“And . . . Caiaphas . . . said . . . it is expedient for us . . .” (John 11:50). That is the way the high priest who was the head of the Jewish council or Sanhedrin expressed and gave direction to the deliberations of that religious court. It is true that John hastens to add that his words in this case were a prophecy of Jesus’ death. But the fact that God was using and overruling the actions of the council to carry out His mysterious plan no more justifies the conscienceless pragmatism of Caiaphas and his company than it does the action of Judas who conspired with them. In their abandonment of the standards of God’s law and in replacing it by a consideration of what seemed best for themselves they already demonstrated how what was supposed to be the highest court of the people of God was becoming the “synagogue of Satan” which the book of Revelation tells us that fellowship had become (Rev. 2:9; 3:9).
The New Testament hardly contains a more urgent warning to the church of the future than those against the coming apostasy which will turn churches which are supposed to he the “bride of Christ” into the harlot of Revelation 17. The Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith, formulated some time after our Reformed Confessions, also calls attention to the fact that some Christian churches “have so degenerated as to hecome no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan” (Chapter xxv, v). The Bible by precept and example calls upon believers to withdraw from such apostate fellowships (II Cor. 6:14–7:1; Acts 19:8, 9; II Thess. 3:6). One is reminded of these biblical warnings as he reviews the reports on the number of church synods and assemblies which have met in recent months.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A., in a surprise decision, by a 411 to 310 vote, decided to withdraw from the ten-year old Consultation on Church Union (COCU) which had been proposed by its one-time stated clerk Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, The surprise decision had originated, Christianity Today informs us, with a group of conservative ministers and laymen and was widely deplored by some of the denomination’s liberal leaders who tried unsuccessfully to get the decision reversed. Other decisions, however, make it evident that this action docs not indicate a real turn on the part of the denomination in a more orthodox direction.
The Assembly, by a 387 to 237 vote decided against officially participating in the “Key 73” nationwide evangelistic campaign which evangelicals had favored. Further indications of the trend of thought in the Assembly were a decision to urge that abortions not he restricted hy law hut that women should have “full freedom of personal choice” regarding the destruction of their unborn children, a call for immediate and total withdrawal of our military force in Southeast Asia, a refusal to change or eliminate the fund which granted $10,000 for the legal aid of the Communist Angela Davis who was accused of murder, and calls for changes in the U.S. court system, tax reform and gun control! Could Caiaphas have shown less concern for God’s law or gospel than the reports indicate this assembly did?
The Presbyterian Journal (June 14) brings to our attention the interesting comparison made by the religion editor of the Scattle Post-Intelligence between the denomination’s officially expressed far-reaching concern for the oppressed even to the extent of trying to get laws changed and contributing to the defense of a Communist charged with murder and the way in which two of the denomination’s member churches were being ousted by the denomination from their church building because they refused to go along with the 1967 “modernized and liberal” confessional creed.
According to The Presbyterian Journal editor. “Members of the Laurelhurst Presbyterian [Church] have been ousted from the church they built and paid for, and members of West Seattle’s Hillcrest Presbyterian [Church] a1′(‘ apparently next in line to get the boot,” “So while part of the Seattle Presbytery was helping formulate proclamations in Denver, the remaining leaders here took inventory in Laurelhurst to see that the evicted members didn’t make off with my hymnals, communion grape juice, rose bushes, or whatever.” An attorney involved in the case was quoted as observing, “I’m not a Presbyterian, but I’ve been appalled at their peculiar kind of Christianity.”
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U.S. (SOUTHERN)
The General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church which has for some time been taking steps towards merging with the Northern church elected a well-known Conservative, Dr, L. Nelson Bell as moderator. Dr, Bell, veteran China missionary and father-in-law of Billy Graham, a year ago broke with the Conservative forces in the church because of their plans for a “continuing” Presbyterian Church in the event that merger plans are carried out. Now his name was proposed, a Christianity Today report informs us, because he was considered to be the man most likely to succeed in drawing Liberals and Conservatives in the church together.
Despite this what might be construed as a conciliatory gesture to Conservatives, the decisions of the Assembly give no indication of any shift of position in their direction. The church will stay in the Consultation on Church Union, from which the Northern church voted to withdraw. An end-the-war resolution was passed. Perhaps the most significant decision made by the assembly was that effecting a total reorganization of Assembly hoards and agencies combining sixteen separate units into a single executive board. Commenting on what this means an editorial in The Presbyterian Journal observed: “At this Assembly, the final disengagement from Preshyterian form, order, theology and ethics was well-nigh completed.” “It is hard to imagine a more drastic step toward centralization than the plan adopted . . .”
The editorial went on to observe: “Perhaps the dearest evidence of the Church’s true condition appeared in the ‘special order’ programs by which the boards presented their major concerns to the Assembly. The cause of ‘Christian education’ came in the form of a shockingly irrational anti-war barrage. It was so unfair and even untruthful that it brought forth the first profanity we have heard on the floor from a reacting commissioner.” “The three-year major evangelism effort came to the Assembly as a mission to unite all men into an all-inclusive ‘humanity’ or, the application of love at the different points of human experience: poverty, loneliness. war, race,” Christianity Today’s report states further: “With milch of its time devoted In housekeeping and political matters, the Assembly had little left for theological concerns.” “On the final morning a new interpretation of ordination vows for both laity and clergy was approved, with the court rejecting 264 to 50 a report that would have put the denomination on record as holding to biblical inerrancy.”
REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA
The General Synod of the Reformed Church held one of its most peaceful meetings in years, partly, some observed, because serious controversial issues were referred for further study. On the approval of two thirds of the classes, the offices of elder and deacon have been opened to women and the Synod also approved and referred to the Classes an overture to ordain women as ministers.
The Synod approved a resolution on school busing for racial balance in public schools and asked the congress of the U. S. to take action towards unionizing farm workers. The peace of the meeting was disturbed when a film and a theatrical presentation attacking the war in Vietnam brought some sharp reaction from the floor. The Synod expressed regrets about the war and its costs, but rejected a strong anti-war resolution, called attention to the continuing invasion of the South by North Vietnam and expressed concern and prayer-support for the President in his dealing with these matters.
Although local and regional activities of the churches seem to be well supported, the denominational activities were handicapped because of lack of funds. The Synod endorsed the meeting between one of its committees and representatives of the Christian Reformed Church. It continues to send observers to the COCU meetings, although not participating in them. The seminaries continue to face a serious deficit. Opposition to a 1971 statement on abortion provoked a decision to restudy the matter.
The Synod also voted to amend the Book of Church Order to permit an active congregation to retain its property if it should disassociate from the denomination. The Church Herald report observes further that little ti me was given to such matters as evangelism and personal faith and life and the spiritual life of congregations and that “missionary exposure was at a minimum.”
SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
We notice in these and other reports of similar meetings that there is a general tendency for such assemblies to give little or no attention to the directions the Lord has given in His Word for the guidance of His church. Therefore these church bodies spend a great deal of their time and attention in what appears to be irresponsible and incompetent meddling with matters that are not the business of the church and neglect what is the churches’ proper concern. The direct result of this prevailing trend is that members are losing confidence in these church organizations. That is apparent in loss of support, dwindling memberships, and the rise of critical laymen’s organizations. Our Lord Himself said, “If . . . the salt have lost its savor . . . men cast it out” (Luke 14:34, 35).
An editorial in the July-August issue of Your Church calls attention to the widespread disillusionment with the big institutional structures of the church. The activities of the World and National Councils of Churches, COCU, and others “are being called into question.” They fell far short of achieving their designated goals and “developed a bureaucratic attitude, became self-perpetuating, and moved in directions that would preserve their own existence rather than in directions that would benefit local congregations . . .” “The more they served themselves the less they served the church.” “Among the congregations there is an increased questioning of the value of authority vested in large church structures and a new confidence that the individual congregation itself can achieve its legitimate ends without the so-called ‘help’ from a remote central organization.”
This movement means for the future, the article goes on to say, “that one will have to look at the congregations rather than the large institutional structures to discover what is significant and what is taking place. The action will be at the local level, where it should be, and not in some remote national or world head-quarters.” “In the future each congregation will speak for itself and will be less influenced by its denominational headquarters, ecumenical organization, or national council.”
Here from an evidently non-Reformed and nonorthodox quarter comes a sharp observation of what seems to be happening. The unspiritual, unscrupulous, and self-serving policies of church politicians like Caiaphas is losing the confidence and respect of members in aU kinds of churches. The editor, from a practical point of view, directs attention back to the local church. We ought to recognize, as he probably does not, the biblical and therefore also Reformed principle of church order that the Lord has entrusted the primary spiritual authority to the elders in the local churches. Their authority as “consistory” as our Church Order says, is “original,” that of other bodies being only “delegated.” As the Acts of our last Christian Reformed Synod comes into the hands of each consistory member, they ought to be conscientiously and critically scanned with the question in mind whether or in how far they conform to God’s Word and therefore deserve the confidence and support of God’s people, or whether they embody the increasingly prevalent Caiaphas-policies which every Christian and church in obedience to Christ ought to repudiate.
Peter De Jong is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan.
The New Testament hardly contains a more urgent warning to the church of the future than those against the coming apostasy which will turn churches which are supposed to he the “bride of Christ” into the harlot of Revelation 17. The Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith, formulated some time after our Reformed Confessions, also calls attention to the fact that some Christian churches “have so degenerated as to hecome no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan” (Chapter xxv, v). The Bible by precept and example calls upon believers to withdraw from such apostate fellowships (II Cor. 6:14–7:1; Acts 19:8, 9; II Thess. 3:6). One is reminded of these biblical warnings as he reviews the reports on the number of church synods and assemblies which have met in recent months.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A., in a surprise decision, by a 411 to 310 vote, decided to withdraw from the ten-year old Consultation on Church Union (COCU) which had been proposed by its one-time stated clerk Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, The surprise decision had originated, Christianity Today informs us, with a group of conservative ministers and laymen and was widely deplored by some of the denomination’s liberal leaders who tried unsuccessfully to get the decision reversed. Other decisions, however, make it evident that this action docs not indicate a real turn on the part of the denomination in a more orthodox direction.
The Assembly, by a 387 to 237 vote decided against officially participating in the “Key 73” nationwide evangelistic campaign which evangelicals had favored. Further indications of the trend of thought in the Assembly were a decision to urge that abortions not he restricted hy law hut that women should have “full freedom of personal choice” regarding the destruction of their unborn children, a call for immediate and total withdrawal of our military force in Southeast Asia, a refusal to change or eliminate the fund which granted $10,000 for the legal aid of the Communist Angela Davis who was accused of murder, and calls for changes in the U.S. court system, tax reform and gun control! Could Caiaphas have shown less concern for God’s law or gospel than the reports indicate this assembly did?
The Presbyterian Journal (June 14) brings to our attention the interesting comparison made by the religion editor of the Scattle Post-Intelligence between the denomination’s officially expressed far-reaching concern for the oppressed even to the extent of trying to get laws changed and contributing to the defense of a Communist charged with murder and the way in which two of the denomination’s member churches were being ousted by the denomination from their church building because they refused to go along with the 1967 “modernized and liberal” confessional creed.
According to The Presbyterian Journal editor. “Members of the Laurelhurst Presbyterian [Church] have been ousted from the church they built and paid for, and members of West Seattle’s Hillcrest Presbyterian [Church] a1′(‘ apparently next in line to get the boot,” “So while part of the Seattle Presbytery was helping formulate proclamations in Denver, the remaining leaders here took inventory in Laurelhurst to see that the evicted members didn’t make off with my hymnals, communion grape juice, rose bushes, or whatever.” An attorney involved in the case was quoted as observing, “I’m not a Presbyterian, but I’ve been appalled at their peculiar kind of Christianity.”
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U.S. (SOUTHERN)
The General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church which has for some time been taking steps towards merging with the Northern church elected a well-known Conservative, Dr, L. Nelson Bell as moderator. Dr, Bell, veteran China missionary and father-in-law of Billy Graham, a year ago broke with the Conservative forces in the church because of their plans for a “continuing” Presbyterian Church in the event that merger plans are carried out. Now his name was proposed, a Christianity Today report informs us, because he was considered to be the man most likely to succeed in drawing Liberals and Conservatives in the church together.
Despite this what might be construed as a conciliatory gesture to Conservatives, the decisions of the Assembly give no indication of any shift of position in their direction. The church will stay in the Consultation on Church Union, from which the Northern church voted to withdraw. An end-the-war resolution was passed. Perhaps the most significant decision made by the assembly was that effecting a total reorganization of Assembly hoards and agencies combining sixteen separate units into a single executive board. Commenting on what this means an editorial in The Presbyterian Journal observed: “At this Assembly, the final disengagement from Preshyterian form, order, theology and ethics was well-nigh completed.” “It is hard to imagine a more drastic step toward centralization than the plan adopted . . .”
The editorial went on to observe: “Perhaps the dearest evidence of the Church’s true condition appeared in the ‘special order’ programs by which the boards presented their major concerns to the Assembly. The cause of ‘Christian education’ came in the form of a shockingly irrational anti-war barrage. It was so unfair and even untruthful that it brought forth the first profanity we have heard on the floor from a reacting commissioner.” “The three-year major evangelism effort came to the Assembly as a mission to unite all men into an all-inclusive ‘humanity’ or, the application of love at the different points of human experience: poverty, loneliness. war, race,” Christianity Today’s report states further: “With milch of its time devoted In housekeeping and political matters, the Assembly had little left for theological concerns.” “On the final morning a new interpretation of ordination vows for both laity and clergy was approved, with the court rejecting 264 to 50 a report that would have put the denomination on record as holding to biblical inerrancy.”
REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA
The General Synod of the Reformed Church held one of its most peaceful meetings in years, partly, some observed, because serious controversial issues were referred for further study. On the approval of two thirds of the classes, the offices of elder and deacon have been opened to women and the Synod also approved and referred to the Classes an overture to ordain women as ministers.
The Synod approved a resolution on school busing for racial balance in public schools and asked the congress of the U. S. to take action towards unionizing farm workers. The peace of the meeting was disturbed when a film and a theatrical presentation attacking the war in Vietnam brought some sharp reaction from the floor. The Synod expressed regrets about the war and its costs, but rejected a strong anti-war resolution, called attention to the continuing invasion of the South by North Vietnam and expressed concern and prayer-support for the President in his dealing with these matters.
Although local and regional activities of the churches seem to be well supported, the denominational activities were handicapped because of lack of funds. The Synod endorsed the meeting between one of its committees and representatives of the Christian Reformed Church. It continues to send observers to the COCU meetings, although not participating in them. The seminaries continue to face a serious deficit. Opposition to a 1971 statement on abortion provoked a decision to restudy the matter.
The Synod also voted to amend the Book of Church Order to permit an active congregation to retain its property if it should disassociate from the denomination. The Church Herald report observes further that little ti me was given to such matters as evangelism and personal faith and life and the spiritual life of congregations and that “missionary exposure was at a minimum.”
SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
We notice in these and other reports of similar meetings that there is a general tendency for such assemblies to give little or no attention to the directions the Lord has given in His Word for the guidance of His church. Therefore these church bodies spend a great deal of their time and attention in what appears to be irresponsible and incompetent meddling with matters that are not the business of the church and neglect what is the churches’ proper concern. The direct result of this prevailing trend is that members are losing confidence in these church organizations. That is apparent in loss of support, dwindling memberships, and the rise of critical laymen’s organizations. Our Lord Himself said, “If . . . the salt have lost its savor . . . men cast it out” (Luke 14:34, 35).
An editorial in the July-August issue of Your Church calls attention to the widespread disillusionment with the big institutional structures of the church. The activities of the World and National Councils of Churches, COCU, and others “are being called into question.” They fell far short of achieving their designated goals and “developed a bureaucratic attitude, became self-perpetuating, and moved in directions that would preserve their own existence rather than in directions that would benefit local congregations . . .” “The more they served themselves the less they served the church.” “Among the congregations there is an increased questioning of the value of authority vested in large church structures and a new confidence that the individual congregation itself can achieve its legitimate ends without the so-called ‘help’ from a remote central organization.”
This movement means for the future, the article goes on to say, “that one will have to look at the congregations rather than the large institutional structures to discover what is significant and what is taking place. The action will be at the local level, where it should be, and not in some remote national or world head-quarters.” “In the future each congregation will speak for itself and will be less influenced by its denominational headquarters, ecumenical organization, or national council.”
Here from an evidently non-Reformed and nonorthodox quarter comes a sharp observation of what seems to be happening. The unspiritual, unscrupulous, and self-serving policies of church politicians like Caiaphas is losing the confidence and respect of members in aU kinds of churches. The editor, from a practical point of view, directs attention back to the local church. We ought to recognize, as he probably does not, the biblical and therefore also Reformed principle of church order that the Lord has entrusted the primary spiritual authority to the elders in the local churches. Their authority as “consistory” as our Church Order says, is “original,” that of other bodies being only “delegated.” As the Acts of our last Christian Reformed Synod comes into the hands of each consistory member, they ought to be conscientiously and critically scanned with the question in mind whether or in how far they conform to God’s Word and therefore deserve the confidence and support of God’s people, or whether they embody the increasingly prevalent Caiaphas-policies which every Christian and church in obedience to Christ ought to repudiate.
Peter De Jong is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan.