Editor’s Note: A most important issue expected to confront the next synod of the Christian Reformed Churches is the recommendation of its Interchurch Relations Committee that the denomination officially join the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which includes some of the most liberal churches in the country. Professor M.H. Woudstra, retired professor of Calvin Theological Seminary has made available to us his presentation of the case against this move, which we hope will alert our readers to its seriousness.

Esteemed members of the IRC:

This letter is written partly pertaining to the proposed Ecumenical Charter, but mostly about your 1985 proposal that the CRC affiliate with the churches of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and about the reasoning that prompted you to make such proposal. You are stating in your report to the 1987 Synod that you are now assessing and reassessing this report and its recommendations. Among other things in this process of reassessment you look for reactions from the churches. Here is one.

As to the Ecumenical Charter, which has now been accepted by the 1987 synod, I continue to consider it to be a weak and contradictory document. While toward the end it sounds the familiar note of cooperation with and rapprochement to Reformed churches, and such in the ever widening circle as specified in the 1944 report, in the beginning, under I,D, 1–3, it goes a long way toward relativizing all distinctions between Christian churches, whether it be in worship, confessional formulas or church order. If all of these are just due to history, traditions, customs etc. why bother being so concerned about carefully maintaining a list of churches in ecclesiastical fellowship? Moreover, one of our own confessional formulas, the Canons of Dort, arose from a purely national conflict, with Dutch protagonists, having the same language, customs, history, way of life and mode of thinking, on either side of the conflict. The confessional formula that resulted from the Synod ofDordrecht, however, was not just the product of provincial thought. Rather, it came about by the collaboration of theologians from diverse backgrounds, one of which was Giovanni Diodati, a Genevan theologian of an Italian noble family.

I am also sorry that you did not define your word “ecumenical” more precisely than you did. I had alerted you to the need of saying something about Judaism. Increasingly one finds the word “ecumenical” used to describe all sorts of inter-faith contacts, especially with those of the Jewish religion, a religion which does not accept Jesus as the divine Savior from sin. The things the Charter says about the “unique and definitive” way in which God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, though they should be sufficient to ward off such false inter-faith ecumenism, in actual fact have not proved sufficient in the broader “ecumenical” context of our day. It seems to me the church passed up a significant opportunity to speak clearly not just to ourselves and within our own circles, but to the larger community of churches and even to those without. The latest news bulletin of the RES devotes close to one whole page to statements made by the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ respectively devoted to Jewish-Christian relations. These statements are of very dubious quality. How good it would have been if our church, for once, had been ahead of things and had spoken with greater precision about these matters. After all, it is these other churches that your committee thinks we should now be “allying” ourselves with, in a common purpose “to proclaim the Word of God faithfully,” (WARC, Const. III,1). It seems to me that you passed up the very first opportunity to “witness” to the nonReformed churches as you say you want to do within the WARC.

In addition to the statements made by the two above mentioned denominations, I refer for further proof of the need to speak on Judaism to the practice of some churches in the Reformed family to invite a Jewish rabbi to bring the message, as was done in one of the “Collegiate,” i.e. RCA, churches in New York some time ago. Rev. Marchiene Rienstra, ofHope Reformed Church in Holland, had a rabbi participate in her installation service. The RCA director of the Grand Rapids Center of Ecumenism, the Rev. Baak, regularly lists the dates ofJewish festivals, such as Passover, Yom Kippur, Oil the monthly published calendar of events. Just as if Christ “our Passover” had not been sacrificed more than 1900 years ago as St. Paul informs us (1 Cor. 5:7) and just as if Christ had not brought about the “kippur” (atonement) by the shedding of His blood, as is clear from the Epistle to the Hebrews.

There would have been every reason, therefore, to set off our brand of ecumenicity from this other kind, which is inclusivistic and compromises the gospel. I shall not repeat what I wrote about the Vancouver Assembly’s vacillating stand toward other religions and its inclusion of a piece ofIndian (Native Canadian) creation lore in its liturgies. A document which claims to be an ecumenical charter should have addressed this syncretistic spirit headon. We are living in 1987, not 1948. Why wait till this spirit catches up with our church?

As to your committee’s recommendation that the CRC affiliate itself with the churches that are organized in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches I will present a few opinions and considerations, more or less chosen at random, which, in my opinion, strongly argue against accepting this recommendation.

1. Your report suggests that the WARC is a forum within which the CRC can enter into dialogue with Reformed churches of Circle 2, i.e. churches that are “Reformed” in name, but less so in practice, to use the language of the 1944 report. On this the following:

a. I know of no dictionary definition that includes the notion of a forum for dialogue as a description of the word “alliance.”

b. TheWARC itself speaks of itself as a “covenant,” and in that connection refers to the sharing of common purposes and the ordering of it’s common life by God’s grace alone (p. 231, point 4, end). This is far more than engaging in discussion and dialogue.

c. Art. III of the Constitution spells out the various “purposes” of the WARC and these again extend greatly beyond a mere forum structure. They involve the furthering of all endeavors to proclaim God’s Word faithfully, the furthering of the work of evangelism, the widening and deepening of understanding and fellowship among its member churches, and many more such activities.

d. If the WARC churches belong to the circle 2 churches, i.e. if they are not all of them fully Reformed in practice, the Christian Reformed Church should clearly state that this is so in its communications to WARC and should make a return to Reformed practice a condition for membership of the CRC. The Ecumenical Charter does so in so many words when describing the church’s “ecumenical task” under III, 2. Why not lay down the same condition for entrance into WARC affiliation?

e. Some churches participating in WARC are known as being anything but Reformed; one of them, the United Church of Christ, is constantly mentioned in the news media as the prime example of a Liberal church in North America, as was done in an article in the GR Press last September, when the Rev. Avery Post, the denomination’s president was in town. The Rev. Post made it very clear that his church did not wish to be evangelical and he stated that there was a place for liberal churches. He also expressed an opinion about the woman’s right to an abortion when she desired it, which is out of accord with the Bible’s insistence upon the sanctity of human life. I also refer to the scornful manner in which the Rev. S. Van Dyken, upon retirement, spoke of his former church, the CRC, when alleging that the CRC had a literalistic understanding of Scripture and that it believed that the Holy Spirit had ceased speaking to the church since the 17th century. Rev. VanDyken is a minister in good standing in the UCC. His remarks were justly countered by a letter to the editor written by Dr. John Bratt, former head of the department of Religion and Theology of Calvin College. Do you mean to say that the CRC should henceforth stand shoulder to shoulder with that kind of church in the “furthering” of the faithful proclamation of the Word, of evangelism and of mutual fellowship? How self-deluding can we become?

f. Another church with which we will ally ourselves will be the Remonstrant Brotherhood of the Netherlands. This church was present at the recently held meetings of WARC in Vienna, Austria and hence takes an active part in WARC’s affairs. The confessions of our denomination contain one creedal formula specifically devoted to the rejection of the errors of the Remonstrants. How then can we ally ourselves with that kind of church in the furthering of the faithful .proclamation of the Word? The same may be said of the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk, a church which has in its midst a well organized and openly recognized “Association of Liberal Reformed.” But is not Liberalism the very opposite of all that the gospel message stands for?

g. Your committee has the good intention to “witness” to the Reformed faith once the CRC is a full participant in the Alliance. Permit me to say the following about this intention.

(1) Joining an alliance ordinarily does not involve the intention to “witness” to one’s allies. Instead, it means to make common cause with these allies against some common foe, or to achieve some commonly perceived goals. I consider the idea of joining an alliance in order to witness within its own ranks a contradiction in terms.

(2) If we join with the other churches in a common alliance we will first have to admit that the Reformed “tradition” so-called, is an “ethos, rather than any narrow and exclusive definition of faith and order.” (Constitution, art. II). This admission at the outset will circumscribe the nature of our “witness” and rob it of its truly Reformed nature. The confessions to which each office bearer in the CRC subscribes are both inclusive of the gospel and exclusive of many and various errors that have arisen in the history of the church. The Confession of Faith, also the Belgic Confession excludes Jews and Muslims since they do not believe in the Trinity, and it also excludes the teachings of six other teachers of the early Christian church. These teachings have a strange way of resurfacing again in modern garb. (See art. IX of the B.C.). The B.C. also excludes the apocryphal books from the biblical canon even though these books are received by other Christians (art. VI). Other exclusions of the confession involve Pelagianism (art. XV), and the error of those who insist that only adults and not infants can be baptized in the Christian church. Furthermore, the Three Forms of Unity also exclude the invocation of saints, the existence of a purgatory where the souls of the believing departed must endure some suffering before they are united with Christ their Savior, the meritoriousness of good works, and all human inventions that have been introduced into some churches in matters of order and discipline or of the celebration of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion (Art. XXXII). In addition, office bearers in the CRC solemnly vow not only to teach faithfully the biblical doctrines as embodied in the creeds, but also to “reject all errors that militate against this doctrine” and “to exert ourselves in keeping the Church free from such errors.” (Formula of Subscription). The 1987 Synod has just stated that the Formula of Subscription should not be altered or reduced as had been proposed for this would “minimize the Reformed confessional nature of the CRC” (Acts, p. 613). Entering into an alliance that demands of its members the statement about the Reformed confessions to which I made reference above would not just minimize, but flatly contradict this Reformed confessional nature. Or are we suggesting that what holds for officebearers within the CRC does not in the same manner apply to what these officebearers do in interchurch councils?

(3) Other churches, such as the GKN in the Netherlands, have used the argument of “witnessing” to the Reformed faith to defend entrance in the WCC. Professor Herman Ridderbos in an interview he gave to Centraal Weekblad some years ago stated that if there ever had been such a “witness” he had not noticed it. Is not this an illustration of the way in which wrongly conceived good intentions are thwarted by the concessions one makes by entering into these broader ecumenical associations? To do so means that one has to become like them, that one will be circumscribed in what one does and says by exactly the context with which one has consented to cooperate wholeheartedly and without holding back.

(4) Earlier I have stated that your committee has already passed up an outstanding opportunity to “witness” in a broader ecumenical context by failing to exclude any false ecumenism from your Charter.

(5) I am aware of the encouraging report which Dr. James DeJong brought back from his visit to Geneva. What counts most of all, in my opinion, is not the ever changing impressions one receives from ongoing WARC discussions, but rather the written declaration which those who have set up WARC have made and which they expect any further participants or al.lies to agree to. Integrity demands that this be so. And it is integrity in our interchurch relations that I am looking for. If we cannot be admitted to the WARC with our confessions which are both inclusive and exclusive, and with our similar Formula of Subscription we should not pretend that we can.

2. Your committee states in the 1987 Agenda that it will do its assessing and reassessing among other things in the light of the Ecumenical Charter. I am sorry to say, but I feel I must do so in all Christian candor, I believe that in adopting the charter which your committee prepared while theWARC matter was pending, the CRC has virtually changed the law while a matter was before its “courts.” The 1944 approach, as you yourself admit in your report on WARC, differs from the approach you have developed in the charter in that “1944” insisted upon correction and dialogue with non-Reformed churches without making common cause with them first. The Charter, on the other hand, states that “the Christian Reformed Church should seek to pursue its ecumenical task by means of ecumenical organizations that enable it to carry out its ecumenical responsibilities more efficiently than is possible in interchurch relations” (III, A, 4). This definition of the CRC’s ecumenical responsibility is broad enough to embrace affiliation with the churches of WARC. It directly contradicts what the synod of 1924 said when it decided not to affiliate since this “would mean ecclesiastical alliance and cooperation with churches in which representative liberal forces are in good and regular standing.” Thus by changing the “law” while the case was pending you have effectively removed previous barriers to your proposed action. What this means in terms-of plain old fashioned jurisprudence is not hard to perceive. I shall leave out of consideration the question of Christian ethics, though I have also some opinions about that. You will probably have another and better explanation of what has transpired and, if so, it might be helpful if I were told about it so that I may be enlightened in my Christian walk before God. 3. You have also been instructed by the 1985 synod to examine WARC’s position papers, presumably as to their biblical, confessional and theological soundness. This will involve a thorough acquaintance with all the intricacies of modern biblical and systematic theology. As I look over your nominations for membership in IRC in recent years I wonder whether you have always put theological expertise first on your list of qualifications? Here I am speaking partly out of ignorance so I must be forgiven ifI am in error, but it seems now that four out of the nine regular members of the present IRC have no theological training on the graduate seminary level. I might also say that the historical sciences are rather prominently represented on the committee, with three of its members having special expertise in that area.

In articles I have written I already have pointed out what I consider serious errors in some of the WARC sponsored publications. One of our own long term observers and participants in WARC committees has also stated that there will be “considerable content” in W ARC publications that “we would find objectionable.” The question comes down to this: what does it mean that a church of Jesus Christ such as the CRC affiliates with other churches if prior to such affiliation this church knows that the things published under auspices of the new alliance will partly be in error, that they will impugn the gospel rather than clarifying or promoting it? Professor Raymond Zorn of the Seminary in Geelong writes a review of the book The Church Speaks, a book which contains various papers by the RCA Commission on Theology and presented to RCA synods for action. Though calling some papers “helpful” Prof. Zorn ends by saying that he is left with the feeling ” that the writers of these papers, in seeking to be progressively Reformed, oftentimes more nearly reflect the answers afforded by sociology, psychology, and medicine, rather than those which full commitment to the Word of God would give” (Vox Reformata, 47, Nov. 1986, 49). Your report of 1985 has its hopes set, among other things, upon cooperation with RCA theologians to steer clear of error. This might well prove to be the staff that pierces the hand. Along with points I have mentioned in articles in periodicals I herewith alert you to the writing of the director of the Asian branch ofWARC who at a given point in his argument on Asian theology assumes the erroneous premise that the biblical creation account of Genesis 1 was written by Israel sometime during the exile and who then draws his would-be theological conclusions from this wrong assumption, one which reflects a Higher Critical reading of the Bible.

4. I may send you some further reflections on your report regarding the NAE and our possible affiliation with it. I must say that the report is a model of clarity and succinctness, although I find its reasoning in favor of affiliation with NAE similar to that concerning theWARC. I do think we as a church indirectly owe a lot to the existence of so many millions of Evangelicals in the United States and Canada and I wish there were a way we could somehow cooperate more closely without entangling ourselves in some sort of corporate commitment. The NAE’s statement of faith, although not complete as a confession of Biblical truth, nevertheless does not curtail the expression of Reformed doctrine, as the WARC statement does when it eliminates anything that is “narrow or exclusive” (WARC’s words, not mine).

5. I will be much in prayer for the committee’s work. I pray that the Spirit may as yet work a miracle so that you will withdraw your recommendation that our Christian Reformed Church, with its strict creedal commitment, ally itself with churches that work together in an un-Reformed World Alliance ofReformed Churches. 6. A week prior to the writing of this letter I prepared an article for Christian Renewal and sent it to the editors for possible placement. I also contemplate using the contents of this letter for wider dissemination. These are public matters and I assume you want public discussion of the issues.

Fraternally yours, Marten H. Woudstra