Synod 2024’s measures to ensure leaders in the Christian Reformed Church in North America remain faithful to the denomination’s confessional teachings are having an impact on the makeup of the Council of Delegates. The Council serves as the CRCNA’s ecclesiastical governance board, acting on behalf of synod in between meetings of synod. More than 50 delegates serve on the board—one from each of the 49 classes (regional assemblies) and some at-large members. This summer the delegates from Classis Grand Rapids South and Classis Lake Erie each resigned, a non-Council of Delegates appointee to a COD committee indicated her inability to serve, and another delegate has indicated to The Banner her intention to resign once her classis has an opportunity to appoint another delegate.
Synod 2024’s decisions around confessional adherence pertain to all teachings in the confessions of the church but were addressed this year to ensure all parts of the denomination hold to Synod 2022’s confessional interpretation that same-sex sexual relations are “unchaste.” The measures include an annual re-signing of the Covenant for Officebearers, a three-year limit for an officebearer to wrestle with a teaching in the confessions, limited participation for an officebearer struggling with a doctrine (they are to “recuse oneself from being delegated to broader assemblies while the confessional difficulty remains unresolved,” Acts of Synod 2024 p. 877), and requiring the agencies and boards of the CRC to align their own policies of doctrinal agreement with the decisions of 2024.
Synod also set a course for discipline for congregations “who have made public statements, by their actions or in any form of media, which directly contradict synod’s decision on unchastity,” and synod determined the same path of discipline for churches, members, and officebearers “that have declared themselves to be in the status of one in protest with ecclesiastical intent.” Synod said officebearers from congregations in these categories don’t have the “ability to be delegated to classis, synod, the COD, or the CRCNA agencies” (Acts of Synod 2024 p.892).
Jessica Maddox, Classis Grand Rapids South, whose term was meant to end in 2025, told The Banner, “I resigned from the Council of Delegates to comply with the decisions of Synod 2024.”
Communications, Letters of Resignation
Matt Ackerman, Classis Lake Erie, posted his resignation publicly. His term was also meant to conclude in 2025. Addressing the Council’s chair and vice-chair and “the rest of my fellow Council of Delegates members,” Ackerman wrote about his calling to be a university chaplain and how he finds himself “estranged from the denomination that shaped and formed me—under discipline even—because of the way she taught me to be Reformed.”
Ackerman wrote: “At a university where the institutional sexual ethic boils down to one word, consent, I asked Jesus what truth he would have me speak into the sex lives of students, both gay and straight. I went to scripture and fellow Christians, and over weeks and months and years the Spirit’s answer was yes and amen to chastity, fidelity, commitment, and a love that reflects Christ’s love for the church … for all students, regardless of gender or sexuality. There is so much more that could be said about this, but the bottom line is I believe committed same-sex marriage is a faithful way to live a Christian life. That means, as you indicated in your memo to the Council of Delegates, I have no choice but to resign” (emphasis and ellipsis in the original).
The memo Ackerman references was an internal communication in August from the Council of Delegates’ chair, Michael Ten Haken, U.S. at-large delegate, and vice-chair, Greta Luimes, Canada at-large delegate. Ten Haken told The Banner they received several requests to have the communications sent to COD members shared more broadly, but as “they are not public statements nor are they meant to be widely distributed,” Ten Haken said they asked members not to share them. They were meant to summarize the decisions of Synod 2024 and encourage members to consider how they might apply to their individual circumstances. Ten Haken said members were asked to “contact the chair if they have questions or concerns regarding their specific circumstance.”
“Following this communication, a small number of officebearers on the COD who cannot, in good conscience, continue to serve have resigned,” Ten Haken said. “While we have acquiesced in those resignations, we also lament their decisions. With that said, the remaining delegates will continue to serve faithfully as we carry out the responsibilities that have been assigned to us.”
Thea Leunk, Classis Grand Rapids East, told The Banner she sent a letter to Ten Haken after receiving the communication.
A retired pastor whose appointment to the Council of Delegates is meant to conclude in 2026, Leunk said she intends to resign once her classis “names someone else to serve as its delegate.” She expects that the soonest that could happen is the January meeting of Classis Grand Rapids East.
Diane Dykgraaf, who worked in various ministry positions in the denomination for 25 years and retired four years ago, was slated to join the Council of Delegates’ Resonate committee this fall. The Council structures its ecclesiastical oversight by committee and invites non-COD members with expertise in the particular ministry area to serve alongside delegates. Dykgraaf said she is unable to complete that service though she was honored to be chosen and had been looking forward to the work. Instead, she said, “I have spent the summer writing resignation letters to all of the ministries I loved as I disaffiliate myself from this denomination that I don’t recognize anymore.”
Dykgraaf shared a copy of the letter she sent to the Office of General Secretary with The Banner. In part, she wrote: “It has been a painful process of leaving everything I love. I can’t even put into words how it feels. But, I have been observing the changes in the leadership at synod over the last three years, and I cannot be a part of this new direction. … Today I would not be able to affirm all of the teachings of the CRC the way the recent synods have demanded. I served the CRC in a time when thoughts and doctrines were allowed to be questioned and thoughtfully challenged. This left openings for learning, new insights, and growth. This new direction requires a settled and binding certainty that doesn’t hold space for what might not yet be clear. Instead it imposes judgment and discipline, and silences all who don’t fall in line with the recent decisions.”
Doctrinal Unity
Synod said its actions were meant to delineate a process that could “restore an officebearer to doctrinal unity or reveal where our standards may be in error,” (Acts of Synod 2024, p. 878) and to safeguard “fidelity to the creeds and confessions in the denomination’s agencies and institutions” (Acts of Synod 2024, p. 880).
The Council of Delegates includes officebearers—elders, deacons, or pastors—who have been delegated to serve, but classes may also nominate any CRC member in good standing. They need not be an officebearer. Because of that the Council doesn’t ask members to sign the Covenant for Officebearers but to instead affirm the Statement of Agreement with the Beliefs of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. As of February 2024 non-Council of Delegates members who serve on any Council of Delegates committee, such as the Resonate Committee or the Banner Advisory Committee, must also sign the Statement of Agreement.
In October 2022 the Council of Delegates determined a process for dealing with members’ requests for exceptions to the Statement of Agreement, allowing the executive to determine whether to grant one on a case-by-case basis. The Council will have to review that policy over the next year as synod has instructed “the boards of the denominational agencies and institutions and the Council of Delegates to review and revise, as needed, their gravamina policies—e.g., exceptions—related to the decisions of Synod 2024 and report on their actions to Synod 2025” (Acts of Synod 2024, p. 880).
‘On My Way Out of the Christian Reformed Church’
Ackerman said he’s been grateful for the support and conversations he has had with the Council of Delegates leadership. “They have been personally and pastorally supportive of me through this process, and I’m grateful for that,” he said, noting that since he made his resignation public (Sept. 6) “other COD members and people connected to the COD have reached out to express their gratitude (for me), and I appreciate that.” But he wonders if it’s because he “made it clear that I am on my way out of the Christian Reformed Church, which makes it easy for folks to be gracious.” Ackerman said he plans to continue with what he believes is the “wisest course going forward” which is to transfer his ordination out of the CRC. He doesn’t yet have a denominational destination, and he and the seven-member board of the Campus Chapel and Center for Faith and Scholarship “have not made any major decisions as a campus ministry yet.”
The next meeting of the Council of Delegates is Oct. 16-18 at Cascades Fellowship CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich.