re going to reject them.”
Willy says something that brings us into some observations about the State of the CRC, “[Confessional integrity should be] a pretty basic take…That shouldn’t be something that we have as an option; it’s something that is an absolute…a requirement…ought to be excited about.” Dan admits looking through the agenda, these overtures, and our comments, there’s a nervousness in how we’re talking. It feels spicy or confrontational, when a lot of this really shouldn’t. Jason points out the controversial nature of the takes offered here are no where near the confrontations of the 1950s when boards were turned over by Synod or going back to the previous centuries. However, when you haven’t done discipline or exercised authority in quite some time, any attempt to do so feel like “crashing out”—it makes people think, “Settle down.” Realistically, we don’t’ think what we’re encouraging is all that crazy, though.
We arrive at the conclusion of our preparation episodes. Dan encourages delegates and observers alike to not think this is a “getting back to normal” synod. The agenda is not overly lengthy, but it is dense. So, he encourages delegates to do the work: read, think, connect with each other, know what’s behind these, and know you’re being prayed for. Willy reminds us of the big picture: the vision that we should be holding up first and foremost is Christ’s. “…He is continuing to build his church, and all the human efforts will not supplant that…Rest on that as a promise, and we need to remember that we are ambassadors of the kingdom here and of the king, [and] ultimately we serve at the pleasure of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who’s given us this work that we should joyfully be wanting to do.”