Synod 2022 clarified that “unchastity” in the Heidelberg Catechism “encompasses adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex,” all of which are violations of the Seventh Commandment…That Synod instructs churches who have made public statements, by their actions or in any form of media, which directly contradict synod’s decision on unchastity to repent and to honor their covenant commitments to the CRCNA.

Synod 2024 was a clash of two competing visions of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. One sees the CRC defined by its heritage and history. The other sees the CRC defined by its beliefs from Scripture as described in the creeds and confessions. This is the current tension in the CRC. Synod 2024 said the CRC is defined by its confessions. Adherence to the CRC’s statements of faith is what unites a people together as the CRC. Whoever you are, from wherever you come, if you believe what we believe from Scripture, you have a place in the CRC.
Gravamen
Synod 2024 closed the gravamen loophole for CRC officebearers to sign the Covenant with exceptions. By a vote of 137 to 47 (74.5%), synod said, “confessional-difficulty gravamina are not meant, nor should be used as an exception to the confessions,” because “Holding a settled conviction contrary to the confessions in perpetuity would contradict the Covenant for Officebearers.” (9A – Gravamen)
Church Order supplements were changed to say a confessional-difficulty gravamen is a “temporary” gravamen “subsequent to their ordination” when an officebearer has a difficulty with a doctrine but does not “have a settled conviction contrary to” the confessions. Signing the Covenant for Officebearers “’Without reservation’ means that an officebearer does not have a difficulty or hold a settled conviction contrary to any of the doctrines contained in the creeds and confessions. This includes what synod has declared to have confessional status.” The council upon receiving a gravamen “shall … Set a reasonable timeline for the resolution of the confessional-difficulty. The total timeline shall not exceed 3 years from the time the difficulty is received by a council.” Those with a gravamen filed “shall … Refrain from teaching contrary to or disparaging the church’s confessions or what synod has declared to have confessional status…” and “Recuse themselves from being delegated to broader assemblies”. Also added: “A confessional-difficulty gravamen is not a settled conviction contrary to the confessions themselves or anything that holds confessional status. Therefore, an assembly may not merely acknowledge an officebearer’s reservation regarding a confession—it must work toward resolving it” (9A – Gravamen).
In other words, a gravamen gives space to struggle. It is not a loophole to disagree. The Covenant for Officebearers says of the Reformed confessions, “We heartily believe and will promote and defend their doctrines faithfully, conforming our preaching, teaching, writing, serving, and living to them.” The duplicity of signing this covenant and simultaneously filing a gravamen is not allowed.
Discipline of Churches in Public Defiance of Synod
Synod 2022 clarified that “unchastity” in the Heidelberg Catechism “encompasses adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex,” all of which are violations of the Seventh Commandment.
After Synod 2022, at least 18 churches made public statements contrary to Scripture and synod and published on the All One Body website. Contrary to Scripture and synod, Jubilee Fellowship in St. Catharines, Ontario said on their website’s “Inclusion” page, “We honour committed monogamous marriage between all persons.” The homepage of Hessel Park CRC of Classis Chicago South included, “The full inclusion of LGBTQ members includes marriage, baptism, communion, and leading as pastors, deacons, and elders. Same-sex weddings may be held in the church building, and the pastor may officiate LGBTQ weddings.”
In response to these public statements, Synod 2024 voted 134 to 50 (73%) to adopt the following recommendation (from Advisory Committee 8D – Discipline Matters – Majority Report):
That Synod instructs churches who have made public statements, by their actions or in any form of media, which directly contradict synod’s decision on unchastity to repent and to honor their covenant commitments to the CRCNA. 
Actions demonstrating this repentance would include: 

A statement to classis indicating repentance. 
A removal of any public statements, opposed to the teaching of the CRCNA regarding chastity, including materials designed to teach against or otherwise contradict the denomination’s position. 
A commitment to not ordain as officebearers individuals who are in a same-sex marriage, in a same-sex relationship not in keeping with a holy Christian sexual life. 
A commitment to not publicly instruct against the denomination’s position in our “preaching, teaching, writing, serving, and living,” as we promise in the Covenant for Officebearers.
A commitment not to recognize same-sex marriage as ecclesiastically valid, either in officiation or any manner of blessing a wedding rite or a baptismal rite (cf. CO Art. 56, 69-c, Supplement, 69-c; HC Q&A 82, 85). 
A commitment that officebearers not serve in any organization designed to specifically advocate against the teachings and confessions of the CRCNA.

The same vote also included consequences for breaking covenant:
That after the conclusion of Synod 2024, all office-bearers from churches in non-compliance, by actions or in any form of media, be placed on a limited suspension. That suspension would include a loss of ability to send delegates to classis, synod, the COD or other CRCNA agencies. Officebearers under limited suspension may attend classis with the privilege of the floor but not as a seated delegate.
Additionally, synod instructed the General Secretary to “prioritize the development of resources to help classes and churches navigate the process towards repentance and restoration or towards disaffiliation.” For churches that refuse, the consequences include discipline: “If neither restoration nor disaffiliation are completed after the defined limited suspension, classis is to remove the council, revert the church to an emerging status, placing the church under the authority of a neighboring council.”
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We cannot bear to look at the crucifixion any more than we can bear to look at the worst sins and most painful sorrows in the world—or to look inside and see the darkness of our own depravity. The old, ugly cross therefore serves as a proof that Jesus did what he meant to do and put an end to all our sin.

Yet at the center of God’s plan for the beautification of the cosmos is an act of appalling ugliness and degrading humiliation that nevertheless took place according to “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). I refer, of course, to the cross where Christ was crucified, as well as to what the Scripture says about the physical form of our Savior. If God is beautiful, if people made in his image are beautiful, and if the life of the Son he sent into the world is beautiful, then why does the Bible explicitly tell us that the Messiah, Jesus, was not beautiful? The prophet Isaiah could hardly be clearer on this point:
He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.Isaiah 53:2
The promised Christ was unattractive in his appearance. Indeed, the prophet says that Jesus “grew up” this way (Isa. 53:2), which implies that our Savior was more homely than handsome. Certainly, in his sufferings and death, Jesus became so physically disfigured that he was socially rejected. The horror of his cross thus screams against every sensibility of the divine aesthetic. It was so hideous that even the Father (in a manner of speaking, during the dark hours that his Son bore the guilt of our sin) looked away. Nevertheless, the Bible still tells us to look to Jesus on the cross for our salvation (e.g., Heb. 12:2).
Here we confront the paradox of the crucifixion, which was both the ugliest sin ever committed and the most beautiful sacrifice ever given. When we look at “the Passion and crucifixion of the Lord of glory,” writes Thomas Dubay, we witness “consummate splendor in monstrous horror.” There “at one and the same time we find supremely horrific ugliness and supremely divine and loving beauty.”1 In this paradox we also find our salvation, for the crucifixion of the Christ was the ugly sin that alone had the power to make this world beautiful again.
Why So Ugly?
To understand this shocking paradox, it will help us if we linger at the foot of the cross. Before rushing on too quickly to Easter Sunday and the triumph of the resurrection, we need to take a closer, harder look at the sufferings of our Savior.
What they did—what we did—to Jesus was ugly. It was ugly to betray that innocent man with a Judas kiss, ugly to put him— wrongly—on ecclesiastical and political trial, ugly to parade false witnesses against him and condemn him to die for crimes he did not commit—crimes that were not even crimes at all. It was ugly to mock him royally for claiming to be the King, to crown him with bloody thorns, to beat him, strike him, and spit in his face. Ugly too were the nails that pierced his hands and his feet, the game of chance to steal his last garment, the dark insults hurled against him in his dying hours, and the absolute agony of gasping for every breath—naked and afraid—as his life bled away.
According to the prophet Isaiah, these travails were so repulsive that people could not bear to look but despised the crucified Christ by hiding their faces (Isa. 53:3). This prophecy is especially profound when we consider how much Isaiah said throughout his writings about beauty and splendor. Of all the prophets, he was the most sensitive to beauty as the destiny of the people of God (see Isa. 62:3). Yet when he came to the saving work of the suffering servant, Isaiah saw it as so ugly that he turned away.
How ugly was the cross? It was as ugly as what Jesus was dying to deal with—as ugly as sin and death.
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We move horizontally between the images, among the things of earth, understanding how they relate to each other, so that the whole picture and experience of the world can then lead us to God. God draws us into this web of creation so that we might know him through it. It’s how he reveals himself to us in a way that fits our frame.

What the Heavens Declare
Psalm 19 begins with one of the most famous verses in the Bible: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The first half of the psalm celebrates God’s glory in nature—in the heavens (v. 1), in the sun’s course across the sky (vv. 4, 6), in the similarities between the sun and a warrior and a bridegroom (v. 5). This revelation has gone out to the entire world so that there is no place where God’s revelation is not heard (vv. 2–4). In other words, the psalm begins with a celebration of what theologians call “general revelation.” General revelation includes all the ways that God reveals himself in creation—in the ordinary course of nature and the general course of history. In other words, it’s not just the heavens that declare the glory of God.
Everything that God has made declares the glory of God. The apostle Paul tells us that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). In other words, made things make invisible attributes visible. Created things make eternal things perceivable. God’s own power and righteousness and beauty and wisdom and mercy are invisible attributes. We can’t see them directly. But when we see a tornado tear across the plains, we see his power. When we stand on a giant mountain, we feel the firmness and stability of his righteousness. When we watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, we see his beauty. When we witness the magnificent intricacy of the food chain—deer eating grass and then being eaten by lions—we see his inscrutable wisdom and mercy over all that he has made. Made things make invisible attributes visible.

How do Christians enjoy the good things of the earth while still enjoying the Creator? Scripture supports the wholehearted enjoyment of both. Here is a book for Christians struggling to enjoy the things of earth for the glory of God.

That’s what we mean by general revelation, and by its nature, it is pervasive and constant. It’s accessible to all men everywhere. “There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard” (Ps. 19:3). As C. S. Lewis said, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”1 Jonathan Edwards, an eighteenth-century American pastor and theologian, testified that he believed that the whole universe, heaven and earth, from top to bottom and front to back is filled with “images of divine things, as full as a language is of words.”2 By this, he meant that everything in creation is communication from God about God. God speaks to us everywhere and in everything.
Earthly Categories for Spiritual Things
General revelation works both directly and indirectly. It works directly by creating categories in our minds and hearts for knowing God. This is direct because we move straight from the made thing to God himself. How do the heavens declare the glory of God? Through their size and majesty. The vastness of the heavens points to the greatness of God. Or the beauty of a sunset gives us a visual picture of the beauty and holiness of God. Or the sun’s perpetual and constant shining images God’s constant and everlasting goodness. In each case, we move straight from the made thing to God himself. Our experience of the world gives us categories for knowing God and his word.
And not just God himself. General revelation gives us categories for knowing many aspects of the spiritual life. Consider Psalm 1.
Blessed is the manwho walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners,nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the law of the Lord,and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a treeplanted by streams of waterthat yields its fruit in its season,and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers.The wicked are not so,but are like chaff that the wind drives away.(Psalm 1:1–4)
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