Issues With The Banner - An Introduction

Could someone please explain why the Banner is tolerated, funded, and placed on literature racks by CRCNA churches?

There is perhaps no nice way to say this, so I’ll just come out and state: I do not understand why CRCNA churches tolerate, fund, and place on their literature racks the Banner. The articles published in that magazine seem neither intellectually stimulating nor spiritually nourishing. If those were the only issues perhaps it would not matter, but the articles also seem peppered with dubious theological statements.

As a way of illustrating and explaining to the elders of my local church what I view as widespread problems with the quality and theological underpinnings of the articles that are run in the Banner, I went through the, at the time, most current issue of the Banner (the March 2023 issue) and pulled out examples of what I found concerning. I presented them to the council at the CRCNA church I am attending basically with the intention of learning whether they approved of these articles or whether they, like me, found them concerning. If they did find them concerning, I wanted to know why they put this magazine on the church’s literature rack and why they sent ministry share dollars to the Banner.

Although they started working through those questions, that process has now been put on hold since our senior pastor resigned. In the meantime, I would like to throw these concerns out into the internet world for feedback from CRC members who are not a part of my specific local church.

Before delving into specific articles, I would like to lay out my broad concerns.

Because of personal connections, several times a year my family visits a local Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Synod). My husband has grabbed the WELS equivalent of the Banner and used it as a devotional. You cannot do that with the Banner. The articles in it do not demonstrate any particular love for God or desire to grow closer to Him or to tell others about Him. Outside of the few articles that are straight news about denominational matters, I honestly can’t even tell what the purpose of the Banner is. The articles are not devotional, they're not theologically rigorous, they don't seem to have much purpose at all. I would be interested in hearing someone explain what kind of edification they receive from the Banner because I am not experiencing it myself, and beyond that I cannot see what value other people would get from it.

A recurring problem I see in Banner articles is that much of an article will be innocuously empty, filled only with trite, vaguely spiritual sounding ideas that are not particularly fleshed out but that aren’t inherently offensive or wrong either; however, the writer will then throw in one or two sentences that seem wildly off base and that which, if actually fleshed out, would have potentially serious theological implications. Unfortunately, those ideas never are fleshed out, the issues that they raise are not considered, and readers simply take them in passively and unknowingly because these one or two sentences are surrounded by spiritual sounding platitudes which, although trite and sense dulling, are not in and of themselves unChristian.

There also seems to be an underlying hostility to western culture and traditional western expressions of Christianity. In the March 2023 issue, there was a recurring idea that traditional Christianity is old and in need of some kind of transformation and that non-white people can bring new life to the western church specifically because they are not white. It’s hard to see how that is anything other than inherently racist. It also seems pretty unChristian because it takes the focus off of God who is the One who transforms and gives life to the church and instead suggests that a specific group of people, due to their skin color, are the ones who transform and give life to the church.

Additionally, there seems to be a baseline acceptance of politically left-wing, progressive ways of viewing the world. In some of the March 2023 articles, it seemed to be taken as a given that the white majority alive today in North America has something to apologize for or repent of to the ethnic/racial minorities in North America. There seemed to be a sense that Christians are not loving enough. At least once it in the March issue it was suggested that the church has harmfully discriminated against LGBTQ people. One can view race relations and the treatment of LGBTQ people in a number of different ways, and yet it seemed that the Banner writers just accepted the left-wing way of viewing them as the way that was more correct or Christian or grounded in reality.

Finally, the Banner does not seem to be interested in truth. There was a lot of talk about “love” and “care” but no consideration given to the need for truth and how to maintain truth and use it as a guide for how to rightly love and care for others. In an age as full of lies as ours is, the lack of interest in truth by the CRC’s primary publication seems pretty unconscionable.

Right now, I am concerned that were I to join the CRCNA, I would feel that I had an obligation to tithe and some of that tithe money would go to funding a publication that seems misguided and off base. While I don't judge anyone for choosing personally to donate to the Banner, I don't want to see the money I have theoretically given to God spent on useless and spiritually unsound things.

In the following weeks, I will be posting several articles from the March 2023 edition of the Banner and explaining my disagreements and concerns about them. My hope is that someone can give me a cogent explanation as to why these articles (a) are not concerning and (b) are actually theologically sound and spiritually beneficial to the readers because I don’t see it.