Issues With The Banner Part 5 - “Catching Up to Genesis 12”

Wherein the General Secretary of the CRCNA suggests the denomination is only now, in 2023, catching up to the promise God gave to Abraham in Genesis 12 because it has more Latino and Korean churches

As explained in my introductory post, I have been slowly going through the March 2023 issue of the Banner and pointing out articles I have concerns with. I’ve been doing this not because I particularly enjoy criticizing the Banner, but because I’m trying to illustrate what I see as the wide-spread nature of the publication’s failings and the sometimes subtle ways concerning and unorthodox views are expressed in its pages.

In one issue, a total of nine articles quickly jumped out at me as expressing questionable beliefs. Below is the fifth of those articles.

“Catching Up to Genesis 12” by Rev Zachary King, General Secretary of the CRCNA

This is another article that extols “diversity.” It mentions that “the vast majority of the CRC’s growth in the past decade has come from church planting and affiliation among ethnic minority groups” and states, “The Christian Reformed Church has identified ‘growing in diversity and unity by seeking justice, reconciliation and welcome, sharing our faith as we build relationships which honor the cultures of our neighbors and newcomers’ as one of its four ministry plan ‘milestones.’”

That in and of itself may not be objectionable, but the writer points to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-4 and again in Genesis 17:4-5 as the biblical basis for the denomination needing to be “diverse”, and I’m not sure that’s a good interpretation of those verses. Yes, all the people of the earth have been blessed through Abraham, and all people of the earth can share in the promise made to Abraham, but that doesn’t mean that each individual denomination must contain people from all over the earth in order to be a healthy denomination.

Toward the end of the article, Rev. King writes, “In fact, the vast majority of the CRC’s growth in the past decade has come from church planting and affiliation among ethnic minority groups. Today almost 10 percent of our denomination is Korean, and Latin Americans are joining apace. What a blessing and an opportunity to catch up with the Holy Spirit in God’s vision for our churches!”

I absolutely believe that the Korean and Latino CRC churches have been a blessing to the denomination. But not because of their ethnicity. Rather, they are a blessing because, generally speaking, they seem to be solidly orthodox churches. If they were not orthodox in their doctrine, they would not be a blessing to the denomination.

I also get the feeling that if that 10% growth came through just run-of-the-mill white people, Rev. King would be disappointed even though the numbers would be the same and even though, as Christians, our focus should be on bringing people to Christ and helping them grow in their faith regardless of their physical appearance, ethnicity, or nation of origin.

I also think it is to some degree insulting and demeaning for him to imply that the CRC is only now “catching up” with God’s vision for the denomination as it is becoming more ethnically diverse, as if everything that came before was deficient because the denomination was merely filled with Dutch people. God does not focus on the outside but on people’s hearts. It’s concerning to me that the General Secretary of the denomination seems so focused on the superficial external appearance of the people within the denomination rather than on substantive things such as the denomination’s doctrinal stances and the overall spiritual health of its churches and individual members.

The last paragraph of the article reads, “I hope that you will appreciate the inspiring stories of ethnic diversity in this month’s Our Shared Ministry. Living, worshiping, and serving in ethnically diverse contexts can be intimidating. We’ve made mistakes (and continue to make them). But it’s God’s call for our denomination—and it’s wonderful!”

I don’t understand his need to backhandedly insult the overall denomination by implying that it’s somehow inherently uncomfortable for CRC members of different skin colors to interact with each other and saying, “We’ve made mistakes (and continue to make them).” That is one more example of an off-the-cuff comment that is made in passing but, frankly, deserves an entire article. Like the other writers before him, he does not seem to have weighed his words or given thought to what he is saying, which, given that he is the General Secretary of the denomination, seems particularly egregious.

I also have no evidence that it actually is “intimidating” to live, worship, or serve in “ethnically diverse contexts”, and perhaps Rev. King should have explained what he meant by that more clearly because that discomfort or intimidation is not something I have witnessed and I have no idea what he is talking about. The church I attend provides worship space to an ethnically African church. So far as I am aware, the people from our church who assist that church do not find the experience intimidating.  When members of that church attend our service, as far as I’m aware, the other people at our service are happy to see them and no one is intimidated. My father (who is not a member of CRCNA but is Reformed) travels to Africa regularly to provide theological education to local pastors. Never once has he expressed any sense of “intimidation” in working with them, and, from the other side, all I have ever heard is expressions of gratitude from the pastors there that he is providing them solid theological training. On a personal level, I believe I would feel far less intimidated visiting an orthodox church that is ethnically diverse than I would attending a church in Grand Rapids East that may potentially be more white but does not hold to orthodox doctrine in what I believe to be some pretty fundamental areas.

Finally, I will note (I could say this on probably any of the diversity articles but I’ll put it here), it’s interesting to me that in the discussion about diversity within the church, the benefits seem always to be brought by the minority and conferred on the majority. I don’t think that’s a healthy way for the Banner to be presenting diversity. Presumably there is benefit that the minority ethnic groups receive from attending a CRC church and interacting with the white majority. Accepting for the sake of argument, that “diversity” is an inherent good and something that a Christian church or denomination should be actively pursuing (something I'm not actually convinced is true and suspect may just be a fad of this age), it does not seem healthy to me that the Banner is focusing on it in such a one-sided manner. A healthier discussion about it would include the many benefits that the minority ethnic groups receive from joining with the majority.