Evangelical Denominations Act on Biblical Morality and Their Future

Christians have a duty to obey God in all circumstances, regardless of the cost. This doesn’t change even if there is no institutional support, as this writer discussed several years ago. But it is better if we have a church faithful to the Word of God to be part of. In our day, faithfulness is measured by fidelity to the sexual morality revealed in Scripture. When a denomination makes its decision on this, it decides everything – whether it will continue in faithfulness to God and his gospel of salvation from sin, or whether it will follow the world and its gospel of self-actualization and gratification.

Summer is the time when Protestant denominations’ governing bodies commonly meet, and just as this has been a momentous summer for the Supreme Court, so it has been for three denominations considered Evangelical in recent decades, which met and took decisive action in one direction or another.

Other than certain differences on questions of divorce and remarriage, sexual morality was not much of an issue for churches before the sexual revolution. Even here, the standard of divorceless opposite-sex monogamy is clear from Scripture, and the general acceptance of this by a Christian society made any admonitions to sexual purity focus on avoiding the temptations of fornication and adultery. Commands against sodomy in both testaments were strong and clear, and to common sense admitted of no exceptions.

Beginning with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and the advent of a movement for homosexual liberation, it became necessary to make binding pronouncements against homosexuality (although to previous generations the Biblical condemnations would have been quite sufficient for church discipline). What then followed was denominations with formal statements against homosexual practice  and growing minorities in vocal dissent, moved by the larger society and activist groups within the denominations. Eventual formal acceptance of homosexuality today comes in the form of formally accepting same-sex marriage. Those who disagree either leave the church or find a personal justification for remaining.

More than a year ago, this writer reviewed an excellent defense of opposite-sex only monogamy by a pastor in the Mennonite Church U.S.A., Darrin W. Synder Belousek, who offered a Biblical defense of opposite-sex only monogamy independent of the Biblical condemnations of homosexuality. Synder Belousek was concerned about the drift of his denomination toward the acceptance of same-sex marriage. Earlier the denomination’s largest conference, the Lancaster Mennonite Conference, had left the denomination, concerned about the increasing acceptance of homosexuality.

Late this spring, as was reported at the beginning of last month, the Mennonite Church U.S.A. formally accepted same-sex marriage, and signaled an utter rejection of Christian sexual morality in effectively apologizing for its previous Biblical standard, calling for repentance from it. Typical of the current homosexual/transgender apologetic, it effectively claims that the pain and humiliation Biblical morality causes is sufficient to establish that it is oppressive, setting aside God’s absolute authority, and Jesus’ call to accept the painful, narrow gate to life.

The opposite decision was made by two other denominations. The Presbyterian Church in America did not address same-sex marriage or homosexual practice (which the PCA is clear are sinful, and thus subject to discipline), but whether or not celibate homosexuality (or “side B homosexuality”) may be claimed as a righteous identity and thus be no bar to ordination. Two overtures last year by the PCA General Assembly denying that same-sex identity can be righteous, and forbidding ordination to persons identifying as “gay Christian” failed to gain the needed two thirds approval by PCA presbyteries. But other such proposals (or overtures) were passed this year at the General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama in mid-June. These overtures as well must gain the approval of two thirds of the church’s presbyteries. Thus, while the final situation in the PCA is unresolved, the actions of two consecutive General Assemblies would seem to make majority opinion clear. 

The Christian Reformed Church, a Dutch Reformed body established and historically known for its orthodoxy, has also faced a similar decision, and answered with a clear “yes” to God’s call throughout Scripture to obedience.  Earlier this year, CRC pastor Aaron Vriesman reviewed the escalating conflict over the demand to accept homosexuality and transgenderism, and inevitably with it, whatever other sexual passions and activities exist within the secular morality of mutual consent. He pointed in particular to the 1973 decision of the CRC Synod that homosexual practice is disobedience to the will of God, and the more than decade long effort, beginning in 2011, to get this decision overturned. This was punctuated in September 2020 by the ordination of a deacon in a same-sex relationship, with the justification that the 1973 decision was only pastoral advice, not church doctrine, and by a November 2020 Human Sexuality Report, which recommended raising opposite-sex monogamy to “confessional” (or doctrinal) status.

The church’s recent synod therefore decided (by a substantial 153-23 vote), on June 15, to formally raise Biblical sexual morality to doctrinal status, holding, as Christians for two millennia have understood, that “adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex” to be sins that exclude people from the Kingdom of God, endanger their souls, and to be subject to church discipline. In prescribing church discipline, the synod said that “The church must warn its members that those who refuse to repent of these sins — as well as of idolatry, greed, and other such sins — will not inherit the Kingdom of God,” and that the church “must discipline those who refuse to repent of such sins for the sake of their souls.” 

Church discipline is now very explicitly authorized, to take the statement at face value, against church members as well as clergy who are impenitent of sexual sins. As MinistryWatch noted in the linked article, the CRC’s Calvin University requires faculty to agree with the creeds and confessions of the church. According to the CRC periodical, The Banner, the synod decision could have “far-reaching implications … since all officebearers and faculty at church-owned schools could be subject to church discipline if they preach or teach contrary to the confessions.” Whether faculty who disagree with the synod action, which many warned against, will be or must be disciplined remains to be seen in the future.

The Banner also noted there was varied reaction to the synod decision, some of it focusing on how it will be received by young people. Many praised the decision, pointing out that young people in the denomination “need this clarity,” but others said that “they may walk away if they don’t see a grace-filled approach.” Yet another concern was that some CRC churches “are divided 50-50 on this issue, [and] are most at risk.” On this issue people “can’t find common ground, because there is none.” Another opinion was that “we would probably be better off if we each went our separate way.”

But opinion accommodating of LGBT life is really not full disclosure about Christianity, nor about what is necessary for Christianity to long survive into the future.  “The gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life” is full disclosure to everyone – how much more so for an LGBT identifying person? Christians have always understood that the demand for repentance, which in this case is a demand for repentance from sexual sin, is made in love. But it is made absolutely nonetheless, and true Christianity is not present if the call to repentance is softened to include sin. Persevering obedience to God in love is required, however painful that might be.

While Christians who are faithful to Biblical sexuality may find the CRC synod’s decision heartening, the real question is whether or not the discipline it calls for will actually be implemented. Respondents to Rod Dreher’s posting after the synod who are familiar with the Christian academic world and the CRC noted the enormous obstacles to being a truly Christian institution that upholds Christian sexual morality today (e.g., using Title IX enforcement to attack morality codes, mass media hostility, endangered grant money, nonacceptance of the institution’s graduates, etc.), along with the unwillingness of those who dissent or are willing to acquiesce in accepting LGBT identity and behavior to enforce Biblical standards. 

But it is certain that inaction where acceptance of sexual sin appears or is growing – or worse, explicit ecclesiastical acceptance of it – is both disobedience to God and will lead to denominational decline. Both the PCA and the CRC have made godly decisions in line with Scripture (although at different places in the struggle for Biblical morality); continued courage and perseverance against sin will be necessary to remain and become ever more faithful churches of God.