By Jim Brownson
I’ve been asked to write a summary of the 2020 Vision Team report, which is online on the RCA’s website. Writing a summary is a complex task: there are many different views within the denomination, including a variety represented on the Vision Team, and they disagree. Moreover, this year’s General Synod was cancelled due to COVID-19 problems, further complicating the picture, and there are churches that were already, even before the report came out, talking about leaving the denomination. Finally, there is lots of further work still underway in various parts of the church, and it is unclear how all that will turn out. So take all this with several grains of salt!
The most important issue is the reorganization option, but there is also some controversy here. Last year, many members of the 2019 General Synod voiced significant doubts about reorganizing, because they believed it would divide too many churches. There are very few churches of one mind on these issues in the RCA, particularly around sexuality. As a result, this reorganization option may be unworkable and may simply cause further division of individual churches. I have significant doubts about whether it will be passed, given the 2019 controversy. The proposal also has the net effect of completely abandoning the geographic basis of assemblies in the RCA, something to which I and others have previously objected. Finally, there is a future dimension we need to take seriously: Do we really intend to allow classes to form for whatever reason they choose in the future? Once the sexuality problem is past, and geography is eliminated as a criterion, we may create further unanticipated problems down the road.
A second major issue focuses on the creation of a new independent body overseeing RCA mission. What is left unclear is the relationship between this body and the assemblies of the RCA, as well as oversight more generally. Funding is a particular problem, as well as policy. It is one thing for churches to support their own missionaries through such a strategy; it is quite another to develop comprehensive plans for mission work though such an agency. I note that a minority of the committee objects to this as well. I worry that this puts mission in the RCA to a slow death.
The generous departure proposal sounds fine, and I don’t have any major issues here. If an entire classis or region wants to depart, though, there will be no one to handle the final issues, and that’s a problem. It just seems reasonable to find a way to allow a classis or region to act corporately on this issue if there is unanimity within the body, which is not addressed in the report.
Interestingly, the RCA has a long history of forming committees to do particular work and then ignoring their reports. I see a strong likelihood that this proposal may suffer the same fate. I’m not going to get too worried yet, but who knows? Other problems may arise.