Earlier this week the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America, by a vote of 166-65, adopted the Belhar Confession for inclusion as a confessional standard along side the historic Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism and Canons of Dort and the historic Nicene, Apostles, and Athanasian Creeds.  It will now require the concurrence of two-thirds of their local bodies, the classes.

The PC(USA), which is currently studying the adoption of the Belhar Confession, is a “collector” of confessions and writer of new ones so their acceptance of the Belhar would not be as unusual.  For the RCA, if the classes concur, this would be the first new document in their standards in almost 400 years since the 1619 Canons of Dort.

The RCA has an official story on the Synod action and the blog Embarking has a great two-part rundown on the points made in the Synod debate (Part 1, Part 2). There is a good story about the debate and the Synod action from mlive.com.  I did puzzle at one paragraph where they say

One of the Belhar’s authors last year claimed in a report on
homosexuality to the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa that
the confession supports gays in church. Though the South African church
dispelled that idea, the concern remains.

What I found interesting was the vague reference to “One of the Belhar’s authors…”  I am still trying to figure out why the author did not just name the Rev. Allan Boesak as the author.  Was the story written too quickly and it could not be researched?  Did they not think the information relevant?  Was it not essential to the story?  I don’t know, but for more on Allan Boesak, his roll in the Belhar Confession, and where his thinking is now you can check out a post by Dr. Richard Mouw on his blog.

So we will see whether the classes agree and the Belhar is adopted by the RCA.  And it will be interesting if their debate and process will be a factor in any way in the PC(USA) process.