I finally got around to reading the July 2007 issue of The Banner about all the changes from Synod 2007. Three thoughts:
- The fuss over women being full leaders in the church will seem as anachronistic in a decade or three as prohibitions against car washing on Sundays seems today. Thank goodness it’s [mostly] settled now.
- The hit-miss ratio of synod was pretty even. The decisions on women, minorities, SMCC, and ESV acceptance were all wins. Trashing the minority report on Third Wave Pentecostalism, as well as listening to any report with the venomous title ‘Migrant Workers and the Nature of Sin,’ were awful blunders. Revising the hymnal and revising the church order are likely to become albatrosses to future synods.
- The conservative/historical denominations are becoming deeply marginalized, both at the synodical level and in The Banner’s coverage of the same. It’s not at all clear that anybody under the age of 40 is truly listening to and empathizing with anybody over the age of 70. A lack of historical awareness is a serious, threatening problem.
Somebody is bound to point out that items one and three contradict each other. So goes the CRC in 2007.