But That Was Then... Can the Old Ways Work Today?
Painting a CRC Future: Part 10
We’ve been exploring the structural factors that Dr. Gary Bouma isolated as essential to the CRCNA’s at-the-time enviable growth and vigor.
First, these requirements were identified as essential to the growth and faithfulness of the CRCNA:
1. Biblical and theological literacy
“That members have a very high level of Biblical and theological literacy in order to work out for themselves what these Christian principles are and how to apply them to life.”
2. Training in applying a Reformed worldview
“That members receive guidance and training in applying the CRC worldview to their everyday lives. The connection between beliefs and behaviors is not automatic, obvious or a matter of simple logical reasoning. People must be trained to make such connections and to know what the connections are.”
3. Social Support for applying a Reformed worldview
“That members be provided social support for maintaining and applying their world view since it differs appreciably both in content and in the degree to which it is considered important for everyday life from the more common meaning systems of North America.”
4. Organization for support
“That members have access to organizations through which they can work to secure the larger corporate and social aims of the CRC vision.”
5. Monitoring and Accountability
“That members and agencies be monitored in order to ensure that practice continues to be in conformity with Christian principles and that doctrinal purity remains.” “Behaviors which are difficult, which are not monitored and sanctioned tend to fall into disuse.”
The beautiful thing at the time was that these essential requirements were being met and promoted in the CRCNA through these 5 structural factors:
1. Separate Christian Education
Recognizing “Kuyper insisted that education and nurture were duties of the parents and not of the state nor the church” (p.54), the CRC set up schools that were not “parochial”, but rather under the direct supervision of parents, church members, and educational professions together for the purpose of instructing the youth in the meaning system of the CRC’s Reformed Worldview.
2. Catechetical Teaching and Preaching
Catechetical Teaching, “keeps high the intellectual level of CRC preaching because ministers must wrestle with the full range of rather weighty theological issues from total depravity, to theories of the atonement, to questions of the extent of grace.”
3. Church Discipline
“The CRC continues to take very seriously the matter of Christian discipline. This means that it monitors member’s behavior and theology and it sanctions deviations from the accepted norm.” This is directly guided by our confessions: 1. the pure preaching of the gospel, 2. the pure administration of the sacraments, 3. practice church discipline in correcting faults.
4. Separate Christian Organizations
“First, [Separate Christian Organizations] provide contexts in which like-minded persons can share concerns thus preventing contamination from others who are not similarly committed. Secondly, they are channels through which CRC influence is extended into the world.”
5. Monitoring Doctrinal Orthodoxy
“Monitoring theological orthodoxy is not merely a matter of sanctioning deviants but a practice which keeps alive both knowledge and skills required for the perpetuation of the CRC world view and way of life.”
At this point, we should be reminded too that Bouma identified “continued adherence to the Canons of Dort” as “the yardstick by which the monitors of orthodoxy in the CRC define the crucial line between orthodoxy and heresy”, calling the doctrines of the Canons of Dort “the core beliefs which separate classical Calvinism from other systems of Reformation theology and, more particularly, the conservative from the “softened” Calvinist.”
“Continued adherence to the Canons of Dort was one of the central issues in the Afscheiding of 1832” and “the Secession of [1886]”.
But why, if all of these things were so important and worked so well… Why would the CRC abandon them?
And why is the CRC no longer growing but instead currently shrinking at an alarming rate?
I think it is fair to see the probably connection between these two items.
If sociologists identify these structural factors as key to denominational health and growth, then certainly the removal of these key structural factors will lead to decline. This then can go far in answering the second question (in part), but what about the first? Why would the CRC abandon these structural practices?
I think first and foremost, these structural factors have been neglected because:
1. They’re difficult, requiring great commitments of personnel, energy, time, and money.
This requirement might be manageable if it were asked only of the pastor or staff of the church. But these commitments, in order to work, must be required of all church members.
And yet our members have more outside commitments than ever. At least they feel like they do. Social media and the internet steals our downtime and fills the space between commitments and activities.
The catch-22 is that the more rigorously and faithfully we attend to our commitments, the easier it is to maintain them, but now every year that we have let these slide, it has become increasingly more difficult and energy-consuming to start them back up.
2. Our culture is increasingly hostile to these efforts.
Not only is the church asking a lot of their people, but those who do make efforts at these commitments feel increasingly challenged by our secular North American cultures. Now, even as I write that, I can feel that some tides are turning for the better. The tyranny of the minority is becoming less effective. But even many Christians currently dissuade exclusively-Christian schools, exclusively-Christian social organizations, Sunday evening services, strong doctrinal teaching.
And more than that, the thought of Biblical church discipline sounds outrageous to many Christians!
I think even greater than the time/money/energy barrier is the effects of decade after decade of soaking and dissolving in the North American culture that we swim in.
Now, certainly none of this is new information. But the question of this article is:
Can these old ways still work for the modern CRCNA?
In this series, I’ve tried to be upfront about the fact that Bouma’s book was published in 1984. 40 years ago. (Feel old?) His reality is not our reality. The URC split took many families. And since that split, the CRCNA has been shrinking heavily year after year.
We’re approaching a 50% reduction from the height of CRC membership. And the modern secular and theological culture is much different than it was 40 years ago.
Should we, as a denomination, be looking for new tools and strategies for health in our modern context? Yeah, I think that we probably should.
But first we should recommit to these old ways!
Yes, these structural factors can work in our modern churches.
In fact, they are needed much more today than they even were back then. We not only have evidence of their effectiveness back in the 80s and 90s (and centuries before then), but now we also have the clear correlation between lessening these structural factors and church decline! This is no coincidence. The loss of these tools has been destructive to our churches.
Now, more than ever, we need to champion these tried-and-true methods of faithfulness!
At a time when individuals are feeling increasingly lonely and isolated, the church needs to step in and expect MORE from our members, not less. The high standards required in these 5 structural factors were not merely idyllic, they were highly practical. These high levels of commitment used human psychology (such as Cognitive Dissonance) to its advantage!
So too, these commitments are what people are seeking out. People want meaning and purpose and community! They want to invest their time in something worth their time.
CRCNA churches should reinvest in these 5 structural factors listed above.
Calvin Seminary should be preparing seminarians to hold evening catechism services.
Denominational HQ could be focused on connecting cross-national and bi-national economic and social coordination for CRCNA members.
All churches and classes should be practicing ongoing and faithful church discipline for members.
Biblical faithfulness is not optional. The anthropological and spiritual realities that the church deals with are not ancillary, they are essential. They are the most important things we could be doing with our lives. They are worth the time, energy, personnel, money.
We should not shrink back from high expectations, but - in love and with love! - uplift and encourage one another in high expectations.
The “Old Ways” were crafted in wisdom over ages. We neglect them to our peril.