GRAND RAPIDS (RNS) As a young black woman growing up in the Christian Reformed Church, Victoria Gibbs never felt she was treated in a racist way. But as an adult, she came to see “covert” racism she says has kept people of color out of CRC leadership positions.
That is why she will push the CRC Synod to approve the Belhar Confession — a 1986 declaration of racial reconciliation, Christian unity and justice forged in the cauldron of South Africa apartheid.
For Gibbs, the statement is not symbolic. It’s personal.
“I have been involved in this whole race relations journey for the last 20 years,” said Gibbs, an elder at Madison Square Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I have heard a lot of good things about what people say they want to do.
“We’re at the crossroads. Are we just going to keep on talking about it, or are we going to do something?”
Gibbs will be among 188 delegates who will answer that question at their weeklong conference that began Saturday (June 13). Meeting in Palos Heights, Ill., the Synod will decide whether to recommend adoption of the Belhar Confession and send it to the CRC’s 1,000 congregations for a three-year study.
But while the statement draws wide support for its principles, some worry it could provide an argument for admitting gays into church membership and ministry.
The issue figures to be the most controversial one for the annual meeting of the CRC’s highest ruling body. In the CRC, a confession is a statement of faith that is required for all clergy to sign and uphold. If adopted in 2012 as proposed, the Belhar Confession would be the first new foundational faith document adopted by the CRC since its founding in 1857.
The CRC also would join the Reformed Church in America, which provisionally adopted the Belhar last week. Two-thirds of the RCA’s regional church groups must now ratify the General Synod vote.
Supporters hailed it as a historic statement of solidarity with Reformed South African blacks who suffered under apartheid, and a call to justice and unity in RCA churches.
“Finally we’re saying it’s no longer acceptable to turn our backs on others,” said the Rev. Denise Kingdom Grier, pastor of Maple Avenue Ministries in Holland, Mich.
Those opposing confession status say language ruling out any “human or social factor” for church membership could support calls for inclusion of practicing gays or unmarried couples living together. They point to the Rev. Allan Boesak, a principal statement author, who argues it supports full church rights for gays.
“Let’s celebrate what the Belhar has to say” as a non-confessional statement, said the Rev. William Vis of Howard City, Mich. “But we don’t need more wedges in the Christian Reformed Church.”
