22 Dec The Ecclesiastical Route 10
10. The Dutch Revision of 1978
The change adopted by the CanRC into CO 1983 is based on a change made in The Netherlands. The Reformed Churches in The Netherlands (liberated) (hereafter, GKv) had begun revising their church order in the early 1970s and adopted a new church order in 1978.
The thought process leading to changes has been very carefully documented and is available online via kerkrecht.nl. Thus one can trace, not only the changes made, but also what was all considered to make the changes. To my regret, there is no such archival record for changes made to CO 1983.
(www.kerkrecht.nl, documentatie artikel 30)
The ecclesiastical route implied by instructions
The first report of GKv deputies on a new church order dates to 1974. It makes no mention of the issue of the ecclesiastical route. Thus GS-GKv 1975 does not speak of it. It first arises in the report published in 1977. Something needed attention, the committee noted. “It is not about a substantive change. Rather, deputies want to plead for the retention of a significant element in the functioning church order, which in our practice has fallen somewhat by the wayside.”
That “significant element” was the ecclesiastical route.
The Dutch committee reported that the church order makes clear how appeals ‘travel’ and how matters that could not be finished by a minor assembly make it to the major assembly. However, the church order does not make clear how matters common to the churches make it to the major assembly. “Can a church member submit something to a classis?” it was asked. “Can a church council make submissions to a regional or general synod?”
The answer to these questions, so the committee argued, is found in CO-1933 (GKN) art. 33 on credentials and instructions. To understand this, the committee noted, one needs to go back all the way to the birth of the CO, even back behind the Synod of Dort.
Already at synod Emden, 1571, the first proper synod of Reformed Churches in The Netherlands, it was determined that delegates should come to a synod with two letters, a credential and a letter of instructions. The credential stated who the legitimate delegates were. The instructions stated what points the minor assembly was asking the major assembly to discuss. Those points to be discussed were to be points “of doctrine, of church government, and of specific matters.” The GKv committee of the 1970s explained, this was to prevent delegates from arbitrarily putting things on the agenda of a major assembly.
The committee argued that implicit in this process is the reality that only the delegating body can set the agenda of the major assembly. “This thus means, the church councils determine the agenda of the classis, the classes the agenda of the regional synod, and the regional synods [the agenda] of the general synod.” The committee added: “Deputies judge that this is a principle point for what matters can be dealt with by major assemblies.”
Support and safeguard
The Dutch committee realized that one need not retain the provision that only instructions can set the agenda. The postal system serves quite adequately, it figured, to create awareness of what was on the agenda. However, the principle that only the minor assembly can set the agenda for a major assembly should be articulated. For, “it could happen that a general synod is obligated to take a decision that pertains to all the churches, while the proposal has been placed on its agenda by a church or classis and has not (yet) found support in the broader federation. The church scape could even be disturbed, without there being a need for it.” The committee referenced how at GS-GKN 1936 a request from a classis became the “way in” for some delegates to make a proposal which eventually led to doctrinal decisions and disciplinary actions, resulting in the Liberation of 1944.
The committee figured that matters should only reach general synod following testing by and written communication from the minor assemblies. This would apply not only to new matters, but – in view of CO-GKv 1933 art. 46 – also to changes in old synod decisions (more or less CO-CanRC art. 33).
It was proposed to articulate this principle in CO-GKv art. 30 by adding the phrase “as long as the matter has been placed on the agenda by the minor assembly.”
At GS-GKv 1978 the advisory committee indicated that the agenda of major assemblies is to be determined by the churches of that assembly. They further noted that the provision was a good safeguard against hierarchical tendencies.
From phrase to sentence
Something at GS-GKv 1978 led to a new proposal from the deputies, the acts do not make clear what this might have been. Instead of being a phrase in a sentence, a new sentence was formulated for the end of the article. It read: “Where it concerns a new matter for which attention is being sought within the churches, this can only be placed on the agenda of the major assemblies by the way of preparation by the minor assembly.”
I’ve included this cumbersome translation of the Dutch to inform the reader where the expression “ecclesiastical route” comes from. It’s a short form for “by the way of preparation by the minor assembly”. During the 1980s and 1990s the more common phrase in the CanRC was actually the Dutchism “the church orderly way”. The term used now is “ecclesiastical route.”
As a final note, it would seem the GKv came to understand that the final line of CO art. 30 creates more problems than it solves. For when in 2014 CO-GKv was again thoroughly revised, this final line was removed. If it had still been there, it should be in CO-GKv 2014 art. E62 or F71. Instead it was noted that a request for revision of an old synod decision can be submitted to general synod by a church council or classis (CO-GKv 2014 art. F81.2). For clarity’s sake I note that this Church Order minimized the role of the regional synod.
Concluding
The GKv were convinced that the ecclesiastical route for overtures had been part and parcel of Dort polity since its inception. They felt the measure facilitated support for a proposal and prevented hierarchy. Thus they explicitly regulated the ecclesiastical route in the church in CO art. 30. It would seem that in the course of time the GKv recognized how impractical this is, and in 2014 adopted a church order that allowed “a minor assembly” (as opposed to “the minor assembly”) to submit matters to a major assembly.
Given the references to the GKv in the CanRC discussions on CO art. 30, the reasoning underlying the revised version of CO art. 30 in the CanRC would be identical to those in the GKv.
What to think of this? Should the CanRC do as the Dutch did in 2014, and change the process? That’s for next time.