Officebearers Must Still Affirm the Confessions ‘Fully Agree’ with the Bible

Synod 2025 declined to remove the words “fully agree” from the Covenant for Officebearers in the Christian Reformed Church, which states that the doctrines contained in the three historic confessions adopted by the CRC (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort) “fully agree” with the Word of God.

A request from Classis Arizona asked that those words be removed. Andy Littleton, from that classis, said it came from a desire to be honest. “This is born out of our classis, from quite conservative leaders who are struggling when asked to sign this document due to their desire to be fully honest,” he said. “Language matters. In a denomination in which the current climate leaves some people under emphatic threat of being watched for not following the rules closely, it’s strange to me that we implicitly say ‘just don’t bring it up’ when the truth is that we aren’t sure that something fully agrees in regard to doctrines we aren’t as worried about.”

Rick Ebbers, Classis Rocky Mountain, said that this is an issue that comes up on the missional edge of the church, when people are hearing about the confessions for the first time. “‘Fully agree’ is the most common conversation,” he said. “Willing to submit, to agree, to affirm. It is a piece that causes considerable conversation.”

Joseph Kamphuis, Classis Red Mesa, said that if this is putting a stumbling block out on the missional edge, “maybe we have to be flexible, get out of the way.”

Jonathan Spronk, Classis Central Plains, reminded delegates of the history of revising the Covenant for Officebearers, formerly called the Form of Subscription. “When the study committee that wrote the new version came to synod, ‘fully agree’ was not in. We kept kicking it back. In 2012 an amendment put (those words) back in. There is a historic reason we put that in. That is what we have done as a confessional church.”

Synod agreed and chose to leave the Covenant for Officebearers as it is.

Synod 2025, the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, is meeting June 13-19 on the campus of Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont. Find daily coverage from The Banner at TheBanner.org/synod. Visit crcna.org/synod for the agenda, advisory reports, recordings of plenary sessions, and to subscribe to the daily Synod News email.