The cause of Christ and of His gospel and church are both broader and narrower than the parochial concerns of our own relatively small denomination. The prayers and precepts of our Lord and of His apostles demand that we seek to realize “the unity of the faith” with all who come to truly share it (John 17:21, 23; Eph. 4:13) and at the same time break off church fellowship with unbelief and error (2 Cor. 6:14–7:1; I Cor. 5; Eph. 5:11).
Obedience to the Lord and His Word, therefore, calls for a deeper concern for the cause of the gospel and those who arc striving for it in other denominations than we have traditionally shown. At the same time it calls for more perceptive and sharper opposition to whatever opposes it in our own denomination as well as in others than has been common among us. In other words we must become both more truly ecumenical and more militantly Reformed than we have often been. The Board of the Reformed fellowship has decided to begin including in its magazine a department containing news of significant developments in other churches.
A Time of Church Controversy – Russell T. Hitt, editor of Eternity magazine, writing in the August 18 issue of the Christian Century, observed: “At the moment the major Protestant denominations are rent by controversy. For instance, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. is so polarized into two factions -conservatives on one side and liberal ecumenists on the other—that few believe this great communion can survive. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is similarly divided and United Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Southern Baptists have their own brands of deep and seemingly irremediable breaches.”
Presbyterian Church of the U.S. – The (Southern) Presbyterian Church revealed its deep-seated division at its 111th General Assembly. The commissioners voted by a margin of only ten votes to restructure the Synods of the church. According to Russell Chandler, reporting in the July 2 Christianity Today, this move was favored by some liberals as a means to smooth the way for reunion with the more liberal (northern) United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. ft was opposed by conservatives who saw it as an effort to dilute the strength of conservative presbyteries and deprive them of their present ability to “virtually ensure defeat” of the union plan. The union proposal undergoing study is to come up again in 1973.
Reflecting the same division of conviction, efforts to get the denomination out of the National and World Councils of Churches, although they were defeated, came closer to success than such previous efforts had done for many years. The assembly voted to stay in the National Council by 213 to 189 votes and to stay in the World Council by 216 to 185 voles. According to Mr. Chandler, “opposition to continuing World Council membership centered in its controversial $200,000 grant last year to some violent groups fighting racism, the appointment of a Buddhist official to the WCC’s Geneva headquarters, and its $70,000 program to support draft dangers in Canada.” Pastor Ed Craig observed, “The organization has lost the confidence of the man in the pew who pays the bills.”
Reflecting a parallel loss of confidence in denominational mission programs has been the emergence of a new Executive Commission on Overseas Evangelism which accuses the denominational Board of World Missions of engaging in ‘”social, political and economic ventures not in accord with our Lord’s mandate to evangelize the world.” This Commission solicits money to send to missionaries it deems theologically and politically conservative. According to Mr. Chamber (July 16 Christianity Today) the assembly moderator, Ben Lacy Rose criticized “conservative groups that work outside of regular church channels,” “stressing that ‘loyal’ opposition is that which works within the official boards and agencies.”
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod – The Milwaukee convention of the 2.8 million member Missouri Synod Lutheran Church revealed somewhat similar division. In that denomination, according to Christianity Today news reporter, Russell Chandler (Aug. 6 issue), conservatives have been putting lip a “fight to erect firmer fences around the position that inerrancy is to be understood as meaning that Scripture is literally true.” Dr. Jacob Preus, President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, spoke very frankly “about the deep polarization and probable schism threatening the church.” “Speaking about whether variations of doctrinal opinion—especially regarding biblical inspiration and authority—should be tolerated within the Synod,” Preus told the over 1,000 delegates and 1,000 visitors: “The question that has to be answered by this convention is whether we are willing to allow such matters (and many more) to be regarded as open questions on which we may take any position we wish. If the Synod feels that we should be this permissive . then let us realize that we have departed from the position maintained by Dr. Walther and other fathers of our church. If we do not want this kind of latitude because we feel that it threatens the faith we confess and the message of reconciliation with which we have been entrusted, let us state clearly that deviations from the official position of our church must be dealt with and cannot be permitted.”
After hours of argument, by a 485-425 vote the original conservative sponsored statement (“To Uphold Synodical Doctrinal Resolutions”) was replaced by a mild one calling on members to honor and uphold synodical statements as “valid interpretations of Christian doctrine,” giving them neither “more nor less status than they deserve.” The disappointed president saw great difficulty ahead as a result of this decision. He had been conducting an investigation into the beliefs and teaching practices of forty-five professors at Concordia Seminary (St. Louis).
To this observer it seems unfortunate that this extremely important discussion, so significant for the course of one of the largest and staunchest evangelical churches in North America, should have gotten bogged down into a dilemma between attributing unrestricted authority to Synods (the hierarchical principle of Roman Catholicism) and freedom of private interpretation (the liberal principle). It seems that in the discussion a third position, that of the final authority of the Bible (the principle of the Reformation) was apparently almost lost from sight. It will be recalled that the Synod of the Reformed Churches in The Netherlands a few years ago (Lunteren) made a similar fatal mistake. And om own Christian Reformed Church, confronted now at the crucial point by a compromising report on the nature and the extent of biblical authority seems to be threatened by the same error.
In response to the Missouri Synod decision, Alvin E. Wagner, a spokesman for conservative Federation for Authentic Lutheranism, pronounced conditions in the Synod “irremediable” and said that his group was “preparing a divorce.” It has been estimated that fifty major congregations may secede.
Southern Baptists – This summer’s convention of the Southern Baptists (for some time the largest Protestant denomination in the country) produced an attack by 2,672 of the nearly 5.000 delegates on the theological liberalism which they saw infecting their Sunday School Board’s Bible commentary. The convention decided to get a new writer for the Broadman commentary on Genesis. The ousted writer, G. Henton Davies, commenting on Genesis 22, had denied that God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son.
Methodism – A largely lay movement among the United Methodists, organized as the Convocation of United Methodists for Evangelical Christianity, is attempting to elect laymen as delegates to conferences and to encourage “selective giving” in the pews. Rev. Charles W. Keysor said: “We are not promoting a cash boycott but regard selective giving as sound stewardship.” According to reporter James Adams (Christianity Today, Aug. 6), Dr. Leslie H. Woodson told 1,600 delegates: “Evangelicals have been given curriculum resources which we cannot use, assigned pastors we cannot follow, handed programs we cannot share, and given leaders we cannot trust. Yet we are told to give our tithes while we starve to death.”
United Presbyterians – Among the United Presbyterians the granting of $10,000 for the Angela Davis Defense Fund by the denomination has raised a furor such as the church has not seen for a long time. There were 1,800 letters of protest and several churches voted to withhold further mission money from the denomination. This donation for the defense of Angela Davis, a black militant Communist charged with murder, conspiracy, and kidnapping has caught even more attention than a similar grant of $25,000 for bail and legal aid for a Black Panther.
Among the United Presbyterians, opposition to the liberal trends in the church have come to expression in the organization of a Presbyterian Lay Committee pledged to preserve the scriptural and confessional witness of the denomination. Predictably, they have earned the enmity of church bureaucrats. The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, William Thompson, attempted to move the church to act against the Lay Committee. Action was dropped, however, and the Church’s Assembly contented itself with a statement of principles to the effect that, although variety of opinion and expression is to be encouraged and the right to dissent is inalienable, such dissent and its expression should be responsible, should not attack motives, character or integrity of individuals or groups in the church, and publications should conform to journalistic ethics.
When churches stray it is easier and seems much more common for leadership to attack the protestants than to attempt to correct the evils which arouse protests. And also in our circles the time seems opportune to recall the generally forgotten observation of Abraham Kuyper in the last section of his Encyclopaedie that, although “normally there is no occasion for the church member to resist the church officer, the situation may become abnormal, for example, when the officers neglect their duty and the church threatens to fall into unbelief and immorality and the question of reformation of the church arises.”
In view of these remarkably similar developments within a number of denominations, one wonders whether the time has come for evangelical Christians to begin drawing and working closer together as they begin to break further and further away from the unfaithful leadership within their denominations. An interesting movement in this direction in Reformed circles appears to be the organization of the National Presbyterian and Reformed Fellowship. At its last meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, last April it was encouraging to observe among representatives of a variety of denominations a deep commitment to the Scriptures and a unity of purpose that seem to be increasingly absent from many denominational meetings.
Peter De Jong, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan, has been asked to contribute THE OUTLOOK’s new feature: A Look at Others.
Obedience to the Lord and His Word, therefore, calls for a deeper concern for the cause of the gospel and those who arc striving for it in other denominations than we have traditionally shown. At the same time it calls for more perceptive and sharper opposition to whatever opposes it in our own denomination as well as in others than has been common among us. In other words we must become both more truly ecumenical and more militantly Reformed than we have often been. The Board of the Reformed fellowship has decided to begin including in its magazine a department containing news of significant developments in other churches.
A Time of Church Controversy – Russell T. Hitt, editor of Eternity magazine, writing in the August 18 issue of the Christian Century, observed: “At the moment the major Protestant denominations are rent by controversy. For instance, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. is so polarized into two factions -conservatives on one side and liberal ecumenists on the other—that few believe this great communion can survive. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is similarly divided and United Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Southern Baptists have their own brands of deep and seemingly irremediable breaches.”
Presbyterian Church of the U.S. – The (Southern) Presbyterian Church revealed its deep-seated division at its 111th General Assembly. The commissioners voted by a margin of only ten votes to restructure the Synods of the church. According to Russell Chandler, reporting in the July 2 Christianity Today, this move was favored by some liberals as a means to smooth the way for reunion with the more liberal (northern) United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. ft was opposed by conservatives who saw it as an effort to dilute the strength of conservative presbyteries and deprive them of their present ability to “virtually ensure defeat” of the union plan. The union proposal undergoing study is to come up again in 1973.
Reflecting the same division of conviction, efforts to get the denomination out of the National and World Councils of Churches, although they were defeated, came closer to success than such previous efforts had done for many years. The assembly voted to stay in the National Council by 213 to 189 votes and to stay in the World Council by 216 to 185 voles. According to Mr. Chandler, “opposition to continuing World Council membership centered in its controversial $200,000 grant last year to some violent groups fighting racism, the appointment of a Buddhist official to the WCC’s Geneva headquarters, and its $70,000 program to support draft dangers in Canada.” Pastor Ed Craig observed, “The organization has lost the confidence of the man in the pew who pays the bills.”
Reflecting a parallel loss of confidence in denominational mission programs has been the emergence of a new Executive Commission on Overseas Evangelism which accuses the denominational Board of World Missions of engaging in ‘”social, political and economic ventures not in accord with our Lord’s mandate to evangelize the world.” This Commission solicits money to send to missionaries it deems theologically and politically conservative. According to Mr. Chamber (July 16 Christianity Today) the assembly moderator, Ben Lacy Rose criticized “conservative groups that work outside of regular church channels,” “stressing that ‘loyal’ opposition is that which works within the official boards and agencies.”
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod – The Milwaukee convention of the 2.8 million member Missouri Synod Lutheran Church revealed somewhat similar division. In that denomination, according to Christianity Today news reporter, Russell Chandler (Aug. 6 issue), conservatives have been putting lip a “fight to erect firmer fences around the position that inerrancy is to be understood as meaning that Scripture is literally true.” Dr. Jacob Preus, President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, spoke very frankly “about the deep polarization and probable schism threatening the church.” “Speaking about whether variations of doctrinal opinion—especially regarding biblical inspiration and authority—should be tolerated within the Synod,” Preus told the over 1,000 delegates and 1,000 visitors: “The question that has to be answered by this convention is whether we are willing to allow such matters (and many more) to be regarded as open questions on which we may take any position we wish. If the Synod feels that we should be this permissive . then let us realize that we have departed from the position maintained by Dr. Walther and other fathers of our church. If we do not want this kind of latitude because we feel that it threatens the faith we confess and the message of reconciliation with which we have been entrusted, let us state clearly that deviations from the official position of our church must be dealt with and cannot be permitted.”
After hours of argument, by a 485-425 vote the original conservative sponsored statement (“To Uphold Synodical Doctrinal Resolutions”) was replaced by a mild one calling on members to honor and uphold synodical statements as “valid interpretations of Christian doctrine,” giving them neither “more nor less status than they deserve.” The disappointed president saw great difficulty ahead as a result of this decision. He had been conducting an investigation into the beliefs and teaching practices of forty-five professors at Concordia Seminary (St. Louis).
To this observer it seems unfortunate that this extremely important discussion, so significant for the course of one of the largest and staunchest evangelical churches in North America, should have gotten bogged down into a dilemma between attributing unrestricted authority to Synods (the hierarchical principle of Roman Catholicism) and freedom of private interpretation (the liberal principle). It seems that in the discussion a third position, that of the final authority of the Bible (the principle of the Reformation) was apparently almost lost from sight. It will be recalled that the Synod of the Reformed Churches in The Netherlands a few years ago (Lunteren) made a similar fatal mistake. And om own Christian Reformed Church, confronted now at the crucial point by a compromising report on the nature and the extent of biblical authority seems to be threatened by the same error.
In response to the Missouri Synod decision, Alvin E. Wagner, a spokesman for conservative Federation for Authentic Lutheranism, pronounced conditions in the Synod “irremediable” and said that his group was “preparing a divorce.” It has been estimated that fifty major congregations may secede.
Southern Baptists – This summer’s convention of the Southern Baptists (for some time the largest Protestant denomination in the country) produced an attack by 2,672 of the nearly 5.000 delegates on the theological liberalism which they saw infecting their Sunday School Board’s Bible commentary. The convention decided to get a new writer for the Broadman commentary on Genesis. The ousted writer, G. Henton Davies, commenting on Genesis 22, had denied that God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son.
Methodism – A largely lay movement among the United Methodists, organized as the Convocation of United Methodists for Evangelical Christianity, is attempting to elect laymen as delegates to conferences and to encourage “selective giving” in the pews. Rev. Charles W. Keysor said: “We are not promoting a cash boycott but regard selective giving as sound stewardship.” According to reporter James Adams (Christianity Today, Aug. 6), Dr. Leslie H. Woodson told 1,600 delegates: “Evangelicals have been given curriculum resources which we cannot use, assigned pastors we cannot follow, handed programs we cannot share, and given leaders we cannot trust. Yet we are told to give our tithes while we starve to death.”
United Presbyterians – Among the United Presbyterians the granting of $10,000 for the Angela Davis Defense Fund by the denomination has raised a furor such as the church has not seen for a long time. There were 1,800 letters of protest and several churches voted to withhold further mission money from the denomination. This donation for the defense of Angela Davis, a black militant Communist charged with murder, conspiracy, and kidnapping has caught even more attention than a similar grant of $25,000 for bail and legal aid for a Black Panther.
Among the United Presbyterians, opposition to the liberal trends in the church have come to expression in the organization of a Presbyterian Lay Committee pledged to preserve the scriptural and confessional witness of the denomination. Predictably, they have earned the enmity of church bureaucrats. The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, William Thompson, attempted to move the church to act against the Lay Committee. Action was dropped, however, and the Church’s Assembly contented itself with a statement of principles to the effect that, although variety of opinion and expression is to be encouraged and the right to dissent is inalienable, such dissent and its expression should be responsible, should not attack motives, character or integrity of individuals or groups in the church, and publications should conform to journalistic ethics.
When churches stray it is easier and seems much more common for leadership to attack the protestants than to attempt to correct the evils which arouse protests. And also in our circles the time seems opportune to recall the generally forgotten observation of Abraham Kuyper in the last section of his Encyclopaedie that, although “normally there is no occasion for the church member to resist the church officer, the situation may become abnormal, for example, when the officers neglect their duty and the church threatens to fall into unbelief and immorality and the question of reformation of the church arises.”
In view of these remarkably similar developments within a number of denominations, one wonders whether the time has come for evangelical Christians to begin drawing and working closer together as they begin to break further and further away from the unfaithful leadership within their denominations. An interesting movement in this direction in Reformed circles appears to be the organization of the National Presbyterian and Reformed Fellowship. At its last meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, last April it was encouraging to observe among representatives of a variety of denominations a deep commitment to the Scriptures and a unity of purpose that seem to be increasingly absent from many denominational meetings.
Peter De Jong, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan, has been asked to contribute THE OUTLOOK’s new feature: A Look at Others.