When I confessed my faith this evening at a worship service at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, I read with those gathered the answer to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism with a new appreciation. Surrounded by a larger than usual proportion of homosexuals to heterosexuals, I recited “I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ....” In this worship service at a conference titled “Making Room for All,” I welcomed this continuing dialogue on homosexuality in the Reformed Church in America.
Before the worship service, we heard a brief history of Room for All, an organization that grew out of a group of friends supportive of Norm Kansfield, who was deposed from the office of Professor of Theology at New Brunswick Seminary and suspended from the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament by the General Synod of 2005 for having presided over the marriage of his daughter Ann and his daughter-in-law Jennifer.
The Rev. Louis Lotz urged churches to seriously engage the subject of homosexuality, to study what scripture says and does not say about homosexuality, and to use discernment and dialog, appreciating differences without tearing ourselves apart.
Judy Parr
Holland, MI