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Richard Greydanus's avatar

Former baptized and professing member of the CRCNA here...

Paul, I see you are framing this in terms of a culture war, but where is Jesus Christ in all this? Is the God Incarnate on the side of an abstract set of sexual norms or on the side of concrete, individual persons?

The division between a "higher" and "lower" register overlooks that individual persons are not one or the other. They are a synthesis of both--and as a synthesis of both, they (as Kierkegaard says) will work out their salvation in fear and trembling. I worry that such an analytic division between higher and lower prevents you from encountering persons in the places and times of their lives.

When a member of the Confessing CRCNA comes to the end of their life and stands before the throne of God, how impressed will the Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, be when he looks down and sees that they spent a good portion of their life denying persons who identified as homosexual standing in the CRCNA? Do we think that the same Jesus who supped with prostitutes and sinners is going to applaud such efforts?

The real culture war is between persons defending abstract propositional truths and persons demanding we pay attention to our fellow human beings.

John 1 describes how the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us, so I am comfortable inferring that the priorities of the Confessing CRCNA are way out of whack here.

What say you?

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Johan Karlström's avatar

It seems like there isn't really such a distinction. In reality both are motivated by feelings, which can be placed in either register depending on if one sees feelings as something belonging to the body or the mind. Or rather if one sees the mind as a part of the body or the body as a part of the mind.

Given our materialistic culture most would probably stuff it all in the lower register.

Affirming sees it as a case of empathy or that the homosexuality feels natural. While the confirming feel that their tradition and order gives a security and that something is lost with changes.

I actually started making a video about this, and my answer to this particular part of the discussion is that it goes back to the internal conflict in the Bible. The conflict between Jesus and Paul. Where the affirming priorities Jesus, while the confirming prioritize Paul.

The conflict can only be solved if that underlying conflict is solved. Which one should have priority?

(of course Jesus isn't always so forgiving and Paul isn't always so demanding. They have both sides, but there is a stronger weight towards one thing for them).

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