He sometimes expressed the wish that he had known hi s father better and yet no one was ever more influenced by his father. Dr. Louis Praamsma left us with some biographical notes. Some of the reading is deeply moving. We see the death room of a 39-year-old teacher, Riemer Praamsma; standing beside him is his 6-year–old son, Louis. The father gives a Bible to his son who has just learned how to read. “Louis, this is your Bible, read me now Psalm 25:4 and 5.”

“Make me to know Thy ways, O Lord, teach me Thy paths, Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me, for Thou art the God of my salvation, for Thee I wait all the day long.”

Louis never forgot. He stayed true to the humble prayer taught by his dying father. After he suffered a severe heart attack Louis Praamsma preached farewell in Fruitland on the text “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7, 8). He had stayed on the pathway indicated by his father and now declared, “The greatest thing I can say is that I kept the faith.”

What will I say of my father? He was a man of so many contrasts.

A learned man, he yet loved to teach and preach in such a way that everyone understood. On the level with learned professors—yet as children we loved it when, as warplanes flew over Nieuwolda, father Praamsma told stories, simple stories to his children in the basement of a Groninger pastorie. We did not mind these bombardments at all. The children in Wagenborgen loved his Bible stories too and remembered them the next week as father once more hiked the 3 kilometers from Nieuwolda to Wagenborgen. Some call these children retarded, but, to my father, their chaplain, they were special children and they remembered his stories in a special way. Father took his work in Wagenborgen so seriously that he almost made it his career.

Father was a wise and thoughtful man, yet at times very impractical. He found his way through a labyrinth of scientific works, yet could not find his way with a lapel mike on the pulpit.

He was a man of authority, yet never once did he spank his children. Father was kind, and yet how much we respected him!

His friends loved him, and yet he became unpopular, a “persona non grata.”

He was never sophisticated, “loved snert and herring,” but he knew about the highest wisdom of God.

He was a man who showed others the way, yet got lost driving through the city.

Although he was so human, God called him to be a leader. While this was not always easy for him, he reckoned first of all with his Lord.

     

The early years of his ministry 1935–1944 were spent in Nieuwolda. Here he could be called a man of the liberation theology, for church people liked it the best when father preached on Judges or Kings and more than subtly hinted at the hour of liberation from German oppression. In those years he also found time to write his doctoral dissertation on Abraham Kuyper and to become a doctor of theology. The last book father wrote in Canada—still to appear in January 1985—also deals with Abraham Kuyper and is entitled: Let Christ be King.*

The middle years in the Netherlands 1944-1948 were years of popularity. Father was minister in Stadskanaal, “Kenoal” as the Groningers called it. He had good friends there, enjoyed the occasional chess game—and found that the Kenoalers were spontaneous and loving people. On the national level he was also respected; Synod meetings and synodical committees coveted his advice.

1948–1958 were the final years in the Netherlands. As he told me himself, many leaders of the Gerefo rmeerde kerk started to exclude him from their associations as father refused to advocate and promote the World Council of Churches which held one of its most famous meetings in Amsterdam in 1948 . At the same time father discerned the thunderclouds of a gathering storm and with all his power he warned leaders in the Netherlands to stay faithful to the word of God. In later years professors and leaders would say “We don’t know what is happening in the Netherlands; we are hit by a tornado.” Father Praamsma with his keen historical insight and love for the church had foreseen these future developments. To him the tornado was not an unexpected hit, for he, already in the fifties, saw that a climate was developing that would have disastrous moral and theological consequences in the sixties and seventies. A prophet is always somewhat of a suffering servant. In these years my father suffered disappointments when his work as a busy pastor in the city of Groningen and as a leader in the Netherlands was not always appreciated.

Finally the Canadian years, 1958–1984. What a relief it was to father that among the immigrants and pioneers he was no longer considered an arch-conservative or “the last of the Mohicans.” But there were disappointments in Canada too. A severe car accident on highway 401left father lingering at the very threshold of death for several days. That was the end of 1960. After that came the appointment as professor in church history at Calvin Theological Seminary in 1962. This fulfillment of a life–long dream once more turned into a disappointment. After a year he had to quit. His health had deteriorated since 1960 and he suffered a mild depression caused by high blood pressure drugs. Although students had much appreciated him, father returned to the Canadian pastorates of Fruitland and Collingwood. T hen, in the seventies, the “beloved child of God,” Louis Praamsma, experienced the truth of the earnest words of Scripture, “For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6). Reoccurring heart–attacks, coronary artery disease and his inability to have bypass surgery created a situation in which father’s faith was tried and purified as all his activities were severely curtailed.

His children and friend s will miss him for his wisdom, warm personality, love and friendship. His wife, who always gave him encouragement, inspiration and considerate counsel, will miss him the most as she will remember him each day; and the pain will not ease until Louis and Nelly see each other again in glory. At the same time all of us are encouraged by the example of his faith.

He never deviated from the path his father laid out before him.

His writings are a remaining legacy—hardly explored. Throughout the years he kept on writing, article after article and book after book. How could he do so much writing, in sickness and in health, as a busy pastor (knowing all the names of the members of his congregations) and serving such large congregations?! His writings are characterized by lucid clarity and firm authority, as he shows us in a decisive way how to be “ordinary reformed.” And you always knew that he stood for every word he wrote down. For example, father Praamsma always warned against (Neo) Pentecostalism, as he knew that many of these extraordinary “special gifts,” “healings,” etc., found no sounding board in the ordinary Christian experience. He drew the lines from the early church and from the time of the Reformation to our present day and therefore could expose many a modern novelty or fad as a rather old-fashioned heresy and admonish us to remain true to our Christian and Reformed principles and hold on to whatever is valuable in the heritage of the church of the ages.

He showed us most of all the beauty of our heritage. How excited he could get as he read some paragraph in an old history book. And as we read his books about Calvin, the Reformed church, and his last major work covering all of church history and soon to be translated in English, we cannot help but get.excited too about “the community chosen for eternal life out of the entire human race from the beginning of the world to its end.”

As the sons of Louis Praamsma we hope to go in his footsteps, to stay on course (“Koers Houden”) so that “the Gold may not grow dim.” Most of all we pray, “Lord, make me to know Thy ways; teach me Thy paths.”

*Note: Dr. Praamsma has long been a member and supporter of our Fellowship and writer for our publication, as well as a personal friend. This biographical sketch was kindly provided by a son, Rev. Riemer Praamsma, pastor of the Grandville Avenue Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, MI.

Especially prominent among Dr. L. Praamsma’s many writings. we list the following:

Dissertation: Abraham Kupyer Als Kerkhistoricus (Kok, Kampen, 1945).

Het Dwaze Gods (a history of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands since the beginning of the 19th century) (Zomer en Keuning, Wageningen).

Calvijn (a biography of John Calvin) (Zomer en Keuning, Wageningen).

De Belijdenis In De Crisis (Zomer en Keuning, 1952).

Het Water Was Vee! Te Diep (imaginary correspondence between himself and a friend in the Netherlands about Dutch church life) (T. Wever, Franeker, 1972).

De Kerk Van Aile Tijden (4-volume church history) (T. Wever, Franeker , 1979). 1his is translated and being published in English by Paideia Press, Jordan Station, Ontario. Volume 7o of the English translation was the first to appear under the title The Church In The Twentieth Century in 1981.

Dr. Praamsma’s last book is to be published in January of1985, Let Christ Be King (a biography of Abraham Kuyper), by Paideia Press.

Dr. Praamsma was a long time editor of the Groninger Kerkbode. His column was called Korte Kanttekeningen. He also wrote a number of poems.