When Should Denominational Schools Seek a Divorce from their Denomination?

Plenty of Precedents Exist

Two years ago I wrote this piece on Revanchist Denominations. I was recounting how the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) had all made moves to elevate their previous positions on social issues — namely LGBTQ+ affirmation — to doctrinal status.¹ This meant that anyone who disagreed with the denomination’s position was just like someone who denied the Divinity of Christ. I explained my title as follows:

You might not be familiar with the term “revanchist” in my title. It has a very specific connotation. One of the definitions I found refers to it as “a policy of seeking to retaliate, especially to recover lost territory.” I find it apt, especially in its military sense of fighting to reclaim territory won by the “enemy”. In the face of rapidly changing attitudes, these three denominations have staked out positions hoping to reclaim lost territory. It won’t work for the most part.

One of the universities affected by the CRCNA shift is Calvin University. Two years ago, I noted the complexity of the change for dissenting faculty members.

Issues over LGBTQIA+ attitudes at Calvin University were seen as a cause of concern by conservative voices. So while a statement on human sexuality had been in development for some time, this summer it was elevated to covenantal status alongside key tenets of reformed theology. In other words, it was now expected that CRC employees, especially including faculty would be required to affirm the CRC position annually. While there is currently a plan in place to allow faculty to dissent from that statement, the long-term implications of covenantal status are uncertain. Faculty members asked to choose between supporting their students (gay and straight alike) may be forced to leave.

At the end of last month, news broke that the answer to my pondering from 2023 was becoming clear. A friend who used to work at Calvin shared a story from the campus newspaper, the Calvin Chimes, summarizing a report the university had made to the 2025 Synod on how it would respond.

The report outlines Calvin’s plan to bring faculty into closer alignment with current denominational stances and procedures. The university will introduce a three-year period of “mentoring and development” for new faculty to ensure they understand the views of the CRCNA. After this three-year period, all faculty must reaffirm their commitment to the CRCNA’s confessional positions every year. Faculty who disagree with an aspect of the confessions must participate in a three-year process aimed at bringing them into alignment with official CRCNA doctrine.

Going forward, the report emphasizes that confessional difficulties will be considered as “two- to three-year periods of discernment and mentoring.” Some faculty who have been at Calvin for at least six years may be granted “indefinite exceptions” after a “period of discernment and mentoring;” “There will be a high bar for approval of confessional exceptions, which will need to exhibit biblical and Reformed rationales,” the report states.

According to the report, the “university is expected to uphold previously approved gravamina;” However, all “faculty are expected to self-report any differences they have with the confessions.”

Last week, philosophy professor James K.A. Smith² was invited by the Chimes to share an opinion piece on the relationship between the university and the CRCNA. In many ways, Jamie’s piece echoes issues I raised in my book on why the Christian University is not like the Church.

All this talk of denominations and synods sounds churchy. So why does a university have to worry about all this? Well, because Calvin University is a university “of” the CRC. The faculty of Calvin University are required to sign a “Covenant for Faculty Members” that mirrors what pastors and elders in the Christian Reformed Church are required to sign. And that now means agreeing with Synod’s interpretation of human sexuality.

If, like me, you signed on to the Reformed confessions over 20 years ago, you thought you were signing up for one thing, only to learn, in 2022, that Synod had moved the goal posts. So, since 2022, the university’s administration and Board of Trustees have been trying to navigate, on the one hand, how to preserve the university as a place of courageous curiosity and academic freedom while, on the other hand, how to retain the distinctly Reformed accent that has distinguished Calvin in the wider orbit of higher education.

He rightly points out the precedent set by the demands for alignment.³ He observes that other issues might well arise in the future.

Because if now, knowing what we already know, the BOT simply doubles-down on its “partnership” with (and subservience to) the synod of the CRC, what are they going to do when Synod 2030 decides that the confessions “already” teach that only men can be ordained? What are they going to do when, at Synod 2033, the remaining pastors and elders of the CRC decide that evolutionary readings of Genesis are inconsistent with a “high view” of Scripture? What would it take for Calvin’s BOT to judge that the synod of the CRC is not a valuable, nourishing partner for Calvin’s educational project? We are already at the point where the university needs to decide whether it is truly committed to the “Reformed Christian” vision that has animated Calvin’s distinct place in higher education, or whether it wants to settle for being “Christian Reformed.”

Jamie then raises the dreaded D-Word: Divorce.

Administrators and trustees will tell you I’m lapsing into magical thinking here — that separation is impossible because of legal constraints. The “Articles of Incorporation” clearly state the university’s relationship to the Christian Reformed Church and that any change requires the approval of the Synod.

Well, why don’t we ask? Divorces happen all the time, including institutional divorces. They can even be amicable. Why doesn’t the BOT take this approach? Ending this “partnership” could make a new friendship possible.

And even if the university’s separation from the denomination might require legal action, that doesn’t make it impossible. (A former university trustee has publicly said that, in fact, the standards and language of our articles of incorporation run afoul of state guidance for college and universities.) While I would hope for an amicable separation, some fights are worth having. The Calvin project is worth the fight.

It’s not an impossible conversation. Even within the CRCNA, this spring saw dozens of CRC ministers move their affiliation from the CRCNA to be the Reformed Church in America.⁴ Back in February, the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto announced its separation from the CRC over LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Widening our view from Calvin, Trustees and Administrators may extol the virtues of their relationship with the sponsoring denomination. It may be true in historic terms and certainly in contractual terms in light of the ownership of the property or the charter.

But to call it a “relationship” or “partnership” is often a linguistic stretch. The vast majority of students are not from the sponsoring denomination. The denomination doesn’t provide a lot of incentive for young people in the tradition to enroll in the sponsored school. And the amount of money given to the university by the denomination is a relatively small percentage of the operating budget.

And yet the denomination exerts control over institutional processes and often exercises veto power over institutional decisions. The one place where the denomination has disproportional representation is on the board of trustees.

Institutional Divorce can be messy but is sometimes necessary. Nearly 20 years ago, Belmont University separated from the Tennessee Baptist Convention. There was a protracted lawsuit that resulted in a settlement. Belmont agreed to pay the TBC $1,000,000 and then pay $250,000 annually until 2047. The growth of Belmont and the expansion of its national reputation has shown this to be the right choice.

During a podcast interview for my book, I learned of a similar story involving the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina that occurred the same year as the Belmont settlement.

The schools - Campbell University in Buies Creek, Chowan University in Murfreesboro, Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, and Wingate University in Wingate - also want the freedom to pick trustees from other denominations and other states.

A dozen Baptist-affiliated colleges and universities have split with Baptist state conventions over the past two decades. Wake Forest in Winston-Salem and Meredith College in Raleigh separated from the North Carolina convention years ago. So have Furman University in Greenville, S.C., and Mercer University in Macon, Ga., in those states.

This kind of separation occurred in United Methodist Universities back in 2019 when the UMC General Assembly endorsed the “traditional plan” barring LGBTQ+ individuals from full inclusion in the church. I learned this through a celebrity bio of “White Lotus” star Carrie Coons, who ran track at the University of Mount Union in Ohio. Mount Union joined four other UMC universities in Ohio to renounce their denominational connection.

Obviously, the idea of a university-denominational divorce isn’t the preferred outcome. Far better that denominations are able to articulate the unique role of the university and how it differs from the local church.⁵ But if the goals of the denomination and those of the university are irreconcilable, there may not be a better option for either party.

I can’t work out the parallels to couple’s counseling in this scenario. It’s hard to figure who would step in as the counselor. But if the university and denomination cannot coexist without one side abandoning its values, something has to give.

1. The Church of God (Anderson, IN) has joined this group since I wrote in 2023.

2. Author of the excellent Desiring the Kingdom, You Are What You Love, How (Not) To Be Secular, and The Devil Reads Derrida (which I reviewed years ago), and numerous others.

3. Which provide a remarkable parallel to what the Trump 2.0 administration is demanding of elite universities.

4. Someday I will be able to understand the historical and ethical differences between the CRC and the RCA.

5. Although, as I noted above, controlling ministers and congregations is much harder than denominations may realize.