An Open Letter to the CRCNA from ICS
Maintaining a space for questions of life and faith
I am part of helping to lead a small Christian graduate school in Canada that has decided to take a bold stance related to honoring the image of God in LGBTQ+ people. I have shared before why I believe this school is special. Rather than get into theological terminology which may not have meaning for you, I will just say that it is a place where questions about life and faith can be fully explored, with a seriousness about wanting to love God and others well, and to be a faithful presence of Jesus in our world. I am proud of the work that ICS does!
Below is the letter we sent this week to the church group (denomination) that birthed us back in the 60’s and why we needed to part ways.
Office of the General Secretary
Synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America
February 18, 2025
Greetings,
The Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) has a long and cherished history of holding space for conversations that truly matter. At ICS, facilitating difficult, respectful, and safe conversations about controversial matters is a task we are proud to undertake. We believe it is paramount to foster and defend spaces where Christians can, in good faith, disagree about matters of scriptural interpretation or about where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church today. We also believe that, in carefully preparing spaces for these difficult conversations, disagreements can take place in a spirit of communal fellowship and solidarity. These disagreements can, in turn, ultimately become a means of growing in faith together.
Convicted by this spirit, we found our hearts broken as we watched and listened to the last several Synods of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) silence parishioners who oppose the CRCNA’s adoption of the Human Sexuality Report (HSR) and, by giving it doctrinal status, effectively expel all those whose Christian consciences call them to dissent from the HSR and its conclusions. Because of our concern for these persons as well as for the overall well-being of LGBTQ+ people in the church, we decided that we could not support a denomination that shuts down difficult conversations. For this reason, on January 15, 2025, the ICS Board of Trustees voted to discontinue ICS’s status as a Denominationally-Related Educational Institution of the CRCNA.
Our grief over the CRCNA’s decision stems from ICS’s deep roots in reformational Christianity. ICS’s founding members, several of them prominent CRCNA pastors, sought to create a “University for the People” that would impart a living reformational philosophical tradition as a gift and a call to every person. This tradition traces a ‘creation-fall-redemption’ ground motive through the narrative arc of Scripture, which teaches us that God in Christ is busy restoring a broken creation originally made good, and that, as humans, we are invited to participate in these healing and transformational efforts.
For us, the inclusion of sexual minorities is part and parcel of the healing and transformation God calls us to enact. Scripture gives many examples of God’s people dramatically reforming traditional positions in their efforts to be faithful to this same ethical call. In kindred spirit, we strive to honour the image of God in LGBTQ+ persons. We believe that, in so doing, we can help end the needless harm inflicted on persecuted sexual minorities and affirm the blessings these persons bring to the Church and wider society.
While our convictions compel us to take this step in faith, we do not believe that this decision marks the end of ICS’s role serving the reformed community. For years, many reformed congregations and parishioners have walked alongside us, debated with us, listened to us, and supported us. We still consider our institution to belong to these people. For this reason, we plan to expand our lifelong learning offerings to serve all those who seek a safe place to wrestle with their most pressing moral and spiritual questions.
All are welcome in this place.
Shalom,
Ronald A. Kuipers
President
Daniel R. Beerens
Chair, Board of Trustees
Letters of support:
A fall adult education course we are offering on this topic
I hope to share more about this decision in future posts.
I read your open letter in the Reformed Journal this AM. ICS has taken a courageous and necessary stand. I applaud you for that.