Christian Reformed Church

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Do trends in Grand Rapids tell us something about religion, evangelicalism and the GOP?

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Do trends in Grand Rapids tell us something about religion, evangelicalism and the GOP?

Tuesday was a good night for Kansas abortion-rights campaigners and for many Republicans blessed by Donald Trump. Democrats are calculating that both factors could foretell a good night for them on Election Day.

Whatever, journalists attuned to the potent though oft-neglected religion factor should especially focus on the Michigan Republican U.S. House primary win by neophyte John Gibbs, a Trump-endorsed 2020 election denier.

In this significant showdown, Gibbs edged incumbent Peter Meijer (pronounced “Meyer”) with 52%. It helps to remember that Trump staged his final campaign rallies in a very symbolic location — Grand Rapids — in 2016 and 2020.

As a brand-new House member, Meijer voted to impeach President Trump for attempting to overthrow President Biden’s Electoral College victory. (Meijer’s predecessor in the seat, Justin Amash, had backed the 2019 Trump impeachment, quit the Republican Party and retired.)

Among last year’s 10 pro-impeachment House Republicans, five others sought party re-nomination. At this writing two of them led Trumpite challengers in Washington state’s Tuesday “jungle primary,” Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse. North Carolina’s Tom Rice lost big, California’s David Valadao won and Liz Cheney faces Wyoming voters August 16. Four decided to retire.

Underscoring hopes to flip the Michigan seat, House Democrats’ campaign arm horrified some party stalwarts by spending $435,000 on ads to boost Gibbs’s name recognition, while undercutting Meijer as the far stronger November opponent. In what turned out to be an obituary, a Monday Meijer blog post denounced Democrats’ “nauseating” violation of “moral limits.”

This brings us to the obvious GetReligion question: Why religion-beat buzz about Michigan District 3?

Simply because it centers on Grand Rapids, as much as any northern town a buckle on an established Bible (especially Calvinist) Belt outside of the South.


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Dear religion-beat pros: Sometimes small religious denominations merit a bit of attention

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Dear religion-beat pros: Sometimes small religious denominations merit a bit of attention

With American public space monopolized by furor over abortion and also about sexual abuse in the huge Southern Baptist Convention, it seems eccentric to mention small Protestant denominations. But sometimes these flocks produce news and highlight developing trends that may merit news attention.

Consider actions in recent days by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and Christian Reformed Church (CRC). [Disclosure: The Religion Guy is a longtime CRC member though not directly involved in the matters at hand.] These two bodies, generally similar in terms of Calvinist theology, exercise influence in the wider American evangelical marketplace of ideas that far exceeds their modest numbers.

The CRC, founded in 1857, has declined to 205,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. The PCA, launched in a 1973 southern breakaway among Presbyterians has added northern go-getters to reach a U.S.-only membership of 378,000. More liberal “mainline” Presbyterians dropped from 4 million in 1970 to a current 1.2 million.

The CRC and PCA were the largest church bodies in the conservative North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council until 2002, when the council terminated CRC participation for allowing female pastors and lay officers. Both denominations remained members of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) until last week, when the PCA quit the cooperative organization. Oddly, NAE President Walter Kim (contact: walter.kim@trinitycville.org), a Harvard Ph.D., is a PCA minister who led an important PCA church in Charlottesville, Va., and is now its “teacher in residence.”

Politics is involved in all of this, of course.

The PCA cited Presbyterians’ Westminster Confession of 1646, which declares that church bodies deal only with internal religious issues and “are not to intermeddle with civil affairs” except in “extraordinary” cases. The NAE indeed addresses many societal topics. The PCA lamented its policy statements on the environment, immigration, the death penalty and, especially, support of proposed “Fairness For All” legislation to acknowledge LGBTQ legal protections in return for religious-liberty guarantees.

Yet the PCA itself has issued statements on abortion, AIDS, alcohol, child protection, education, homosexuality, medical insurance, nuclear power, pornography and race relations. Does PCA separation from NAE-style evangelicals move it toward what we used to call cultural and religious “fundamentalism”?


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Podcast: What parents (and journalists) can learn from LGBTQ debates at Calvin

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Podcast: What parents (and journalists) can learn from LGBTQ debates at Calvin

Any list of the two or three most influential evangelical Protestant colleges and universities in America has to include Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Hang around at Council of Christian Colleges and Universities gatherings (I was a senior fellow and journalism professor for 20 years) and you’ll hear chatter about the “Calvin mafia” that has long provided intellectual clout shaping trends and programs nationwide. In other words, what happens at Calvin doesn’t stay at Calvin.

You could say that was the Big Idea in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a Religion News Service story with this headline: “Fallout over LGBTQ spouses at Calvin University captures broader evangelical divide.” The second line: “A same-sex wedding led the university to split with its longtime research center over Christian teaching on sexuality.” Before we look at the overture, let’s jump down to a crucial passage in this story:

Provost Noah Toly did confirm that all faculty and staff, including those at the center, are required to follow the school’s employment policies, which bar sex outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. He also said that hiring managers and supervisors are required to enforce the policy.

“Employment policies” is a rather secular way of stating that Calvin has a doctrinal statement linked to its ties to the Christian Reformed Church. It’s safe to assume that, at some point, faculty and staff sign a copy of that statement or a “lifestyle covenant” that states the doctrines in practical terms. At some schools, faculty and staff reaffirm that doctrinal statement/covenant every year.

When we are talking about defining the boundaries of a voluntary association of this kind — an explicitly Christian liberal-arts university — “doctrines” are more important than “policies.” Keep that quote from the provost in mind as you read the top of this RNS story. This is long, but crucial:

For years, Calvin University, a leading evangelical school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has tried to walk a fine line of being welcoming to LGBTQ students while still enforcing traditional Christian Reformed Church views on sexuality.


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New podcast: Reformed Church in America split points to rising tensions in Calvin country

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New podcast: Reformed Church in America split points to rising tensions in Calvin country

Growing up as a Texas Baptist (long ago) I was predestined to know next to nothing about what some have called the great “northern kingdom” of American evangelicalism. Yes, we can debate whether “evangelical” is an accurate description of the Calvinist world based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and other cities and towns in the Midwest.

I had to learn some of this lingo when I moved to Central Illinois and then when I broke into religion-beat work in Charlotte, N.C., a city with every imaginable form of Presbyterian and Reformed church life.

As I mentioned in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to listen), I quickly learned that the Reformed Church in America was a rather centrist flock, while the Christian Reformed Church was much more conservative, in terms of doctrine and culture. I would not have called either of these bodies a “Mainline Protestant” denomination.

Things change. Eventually, the RCA started arguing about the familiar subjects that have divided so many religious bodies — biblical authority and sex. This leads us to a Religion News Service report: “Reformed Church in America splits as conservative churches form new denomination.” Here is the overture:

(RNS) — On New Year’s Day, 43 congregations of the Reformed Church in America split from the national denomination, one of the oldest Protestant bodies in the United States, in part over theological differences regarding same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

The departure of the theologically conservative congregations to the new group, the Alliance of Reformed Churches, leaves some who remain in the RCA concerned for the denomination’s survival. Before the split, the nearly 400-year-old denomination had fewer than 200,000 members and 1,000 churches.

At least 125 churches from various denominations are in conversation with ARC leaders about joining.

“Various denominations?” Hold that thought.


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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

The Reformed Church in America, one of those small denominations that usually get little ink despite rich history and accomplishments, is set to celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2028. But what will the RCA consist of by then?

At an October 14-19 General Synod meeting in Tucson, Arizona, this venerable church will decide whether to split up.

Reporters can think of this as a prelude to the formal divorce that the huge United Methodist Church (UMC) is expected to approve next year. In both churches, the central problem is the dispute over proper Bible interpretation, especially on sexual morality.

The goal of this Memo is to sketch out a few basics for journalists who'll cover the RCA showdown, which was postponed from 2020 because of COVID-19. The United Methodists have faced similar legal delays, of course.

Like the UMC, the RCA (www.rca.org) has spent nearly half a century discussing its traditional teachings on marriage and sexuality, which shaped rules on same-sex marriages and ordinations. All sides have reached a consensus that the divide is unbridgeable and the status quo untenable.

In 2018 the RCA commissioned a study team to consider future options that included "grace-filled separation." In July, the team issued its final recommendations with a proposed process for splitting.

The report offers a different and unusual path that avoids formal schism by reorganizing RCA regional units ("classes," singular "classis") on the basis of "affinity" in belief rather than the usual geography, in effect creating two churches within a church. In yet another proposal. those staying within the RCA and those leaving would still cooperate in a new, non-denominational foreign mission agency.

In the schism plan, the RCA would change an existing policy and let any unhappy local congregation leave and keep ownership of its building and other assets. A request to depart would need three-fourths approval by the congregation's governing board and then three-fourths of voting members (two-thirds margins are the more common Protestant practice).

Then there are other hoops to jump through.


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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

Ever since she joined the New York Times last summer, Ruth Graham has been breaking stories left and right. Yesterday’s revelation of a revered Christian adoption agency agreeing to allow in gay parents is the latest of many.

Judging by her piece — and those of several other outlets — the decision must have been known for several days but was embargoed until that all-important email went out to the ministry’s staff.

Ever since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015, it was only a matter of time before these newly legalized couples wanted to adopt kids.

This time around, state officials could be supporting them and any agency not complying would stand to lose financially big time. The story begins:

One of the country’s largest adoption and foster care agencies, Bethany Christian Services, announced on Monday that it would begin providing services to L.G.B.T.Q. parents nationwide effective immediately, a major inflection point in the fraught battle over many faith-based agencies’ longstanding opposition to working with same-sex couples.

Bethany, a Michigan-based evangelical organization, announced the change in an email to about 1,500 staff members that was signed by Chris Palusky, the organization’s president and chief executive. “We will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today,” Mr. Palusky wrote. “We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome.”

What that means is that the amount of orphans is so great and the number of available parents are so few, that anyone available –- even if gay, single, older, etc. –- is needed to adopt these kids.

The announcement is a significant departure for the 77-year-old organization, which is the largest Protestant adoption and foster agency in the United States. Bethany facilitated 3,406 foster placements and 1,123 adoptions in 2019, and has offices in 32 states. (The organization also works in refugee placement, and offers other services related to child and family welfare.) Previously, openly gay prospective foster and adoptive parents in most states were referred to other agencies.

The decision comes amid a high-stakes cultural and legal battle that features questions about sexuality, religious freedom, parenthood, family structure and theology.


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The New York Times visits Iowa heartland and hears just what its readers wanted to hear

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Trust me on this. If you want to visit Sioux Center, Iowa, you really need to want to go there.

Even by Midwestern standards, this town is remote. There’s a popular stereotype that many Christian liberal-arts colleges are found in lovely small towns in the middle of cornfields. That’s what we’re talking about here.

However, if you have visited this Dordt University and Sioux Center, you know that this trip is worth taking. This is especially true if you are interested in learning about the fine lines and complex divisions inside American evangelicalism and the Christian Reformed Church, in particular.

I bring this up, of course, because of a magisterial New York Times analysis that ran the other day that ran with this epic headline: “ ‘Christianity Will Have Power’ — Donald Trump made a promise to white evangelical Christians, whose support can seem mystifying to the outside observer.”

Friends, as strange as it sounds, it appears that we have found a topic on which the Times and America’s 45th president appear to be in agreement, for the most part. They share a common, simplistic view of evangelical Christianity in which everybody Just. Loves. Trump.

Before we go there, let me share part of a column that I wrote about the book “Alienated America” by journalist Timothy P. Carney. It appears that he visited the same Sioux Center that I did and what he learned there about evangelicals and the 2016 election didn’t surprise me one bit. This is long, but essential:

Research into (2016) primary voting, he noted, revealed that the "more frequently a Republican reported going to church, the less likely he was to vote for Trump." In fact, Trump was weakest among believers who went to church the most and did twice as well among those who never went to church. "Each step DOWN in church attendance brought a step UP in Trump support," noted Carney.

Reporters could have seen this principle at work early on in Sioux County, Iowa, where half of the citizens claim Dutch ancestry. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, Sioux County has the highest percentage of evangelicals in Iowa. …

Trump didn't win a single Sioux County precinct in the Iowa caucuses.


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Post-Trump, how will U.S. evangelicals deal with internal rifts and external hostility? 

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The Donald Trump Era will end, whether in 2025 or 2021, and current state-by-state polls suggest it's the latter.

Reporters who get religion need to prepare for coverage whenever U.S. evangelical Protestantism reassesses its Trump-free past and future. That’s a big story, since this remains the most vibrant segment of U.S. religion, indeed, one of the nation’s largest movements of any type.

Evangelicalism first has internal rifts to work through. Make that white evangelicals. For the most part, Black, Latino and Asian-American evangelical churches, distinctly different in political sentiments, are unified, thriving and granted cultural respectability by the press..

White evangelicals’ public media image is all but overwhelmed by a coterie of Trump enthusiasts (think Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Paula White). There’s also a dogged faction of Trump skeptics (David French, Michael Gerson, Peter Wehner, or on occasion Sen. Ben Sasse or Southern Baptist spokesman Russell Moore).

But is evangelicalism merely a political faction? Of course not.

Largely ignored by the media, there’s a vast apparatus of denominations, local congregations, “parachurch” agencies, charities, mission boards and schools where leaders (whatever they think personally about Trumpish political histrionics) focus on traditional ministry and education.

The Trump years have created a gap between that non-partisan leadership elite and grassroots folk who identify as “evangelicals” with pollsters (whatever that means in belief or practice). Innumerable news articles have reported they gave Trump 81% backing in 2016.

But white evangelicals always vote heavily Republican. The Guy advises journalists that white Catholics will decide Trump’s fate. Our own tmatt notes the evidence showing that the 2016 vote was more anti-Hillary Clinton than pro-Trump.

While the evangelicals try to overcome their political squabbles to recapture past morale, they face hostility from culture-shaping higher education and (yes) the mass media that enhances their image problems.


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Defying stereotypes: The Atlantic's Emma Green paints a nuanced portrait of Trump voters in Iowa

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You’ve heard the same stat over and over: 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

That is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Yet in the three years since Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, many in the mainstream press have pushed the idea that all white evangelicals — well, 81 percent of them anyway — love Trump and everything about him.

In typical stories along those lines, there’s no room for nuance and no room for white evangelicals to have complicated feelings about Trump. It’s as if the reporters conveniently forget that there was another candidate on the ballot. A candidate who, like Trump, was one of the most unpopular major party nominees in history. And who, unlike Trump, clashed with many white evangelicals on issues such as abortion.

Given the preponderance of the aforementioned narrative, it’s especially nice when an award-winning Godbeat pro like The Atlantic’s Emma Green produces a piece — as she is so apt to do — that defies the worn-out stereotypes and digs deeper on the familiar stat so often repeated.

I’m talking about Green’s report out of Iowa this week titled “They Support Trump. They Want Him Impeached.”

The headline is partly clickbait and partly a mostly accurate assessment of Green’s report, which opens with this compelling scene:

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — The small towns that run across Iowa’s northwest corner form a district that is as politically red as it gets in America. There are vast stretches of farmland; public-school football teams pray together after games; Christian music regularly plays over the loudspeakers in shopping centers. Voters here in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District have sent Representative Steve King back to Washington every year since 2003, and 81 percent of those in Sioux County, near the district’s northwest corner, chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a higher pro-Trump percentage than anywhere else in the state.

Still, even some of these hard-core Republicans wouldn’t mind if Trump were impeached before Election Day 2020.

Polling suggests the president’s base nationwide is firmly opposed to impeachment, and that people’s opinions on the inquiry are split neatly along partisan lines. But at least in Sioux Center, where Republican presidential candidates regularly make pit stops during the primary season, some conservatives still feel ambivalent about Trump’s policies and character. In my conversations around town, people were skeptical that the impeachment inquiry would go anywhere, but they smiled ruefully at the fantasy of a President Mike Pence and a clean slate of Republican candidates in 2020. While voters in this area clearly preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016 and told me they have appreciated some of his work over the past two and a half years, there’s a difference between defending Trump and supporting him. However skeptical people here may be of Democrats’ motives and the likelihood of success, impeachment offers a distant dream of a return to Republican “politics as usual.”


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