What follows is our synopsis of a talk by Prof. R.B. Kuiper at the annual meeting of The Reformed Fellowship, Inc., held on October 27, 1961. It has been submitted to the author for careful scrutiny and correction. H.J.K.

“This is no formal address, just a very informal talk, intended as an introduction to a discussion at this meeting.

“It is said that Billy Graham has characterized the Christian Reformed Church as a sleeping giant: It is not very important to know just what he had in mind. He is not an authority on the Christian Reformed Church nor on churches in general. His work is not ecclesiastically controlled, and he has been known to cooperate with churches that have succumbed to modernism.

“However, one can venture a guess as to what Billy Graham meant. In other churches the opinion is prevalent that we are strong on Christian education but weak in matters pertaining to evangelism and missions. I don’t agree with this evaluation, but it is widespread. Possibly Billy Graham had this in mind.

“But let us discuss the question whether the Christian Reformed Church is in reality a sleeping giant.

“First, the Christian Reformed Church is not a giant in size. We are a small church, and not too well known. At a meeting of ministers in New York I was asked: ‘From what Church are you?’ I answered: ‘The Christian Reformed Church.’ The questioner had not heard of it and inquired: ‘From what did your Church reform?’

“Yet the Christian Reformed Church has a tremendous potential. It stands for the Reformed faith. It has Reformed creeds and is as loyal to its creeds as any denomination; in fact, more so than most denominations. Some Churches have creeds that are just as good as ours but tread them in the mire. We take ours seriously. Characteristic of the Reformed faith is that it is based on the whole of Scripture. Calvinism is Christianity at its best. So, obviously, we have a tremendous potential—the potential of Christianity itself.

         

             

“But is the Christian Reformed Church aware of its potential? ls it doing something with it? And, is it striving to maintain and develop its potential?

“In a sense our Church is not at all asleep. In ecclesiastical activity it is by no means asleep. Our worship services arc well attended. We are active in training our children in catechetical instruction and in the Christian school. We spend millions on our Christian schools. We give large support to Christian institutions of mercy. In missions and evangelism we are very active. Our people don’t deserve to be rebuked on this score. Our missions are scattered pretty much over the entire globe. Practically every one of our churches has a rather vigorous evangelistic program. Our Back to God Hour is a truly international broadcast. We are not a sleeping giant in the matter of ecclesiastical activity.

“But in one significant respect we are slumbering and many of us seem fast asleep. We are not as concerned as we ought to be about knowledge.

“Even our elders, generally speaking, are weak in this respect. Some years ago one of our elders told me that his favorite book was Bavinck’s Philosophy of Revelation. ‘l’hat is heavy reading. Where do you find such elders today? I fear that most of our elders read next to nothing in the line of solid religious literature.

“In consequence most of our people are sadly unaware of the perils that beset them. We are in danger of the old Modernism and of Neo-orthodoxy, so-called. We are threatened by Arminianism and Dispensationalism. Yet our people are hardly aware of these dangers. They have little discernment between truth and falsehood. Some of them spend their evenings at the television set and their winters in Florida, playing shuffleboard. And they don’t know that Rome is burning.

“Who is to blame for this situation? The answer is, I think, largely our ministers. In their preaching they all too often fa il to warn against the errors of the day. Many sermons that are preached could have been preached three or four centuries ago. We should proclaim the old truths, to be sure, but with relevance to modern thought.

“I hold in my hand a copy of a recent issue of The Banner. Three books are reviewed here which wore published in 1959 by the Westminster Press of Philadelphia. The three go together. They purport to present a case respectively for liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, and orthodoxy. What an opportunity to warn our people in forthright fashion against modernism, against self-styled neo-orthodoxy, as well as the weaknesses of present-day evangelicalism! But the reviewer merely summarizes the contents of these books.

“An editor of The Reformed Journal has taken the position that the recent issue of Scriptural infallibility was a purely academic one. That line of talk will put our people asleep.

“Sad to say, when some of our leaders warn against prevailing errors, they incur the danger of being called trouble makers; it is intimated that they are too militant and are deficient in Christian love.

“This is a serious situation. There is much activity in the Christian Reformed Church, yet the danger is real that we will perish for lack of knowledge. Christian activity must spring from knowledge of the truth. Zeal without knowledge is not a good thing. Activity not rooted in knowledge cannot last. Deterioration in knowledge, if not arrested, will prove fatal to any church.

“Is the Christian Reformed Church a sleeping giant? think it is more precise to say that it is in imminent danger of becoming a shorn Samson.”

Note: A lively and lengthy discussion followed this talk by Prof. R. B. Kuiper. We regret that we do not have sufficient space to bring out some of the paints that were made in that discussion. –Ed.