Rather than reveling in and catering to childish youthfulness, Christians must value the elders of the church, giving weight to their thoughts and views. Rather than viewing church life and ministries as a consumer, Christians must contribute to the life and health of the church for the glory of God. Rather than selfish individualism, Christians need to humble themselves in service and self-denial, like Jesus Christ.

Much of modern America’s Christianity is filled with immaturity. In Ephesians 4:11–17, Paul highlights several aspects of what spiritual maturity would look like: a measure of unity, growth in Christlikeness, spiritual discernment, loving discipleship, and selfless service. Unfortunately, personal and spiritual immaturity are keeping these kinds of things from happening in many American churches, leading to instability and division within churches. What contributes to this immaturity? I suggest four things for consideration.
An Accommodation with Pop Culture
Pop culture is what dominates the landscape of America today. Kenneth Myers writes, “popular culture, especially [since 1964], has become a more dominant cultural force than ever before.”1 This was true in 1989 when he wrote this book, and it is even more so today.
While Christians cannot escape the presence of pop culture, we must guard ourselves from adapting to its value system. The value system and philosophical views of pop culture are not in alignment with those of the Scripture. Nonetheless, pop culture continues to be, not only allowed, but embraced in American churches, which contributes to its immaturity.
An Overemphasis on Reaching Youth
While pop culture has been around in some form for longer, the early decades of the twentieth century really ramped up its appeal and power, particularly in the youth of the day. The 1940s saw the term “teenager” come into vogue,2 and various youth organizations formed that targeted the youth of the day as the hope of the future of America.3)
The youth were viewed as those who could save the world from various political threats and also be the leaders in the churches. This youth movement embraced the expressions and behaviors of the pop culture of the day. This has been perpetuated ever since at rapid speed. However, when a church’s dominating emphasis is on the youth, it will lead to the neglect and marginalization of older generations, the prolonging of adolescence, and ultimately perpetuating immaturity within the church,4
Reaching the youth is important, but it should not trump the church’s need to reach people of all ages. Titus chapter two highlights a multigenerational ministry, giving emphasis on the mature and older generation.
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God gives us rules in society for our own good. Men are to be men, women are to be women, and kings are to be kings, and servants are to be servants. There is no denying that this is the natural order of things. We remember that the Ten Commandments are not a response to sin, but are the very character of the Lord laid out for us to follow and be conformed to. If we would stand in authority over the law then we have become a law unto ourselves. 

We are going to do something a little bit different today for our look at the Larger Catechism. In the act of taking questions out of order it may seem as if we are doing violence to the original intent of the writers. If they wanted  to keep the scope and the definition of the fifth command together they would of done so. Why should I feel the right to divide them? It’s a good inquiry worthy of an explanation. Simply put the breaking up of a multi-year look of 196 questions is going to mean that some decisions will be necessary in order to better explain the totality of the purpose of the Christian religion for believers and unbelievers alike. When it comes to this part of the law some terms are going to be used that are wildly foreign to the way we talk today, for good or for ill. Any conversation that gets into hierarchy, roles, and place is going to receive some pushback, since nearly all of our agencies and corporations operate with a strict conception of egalitarianism, that is that men, women, children, etc… are equal in such a way that any talk of difference is seen as demeaning or derogatory. Yet, we will see that the Bible is anti-egalitarian in a number of important ways.
In our walk through these three catechism questions we’ll see a couple of things that will neuter any conversation that the WLC is in any way making ontological statements about worth or value, one to another. However, what we will notice is that God has a purpose in not only making us different, but giving each of us unique roles to play in His kingdom. Our faith is patriarchal and it is so because God is God and we are not. Let’s get into the Q/A’s so we can talk more:
Q. 123. Which is the fifth commandment?
A. The fifth commandment is, Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Q. 124. Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?
A. By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of au­thority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.
Q. 126. What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?
A. The general scope of the fifth commandment is, the performance of those duties which we mutu­ally owe in our several relations, as inferiors, superiors, or equals.
As you can probably tell from the middle of the three questions there are some assumptions made about the way God made the world that need defined.
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“I’ve been delegated to synod four times now, and each time increasingly feels like war,” pastor and Abide clerk Aaron Vriesman wrote after Synod 2023. “The CRC’s existential crisis has been building for some time. Each synod is a battle of opposing visions for the CRC, with diametrically opposing values. While synodical sermons trumpet Christian unity and the worship times lead us to rejoice together in one circle, the reality among the delegates and throughout the CRC is a battle for the soul of the denomination.”

Two years ago, in a move that surprised almost everyone, the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) voted 123–53 to affirm that “unchastity” in the Heidelberg Catechism includes adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex.
“What now?” asked an article in the denominational publication, The Banner, two weeks later. “How will this decision play out?”
It was a good question. Some wondered if the vote wasn’t an accurate reflection of the denomination but instead a “coup” by a few well-organized conservatives. The FAQs released by the denomination included ways to change synod’s decision and ways for pastors, elders, or deacons to stay in office while disagreeing with the denomination’s position on sexuality. They could submit a “confessional-difficulty gravamen”—which is “a personal request for information and/or clarification of the confession”—to their church council.
In other words, you could tell your church you weren’t sure about the CRC’s position on sexuality, then continue to serve indefinitely.
In 2023, a fresh batch of synod delegates took another run at the issue. The vote splits looked much the same as the year before, and the confessional status of the definition of “unchastity” was upheld.
Then, as time was running out on the last afternoon, a vote was finally called on gravamina—to clarify they were temporary, not a permanent way to operate in the CRC while disagreeing with her confessions.
It felt rushed; the discussion had only been 10 minutes long. And to progressives, it also felt predetermined; the conservatives had won every vote so far. Emotions were running high when a handful of delegates said they no longer trusted the body, took off their name tags, and walked out in protest.
Out of time, synod voted to delay the issue another year. The CRC had never done that before. To conservatives, it felt like the liberal members had just won more time to maneuver their way out of church discipline.
“I was weeping,” said Jason Ruis, chair of the committee that proposed limitations on gravamina. “I thought we just saw the death of the denomination. I thought the vast majority was in agreement with what we were putting forward, but it got hijacked again by a small group of people. I thought [fellow] conservatives were going to say, ‘I’m done with this. Let’s go someplace else.’”
But they didn’t. This summer, the gravamen issue was the first that synod took up. By a vote of 137–47, they gave office-bearers three years to work through their difficulties. Synod also voted 134–50 that publicly affirming churches needed to stop and to publicly repent within a year or, at the most, two.
Next year, only delegates without gravamina will be allowed to serve in regional gatherings or at synod, effectively ending the debate. For a denomination that has slid leftward since the mid-1990s, this has been a remarkably quick and decisive shift back to orthodoxy.
“To feel like I’m part of this denomination, and part of that reshaping that is happening right now, is super exciting,” California pastor Patrick Anthony said. “To be the one denomination that was going liberal to have it not happen—why would God be so gracious to us?”
Dutch Reformed to Mainline-ish
Founded in 1857 by Dutch immigrants, the CRC draws from an old, rich history of Reformed theology and love of education. Less than 20 years after it began, the CRC founded a college and seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and named them both after John Calvin. Later, another CRC-affiliated college would name itself after the synod in Dordrecht, Holland, that outlined the five points of Calvinism. (I sit on the board there.)
Membership in the CRC grew fairly steadily until 1992, when it peaked at more than 315,000 members in nearly 1,000 churches. The average church size was 300.
And then things seemed to fall apart.
In 1995, after 25 years of arguing over women in office, synod finally said each congregation could decide for itself. Thirty-six complementarian churches left, and their 7,500 attendees formed a new denomination—the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA).
The CRC’s numbers never recovered. Over the years, more conservative churches left to join the URCNA, and the CRC’s numbers began to follow the mainline path of decline. Fewer babies were born, fewer teens enrolled at Calvin University, and fewer young people stayed in the denomination.
The CRC also followed the mainline in a decline in personal piety. For about 25 years after the split, CRC members reported reading the Bible less, praying less, and having fewer personal and family devotion times.
Perhaps most concerning were the implications for belief. Studies show mainline church members are less likely than evangelicals to believe the Bible is the word of God. Was the CRC losing that too?
Progressive Leadership
Certainly, with the rise of Donald Trump, prominent CRC leaders were distancing themselves from American evangelicalism. “I Never Was an Evangelical, and I Never Want to Be,” CRC member and Calvin professor of English Debra Rienstra wrote in 2017. Her colleague Kristin Kobes Du Mez published Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation in 2020.
“I devoted more of my career than I can believe to help recover and nurture the better part of the CRC tradition in the hope that it might occupy some space between both the mainline and Evangelical sides of American Protestantism,” Calvin professor emeritus of history James Bratt wrote in 2022. He, Rienstra, Du Mez, and Calvin philosophy professor James K. A. Smith have all signaled LGBT+ support. In 2021, about 150 Calvin professors and staff told the administration they opposed a CRC report supporting biblical sexuality.
Until 2020, those faculty were required to be members of a CRC church. Because of geography—the CRC headquarters was four miles down the road—they often ended up in the same churches as the CRC leadership. In that corner of Grand Rapids, there are 21 CRC churches within about 10 miles of each other. Their classis, or regional body, is called Grand Rapids East.
“Many denominational employees are part of those churches,” said Orland Park CRC pastor Derek Buikema, president of synod this year. “And a significant number of professors and members of administration at Calvin University and Calvin Seminary also go to those churches. Classis Grand Rapids East churches dominate the ethos of the entire denominational apparatus.”
In 2011, Grand Rapids East asked synod to revisit its historical perspective on human sexuality. When it declined, members in two of its churches founded All One Body, an organization that advocates for “unrestricted membership and full participation” in the church of those living LGBT+ lifestyles.
Five years later, Grand Rapids East released its own report, which it also submitted to synod. It explained the advancements in scientific and theological thinking and recommended the CRC allow for diverse views on sexuality.
That same year, another classis—this one from Alberta, Canada—suggested synod appoint a panel of LGBT+ advisers. And another report, this one official, advised synod to allow CRC pastors to use their discretion when asked to attend a same-sex wedding or make their facilities available for a same-sex wedding. CRC pastors should also be allowed to officiate civil same-sex ceremonies, they said.
But the 2016 synod wasn’t amenable. The delegates turned down the LGBT+ advisers and voted by a 60 percent majority to tell pastors they couldn’t officiate, participate in, or allow their buildings to be used for same-sex weddings.
In response to Grand Rapids East’s report, they appointed an official study committee on human sexuality. Every person on it, they said, must “adhere to the CRC’s biblical view on marriage and same-sex relationships.”
Conservative Synod
The committee had five years to do its work—and then six, when Synod 2021 was canceled for COVID-19. During that time, Neland Avenue CRC—a member of Grand Rapids East—installed a female deacon who was in a same-sex marriage (perhaps hoping to force the issue at synod). Calvin University students elected an openly gay undergrad as student body president and a Calvin professor officiated a same-sex wedding for a Calvin staffer at a campus-based research center.
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