A Revealing Problem

The explosive controversy between the CRC mission organization and the Independent Presbyterian Churches in Mexico reportedly threatens the future of our denominational labors there. The matter is complex and may require appointment of a special synod committee, for how can the regular mission administration fairly act as judge and jury in a controversy involving itself? One aspect of the matter that should get some attention is its revelation of how casually church property and funds can be handled by a few executives. Among charges brought by a veteran missionary is one that they “offered and then gave to (a) visiting Committee the valuable . . . property deeds:” Without the knowledge of our churches or even of their mission board, property reportedly valued at over a million dollars could be disposed of by two executives! Subsequently, the charges continue, the prospect of missionary financial support and the threat to withhold it have been used to help split the Mexican denomination.

Do such charges sound almost unbelievable? Consider what has been happening in denominational finances at home. When our church practice permitted a few executives to set executive salaries at a level far beyond what the churches pay their pastors (up to the $60,000 neighborhood) without even revealing to the churches what those salaries were,* what prevents executives from assuming wide discretionary authority in handling financial matters in other countries?

A Long Process

This state of affairs does not so much suggest a charge of misbehavior against an individual or two (whether or not that is involved others will have to determine) as reveal a striking symptom of one of the things that has been going seriously wrong in our changing denomination. That is the gradual transfer of power from local church elders and members to “executives” who become less and less accountable to those whom they were originally supposed to represent or to anyone else. The history of the Roman Catholic Church is the classic example of that kind of development. But it tends to be repeated in the history of all kinds of other churches, including that of’ our own.

Our Church Order, rooted in the Reformation (from Roman Catholic abuses) lays down as a fundamental principle that the authority entrusted by Christ to (local) consistories is “original, that of major assemblies being delegated” (Article 27). (Immediately however, that is compromised by the statement that, “The classis has the same authority over the consistory as the synod has over the classis.” What authority does a body have “over” that from which it derives its own?)

This Biblical and therefore Reformed principle of our church order that the “original” authority which the Lord has given his church is that of elders and their local consistories is so largely forgotten in much of our church practice that to bring it up is sometimes almost regarded as a heresy.

I called attention to this fact in our April, 1970 issue (p. 15), recalling that 14 years before that time Rev. R. De Ridder had written a thesis on the “development of the mission order” of our churches. In it he traced among other items the shift of authority over our mission work from the local churches (1910–20) to the Synod (by 1939), to the Board (by 1944), to the executive Committee (by 1952). In the last 14 years this movement has gone much farther. Some time ago an old friend, as executive in the business world who had been placed on the executive committee of one of our other boards, told of his amazement at finding how little the executive committee was being told about the matters it was supposed to be managing and how little the members of the committee even seemed to realize that their responsibility was for management and not merely public relations. In practice it seemed that much was being actually left to the decision and management of the officers’ committee! In other words, the larger the work of the churches was becoming, the fewer were the people who actually controlled it!

The same movement toward bureaucratic decision and control is apparent when one compares the synod agendas of a couple of decades ago with those of more recent meetings. Formerly many matters were referred by boards to the synod for decision which today may or may not even be reported. The “executives” simply manage them. Similarly, members of the boards are made to feel that their main duty is to promote the work of the committee and its executives, within the classis instead of to control that work on behalf of the classis and the consistories. A while ago one board, even without apparently sensing any impropriety, reportedly informed the classes what kind of delegates they should elect to boards!

In recent years one of the means that has been developed, presumably to curb the undue control of the work of the denomination by (a few) clergy, has been the effort to get more non-clergy (or “lay”) members in the boards. One observes that that effort to balance board membership in this way has evidently been rather successful. But the expected wholesome results have not been so evident. Lay members of the boards may be even less inclined than fellow clergy to challenge the increasingly assumed right of a few executives (usually clergy) to run the denomination’s business.

Dr. M. Woudstra’s article in this issue points out how seminary appointments are now being taken out of the hands of the synods.

In one way or another it is simply a fact that more and more power is being left in the hands of very few executives, with no one, least of all the consistories and church members assumed to have the right or duty to decide, or even know what they do. This state of affairs invites abuse. Not many years ago there was a scandal in the ministers’ pension administration and before that there was one in another board. Expecting a few executives to run the churches’ business without being held accountable to the churches, is exposed to and even invites suspicion and scandal. It is unfair to any individual to load him with such vast responsibilities. The annual congregational meeting in which every member present has a right to question the local church’s financial report and budget is not always a pleasant experience, but it is a wholesome preventive of irresponsibility and suspicion in church business. The one part of that report and budget which virtually never gets that kind of question or scrutiny (and is perhaps most in need of it) is the large part classified as denominational quotas.

A Needed Reformation

This state of affairs is not merely a practical and threatening abuse. It is the direct result of forgetting and violating a basic Biblical principle of Reformed church order. The man who perhaps most clearly saw and exposed that fact was James Henley Thornwell who lived over a century ago. (In the April 1982 Outlook I reviewed his Life and Letters, by B. M. Palmer, published by the Banner of Truth Trust.) The orphan son of a Welsh Baptist mother, educated by a Methodist preacher-teacher and wealthy Episcopalians, he came to the reformed faith after reading the Westminster Confession of Faith. Seeing clearly that the rule of elders (Greek, “presbyters”) and their assemblies was the form of church order which the Bible taught, he observed that in practice in the Presbyterian church their control of church business was being displaced by that of boards, just as it has been in our denomination. From where had these boards come? They had not come from the Bible’s teaching, but from the Congregationalists who, in turn, had borrowed them from the secular business world. Thornwell warned against the consequences of that development.

I believe that the Boards will eventually prove our masters, unless they are crushed in their infancy. They are founded upon a radical misconception of the true nature and extent of ecclesiastical power . . . (p. 233).

. . . Our church is becoming deplorably secular. She has degenerated from a spiritual body into a mere petty corporation. When we meet in our ecclesiastical courts, instead of attending to the spiritual interests of God’s kingdom, we scarcely do anything more than examine . and audit accounts, and devise ways and means for raising money (p. 224).

The Church, as organized by her Head, is competent to do all that He requires of her. He has furnished her with the necessary apparatus of means, officers and institutions, in Sessions, Presbyteries, Elders, Pastors and Evangelists. Let us take Presbyterianism as we have it described in our Form of Government, and let us carry it out in its true spirit, and we shall have no use for the sore evil of incorporated Boards, vested funds, and traveling agencies (p. 225).

I am satisfied that what . . . we need most, is a revival of pure religion in all of our churches. The cause of Missions lags, and all our interests decay, because the Spirit of life, to a mournful extent, is withdrawn from our congregations. The Church has almost dwindled down into a secular corporation; and the principles of this world, a mere carnal policy, which we have nicknamed prudence, presides in our councils. Until she becomes a spiritual body, and aims at spiritual ends by appointed means and makes faith in God the impulsive cause of her efforts, our Zion can never arise and shine, and become a joy and a praise in the whole earth (p. 228).

As churches grow, structures are needed to coordinate their efforts, but these must be kept accountable to the churches which they represent. The churches’ financial and business administration is not their most important concern. Their central concern must be, as Thorn well saw , the faithful living and bringing of the gospel. But, as our denominational commitment to the gospel is itself becoming increasingly subject to question, and the confidence of members and churches in that is being shaken, and is likely to be further shaken in decisions to open offices in a way forbidden by the Bible, exasperation of churches and members with the hierarchical structure, casual business management, and lack of reporting of what is done with industriously collected quotas must contribute to further strains on the more and more tenuous ties that bind the denomination together.

*See Acts 1983, pp. 498, 499, 701 for an effort to correct this abuse. (Compare Outlooks of Jan. 1983, p. 21 and March 1982, pp. 6–8.)