Question for RPCNA members
For lack of a better term, I'm a "returning prodigal" looking for a church home.
A while back I visited a RPCNA church in my area. I was a little hesitant going in because I'm a little "rough around the edges" from a visual presentation standpoint & I'd gotten the impression that RPCNA was a little...buttoned up?
Anyway, I had nothing to worry about on that front. In fact, I found the welcome at this church to be perhaps the most genuine of any place I've visited. I enjoyed the message and Psalm singing. I've been checking some other places out & haven't been back in a while, but it's definitely marked as a church I'd like to return to.
(As an aside, I haven't regularly attended church since the late 90s so it was refreshing to encounter something resembling church music as I remembered it - all these rock bands are pretty weird to me.)
A few days ago (still on the front page as I'm posting this) someone with an RPCNA flair posted on r/Reformed about preaching at a church plant. For some random reason, I clicked on the poster's profile.
I was shocked to see their most recent comment read, "Femboys are (homophobic slur)." Posted 2 days ago.
I'm not 100% what a "femboy" is and I'm not sure I want to find out. I subscribe to a Biblical perspective on human sexuality. Maybe you can hand-wave this as "speaking the truth plainly." But, I've been around enough non-believers (& was one, for long enough) that using slurs is only going to reinforce trite slogans like, "There's no hate like Christian love", etc.
More disturbingly, a few comments down this person posted "You're literally safer in a country at war than you are around black people."
There's no hand-waving that. To me, it's beyond that pale that someone is preaching within 11 months of posting that. (I get maybe it's an old profile and maybe there's been some conviction/repentance/reflection since then, but I think that'd be a naively charitable interpretation given the other recent comment.)
I remember a while back I read that the RPCNA excommunicated a pastor for preaching white supremacy. I figured that was probably a one-off, but now this kinda has me thinking in a different light.
So my question for RPCNA members is - is this sort of thing...normal?
I'm willing to hear from all perspectives from, "I don't see any problem with that" to "I love our denomination but yeah we have some guys like that you have to watch out for" to "This is completely uncharacteristic". Or anything in between.