Our sister churches in the Netherlands,
GKN-Liberated (GKv), recently decided at their General Synod to open
the offices of minister, elder, and deacon to the sisters of their
congregations. This unfortunate decision will do irreparable damage
to their relationships with many of their sister churches worldwide.
The GKv is a member church of the International Conference of Reformed Churches (ICRC); I cannot imagine that many of the other
member churches will be content to let the GKv retain the privileges
of membership.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)
and the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) must be
experiencing deja vu. In the
mid-1990s the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) opened up the offices in their church to women. This became an issue
in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC). At
that time the CRCNA was a member church of NAPARC, but their opening
of ecclesiastical offices to women led to their suspension in 1997.
The OPC and the RCUS were already members of NAPARC then. Also, the
CRCNA ordination of women was largely the catalyst for the formation
of the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA), presently a
member of NAPARC.
Are
the Canadian Reformed Churches (CanRC) going to follow the GKv in
this? Are we a mere ten or twenty years behind? Historically we have
had rather close ties to the GKv. Technically the GKv is a sister
church to the CanRC, but realistically, the GKv is our mother. Many
of our parents and grandparents were born and bred in its bosom. Will
the closeness and the ties be the undoing of the CanRC? Will it be only a few years before we see women in our elders benches and on our
pulpits?
Although
I have no crystal ball, I think the answer to those questions is No.
I say that with some confidence because of which churches we
associate with here at home, in North America. Not a one of the
twelve other NAPARC churches ordains women. At least one of them
(URCNA) formed largely because of the issue, and others (OPC and RCUS) have fought
the fight against a liberal hermeneutic on several
fronts and, by the grace of God, prevailed for the truth.
Possibly
we have an advantage that the GKv does not have. We are in a circle
of churches that maintains an explicitly Reformed hermeneutic, a
circle that I do not think the GKv has on the European continent.
Let
us, as CanRC, be cautious about the company we keep, and let us stay
in step with our NAPARC associates.
