Episode 275: Synod 2026 — Virtual Church, a Failed Ecclesiology Overture, and Christian Nationalism

"If you've started to build a house and you recognize that the foundation is cracked and broken, you don't say, 'Well, too late to fix it now. Let's just keep building away.' No, you stop everything you're doing and you fix the foundation. Or, depending on how it's broken, you can actually build and fix it at the same time. And that's what we were asking to do: let's keep pushing forward with this church planting vision. But if we plant 150 churches that aren't reformed, that'll destroy our denomination. That's not going to be helpful." — Jason Ruis

Summary of This Episode

Jason and Willy open their annual post-Synod recap in a notably different posture than past years — not braced for a fight, but taking stock of a denomination that has largely turned a corner. Willy sets the tone early: he is relatively satisfied with Synod 2026. Like last year, it felt like a give-and-take synod, with real disappointments alongside real encouragements, but the overall trajectory left him saying what he’s heard from many others — I can’t wait till Synod 2027. Jason agrees. He was disappointed with a couple of decisions, but he’s careful to frame them as wisdom issues rather than make-or-break ones. The denomination is not heading in an unfaithful direction; the debates were mostly about where the wisest path lies and what’s worth Synod’s time at this point in the church’s life. Borrowing a line from Derek Buikema, Jason notes that this synod was marked by a willingness to just make decisions now rather than defer everything to process.

The first big encouragement is the virtual church decision. After leaving what Rob Tornstra last year called the crack of the door open, Synod 2026 acceded to the Atlantic Northeast overture and declared plainly that a church meeting exclusively online does not constitute a true church, grounding the decision in Acts and the Belgic Confession. Jason is thrilled — this is something the Messy Reformation has hammered since last synod. Willy credits Chad Steenwyk’s work as chair for framing the debate well: here’s what we’re talking about, and here’s what we’re not. The point was never about streaming a service to shut-ins or grandma; it was about confusing a digital ministry with a digital church. Because the conversation was healthier, Willy argues, the decision was healthier.

The first big disappointment is the failure of the Classis Wisconsin overture to create a study committee on Reformed ecclesiology, which went down 106 to 71. Jason’s frustration is less about the loss than about how it was lost: the whole debate collapsed into a conversation about money, set in motion when Zach King cautioned the body to be sober about commissioning study committees. The deeper irony stings. The overture was written partly because the CRC has grown overly pragmatic — Willy’s long-standing point that pragmatism is the way out of the church, not into it — and yet the floor argument against it was pure pragmatism. Cedric Parsels, whom Jason repeatedly calls a friend, spoke against the motion on the grounds that the church planting horse is already out of the gate. Jason’s response, which he promised to say on air, is blunt: the argument sounds good, but it’s crap. He reaches for a construction analogy from his building days — if you discover the foundation is cracked, you don’t keep framing the house; you fix the foundation, and you can often build and fix at the same time. Plant 150 churches that aren’t actually Reformed, he warns, and you’ll destroy the denomination. The takeaway: the Messy Reformation will spend the coming year doing the ecclesiology work itself, and Jason invites listeners who want to fund solid resources to reach out.

The episode closes on the two-year study committee on Christian nationalism. Both hosts are skeptical, not because the topic is unimportant but because no one can define the term. Willy points to a recent Rigney–Wilson–Mohler conversation in which Mohler called Christian nationalism a rebranding of the old fundamentalist label, and notes that even within Reformed circles — Kuyperians, pietists, and radical 2K guys — people are mostly talking past each other, often smuggling white nationalism and kinism into a conversation that shouldn’t include them. Jason is genuinely thankful Synod refused to adopt the overture’s proposed definition, but he expects two years of study to yield a definition that helps no one; the church is chasing a ghost. What bothers him most is the contrast: Synod commissioned a committee on a buzzword and declined one on ecclesiology, the root issue underneath so much of this. Still, he lands where he always tries to — this isn’t make-or-break, it’s wisdom, and he’ll pray the committee surprises him, even if he doubts it will.