Belhar Not Added to Delegate Affirmation

The Belhar Confession, an ecumenical faith declaration in the Christian Reformed Church, will not be included in the declaration of belief made by delegates to synod.

Synod voted to remove a reference to Belhar from the new public declaration recommended by the Board of Trustees.

The board had proposed recognizing the Belhar as an Ecumenical Faith Declaration, a new category created by Synod 2012 for the Belhar Confession, along with affirmation of the CRC’s three historic confessions.

But the advisory committee that considered the matter recommended removing the Belhar in order to align the public declaration made by synod delegates with the covenant for officebearers in the CRC.

For continuous coverage of Synod 2013 including the live webcast, news, video recordings, photos, liveblog, social media links, and more visit www.crcna.org/synod.