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A Reply from an Old Friend to Dr. P.Y. De Jong on the A.A.C.S.

As an active member of the Reformed Fellowship for a number of years and as one deeply interested in the work of the C.A.F. and the A.A.C.S., I have been really concerned how we could get these organizations to work together better in diverse Christian activities so sorely needed in our present North American situation. I appreciated the articles that have appeared recently in the TORCH AND TRUMPET presenting the “new emphases” of the two last-mentioned organizations. For these reasons I would humbly submit a reply to Dr. P. Y. De Jong’s article on the A.A.C.S. in the July issue of this magazine.

I appreciate Dr. De Jong’s desire to seek clarification of claimed profound differences without intent to stir up controversy or to widen the gap which seems to exist among those of somewhat varying points of view in our Christian community. To me it is evident that radical, meaning root or fundamental. differences are found among us, which we should be willing to admit, on such basic issues as our world-and-life view, the place of theology and philosophy, the Word of God, and the church. But this does not mean that we must insinuate or even infer that the new (to many of us) A.A.GS. viewpoint is necessarily the wrong one. The unfortunate thing about Dr. De Jong’s article, r feel, is that many of his old friends will be left to infer that” something very serious is wrong among our friends in the A.A.C.S. And inferences have a way of sticking in the mind even though not substantiated by evidence. Many of us, including elders in our churches and professors in our colleges, are almost completely ignorant of this very busy organization, and this is inexcusable because quite undoubtedly no other group in our circles has made its position as clear as the A.A.C.S. people through their voluminous writing and positive Christian actions. Tomorrow’s Book Club, P.O. Box 10, Station L, Toronto 10, Ontario, Canada lists more than 150 publications from the pens of competent scholars, scientists, philosophers, and theologians with this viewpoint on life in various parts of the world. So I think that it is incorrect to imply that the A.A.C.S. is some sort of esoteric fringe group: contrarily, I find these people in the main to be vital Christians who live openly before the church and work unashamedly as witnesses for the King before the world.

I do not presume in this reply to give any profound answers to fundamental questions. But as a Christian teacher in history, literature, and Bible, I have learned that we must present a consistent and integral view of life, the Christian one, so that young people can prove it from experience and therefore rely on it. So here I hope that I have some advantage with the unsophisticated reader of this magazine.

But now let me first point out some things in us “old conservatives” that sorely disappoint our friends in the A.A.C.S. To help you begin to understand, read in the same July issue of this magazine the article “Ecclesiastical Zoology.” We find that rather than having only two animals in this zoo, there are at least six. Two of them are presumably of more or less purebred strain; the hybrids are in various stages of evolution or devolution. But there is good reason for serious observers to believe that the conservative strain presently suffers from inbreeding and is now in a stage of retrogression. If we conservatives will quit patting ourselves on the back so hard and often, we may begin to understand what we should have known all along: that the conservative position is a human development in history, and that furthermore as the term is commonly used historically, including also the theological connotation, it represents the traditionalist position as over against the liberal or progressive. Both of these positions, the conservative and the liberal, find their root in humanistic thought. It seems to me we should he aware of that, at least to avoid confusion and ambiguity.

Now let me pose another problem that has arisen between us and our friends in the A.A.C.S. This likewise illustrates difference of usage of terms related to a general outlook on life. Some of us as Calvinists are disturbed by the new word, reformational, that our A.A.C.S. friends have substituted for the traditional form, reformed or Reformed. We say this exchange of terms is useless and confusing, and I suspect that some among us fear that the AACSers wish to he considered something other than Reformed as we understand the term traditionally. I think that fear has good grounds. But olhers among us greatly fear that the AACSers really want to be something less than Reformed. Then [ am sure their retort will he: Not so. And for good cause. Are we rightfully proud of the name Reformed, when every grammar student knows that the ed ending indicates the past tense? That past indicates a past era and point of view that we so-called conservatives revere so much that we will not turn from it to confront the pressing needs of the present. I begin to much prefer the new word, reformational, which indicates the necessity of continuing reformation, not only following in the footsteps of Stephen, Paul, Luther and Calvin, Kuyper and Machen, but being willing to pioneer for our own age. By the way, have you ever noticed how few critics Abraham Lincoln has today compared to those who hounded his heels during the Civil War? I have also noted that some who pay high respect 10 Dr. J. C. Machen today were among those who knifed him for his opposition to modernism (humanism in ecclesiastical circles) during the struggle we went through in the 1930s. We should he circumspect lest we fall into the same error and haply be found even to he fighting against God. This caution is apropos for all of us on either side of any issue in the church in spite of the fact that Gamaliel’s advice was probably motivated by expediency only. What is needed is courage.

Lest someone smell a liberal in the camp, I will hasten to say that I love my “conservative” brethren in the Christian community (anywhere), having been an active member of the Reformed Fellowship for a number of years in conservative Holland, Michigan. But I deplore the dilemma caused by the false (because demonstrably meaningless as you saw in the zoo inspection!) distinction of liberal-conservative, which has caused us to lose sight of what Jesus teaches: Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom (that tremendous concept) but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Oftentimes the “liberals” do the will of God better than we do. And sometimes that is because we pietistically or rationalistically (or both) make that heaven a remote geographic place, so transcendent that God is not an immanent reality in the everyday affairs of our life, as far as can be discerned in our actions. I could be very concrete by way of illustrating this contention; our children have probably noted this in anyone of us.

Now as to who is most concerned about the biblical teaching concerning creation. On page 18 of his article, Dr. De Jong concedes that here the A.A.C.S. has it over us, although he apparently fails to understand fully their position. ‘We conservatives in the traditional pattern of the Heidelberg Catechism summarize the Bible’s teaching under the heads: Sin, Salvation, and Service. The A.A.C.S., following the profound insights of the Christian scholars, Vollenhoven and Dooveweerd, state the biblical motives as Creation, Fall: and Redemption (or Re-Creation). This motif admissibly gives a prior and more prominent place to the scriptural teaching on creation which underlies the whole of scripture. This fuller view of biblical teaching has disclosed to me the dangers and inadequacies of a theology based on n less than full-orbed view of scripture. But in many communities like ours the attempt to teach this new schema is a rather painful experience because of the habit of our people of equating catechism preaching and teaching with biblical pronouncements.

I have never found evidence of responsible members of the A.A.C.S. who deny “the necessity of regeneration, repentance, and personal faith” as some might infer from Dr. De .long’s statement on page 19. The stress on the soteriological and the de-emphasis on the biblical teaching concerning God’s original created order, however, is typical of those so-called fundamentalists, who we believe have a too narrow view of scripture. The narrow emphasis on saving souls from the miry any and sending them on a rose-strewn path to that far-away heaven we spoke of before is certainly a “pietistic leaven” contrary to what the whole Bible tells us of the fullness of salvation. With the narrow soteriological emphasis—that is, Christ as Savior hut forgetful of Christ as king—any Christian community, including our own, will Jose its perspective on “all of life as religion,” as the Rev. John H. Piersma already warned us in this magazine.

This narrow view of the Bible is part and parcel of the nature-grace dualism according to which the old traditionalist lauds theology (literally, mind you, the study of God! Explain that one!) and deplores philosophy, which for the Christian is the study of all of life as God created it and gave it meaning. Likewise he is piously concerned about distinction between Sunday and week-day, church life and everyday life. Not that no distinction rightly exists, but that his distinctions are too often wrong. (Have you ever noticed how we conservatives are becoming more and more like the fundamentalists we don’t want to be?)

Now I’ve never met an A.A.C.S. man who does not press for the primary importance of the proclamation of the good news, although not everyone of them may feel called to be a preacher himself in the formal sense. And I believe they really mean -the good news. The good news according to them is found from Genesis 1 through Revelation. Its theme is Recreation according to the original, or, Behold I make all things new. But I would like to know how Dr. De 10ng can argue that the “church-as-institute-gathered-around-the-Word-with-us-Christ-appointed-officiary (I appreciate Dr. De Jong’s avoidance of the common but undesirable term, clergy, with all its unchurchly connotations), how that church is of primarily more importance or greater significance for the world’s well-being than, for example, the God-instituted family. In the biblical schema of creation, fall, and redemption, the family has a primary place in God’s economy for man. Following the narrow soteriological view with its pietistic emphases, like the fundamentalists we often cause the family to suffer by demoting it to a place of lesser importance. In other words, we place a “higher value” on the church at the expense of the family. As evidence that we do this, note our individualistic approach in so-called evangelism efforts that in essence or practice deny the fullness of the redemption in Christ of the whole created order. This is a serious indictment, but all too true, I fear.

Personally I can say that since coming to know people in the A.A.C.S.,—like some former young collegues of mine in teaching (for whom I still thank God and take courage), I have gained a far greater insight by the Spirit into the Word of God which, as we can testify, is living and dynamic. How can we deny that witness of Hebrews 4 and still expect to escape the judgment pronounced by God on the stiff-necked, “thick and muddle-headed” Israelites (God’s people, the Old Testament church) who never entered into that promised rest (the real lifelong Sunday = Sabbath, not just one day in seven—good—but better) because they failed to recognize that the dynamite of God’s Word hits us smack between the eyes in the ordinary, everyday affairs of a life in complete fellowship with God, the holiness of Leviticus to which all the prophets, like Jeremiah, Amos, and Micah testify, and the full-orbed religious life of James 1:17, 2:14, and 4:4. We should thank God that our friends in the A.A.C.S. have freshly and vigorously re-emphasized this old, old theme; and may their attempts to stimulate renewed endeavor on our part lead to a more vitally committed Christian community, a living body of believers.

Mr. Arthur Davies is instructor of Bible and History in the Junior High level of the Holland Christian Association, Holland, Michigan.