Jehoshaphat was a great reformer-king whose dedication to the Lord’s service brought peace and prosperity to his people, but his weakness and what proved to be fatal mistake was his broad “ecumenical” sympathy which prompted him to make common cause with Israel’s Ahab and Jezebel, to the ruin of his family and people. God’s prophet had to warn him, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD. Because of this the wrath of the LORD is upon you” (2 Chronicles 19:2; cf.20:35ff.).

Such ecumenical alliance with the Lord’s enemies is possibly the most wide-spread and destructive threat to the Lord’s gospel program in our time. That fact can be dramatically and vividly documented from the history and activity of the World Council of Churches. Last January Morely Safer in his program “60 Minutes” was reported to have revealed that since 1970 the World Council had contributed about five and a half million dollars to the support of communist guerillas in Africa. The revelations of this increasing diversion of church monies by this “church council” to the support of avowedly anti–Christian causes has brought widespread disillusionment and disgust among longtime supporters. The Salvation Army, long uneasy about the support this body was giving to radical movements, was finally prodded into resigning from it when the Council gave $85,000 to the Patriotic Front in Rhodesia exactly two months after the terrorists there had murdered eight missionaries of whom two belonged to the Salvation Army!

The Vancouver Assembly

The World Council recently held its widely publicized assembly at Vancouver, British Columbia. Reports of the arrangements for and the proceedings of that assembly, far from indicating any significant correction of the scandalous abuses or a return to a more unambiguously Christian commitment despite some orthodox sounding rhetoric pointed to exactly the opposite course. 1) Whereas the original goal of the movement was to promote “Christian Unity,” present leaders are promoting the “unity of all religions” and of “all mankind” and according to reports gave substance to that aim at the assembly by for the first time welcoming Jews, Buddhists, Muslims , and atheists as participants. 2) Instead of correcting its scandalous support of anti-Christian Marxist organizations it only confirmed that course. Breathing never a word of criticism of the Soviet Union, it only blasted the policies of the U.S. government in opposing the communist take–overs especially in Central America and condemned the production of nuclear weapons as a “crime against humanity.” It expressed support for the procommunist government of Nicaragua, and urged “comprehensive sanctions” against South Africa.

Evaluation

Despite the fact that the Christian Reformed Churches are not members of the World Council, The Banner reported that they had a larger group of representatives at the assembly than some denominations who were. Although the reported reactions of these people were mixed, some were frank in their support of the council. Rev. William Ipema who represented the Race Committee (SCORR) expressed his personal embarrassment because we were not members . Various reports called attention to the fact that Rev. Paul Schrotenboer, General Secretary of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod, took a prominent place in a list of several dozen “evangelicals” who declared for a closer involvement with the WCC that fell just short of outright joining it. Although he signed the letter calling for such involvement, as did the denomination’s official observer, Calvin Seminary professor Henry Zwaanstra, Schrotenboer admitted that he “wished (the letter) were a little less laudatory, a little more critical.” The Banner reporter A. James Heynen, Executive Director of our denomination’s Board of Publications, despite some sharply critical remarks ended his reports by, in fact, repudiating his past endorsement of the separations from Liberalism by which our churches came to exist (1834, 1857, 1886) and wishing that we were part of evangelicals who as members were futilely objecting to the direction of the council!

To the plea for closer evangelical involvement in which CRC men participated, three evangelicals , led by Peter Beyerhaus from Germany (whose voice has often been heard as a lonely evangelical in Council circles) took sharp exception. He was quoted in the September 16 Christianity Today as saying that they “could neither share the optimistic assessment of the Vancouver event nor the far–reaching consequences that were drawn from it.” He and his two companions as long–time observers of the ecumenical movement found the notion that “the WCC in Vancouver had moved to a basically biblical position” untrue. “Our careful analysis of the speeches and worship at the assembly revealed that the opposite was true, in spite of an apparent new biblical orthodoxy on the surface. After all, this assembly was the first in the history of the ecumenical movement in which a theological atheist—Dorothee Salle—and leading representatives of non-Christian religions were invited to address the audience on the central theme ‘Jesus Christ the Life of the World.’”

Similarly perceptive and critical was the comment of Dr. Bernard Zylstra, (President of the AACS’ internally divided Toronto Institute for Christian Studies) as reported in the September 2 Calvinist Contact. As he listened closely to the discussions and proceedings he was troubled by the WCC’s “accommodation to the spiritual and ethical attitudes of our time.” Puzzled by the daily recurring question, “Why is practically everything that comes from the wee of leftist and activist orientation?” he found that after “more careful I study of the official documents the answer became clear. This leftist, activist and ‘horizontalist’ orientation is not something added to the theological stance of the WCC. It is built right into its theology of the nature of God and the meaning of the cross of Christ.” He noted that the council claims to believe both in the uniqueness of Jesus and “the presence of God in the religious experience of other faiths.” This means that “Since God is Triune, He is a ‘community of sharing.’ In Christ, God shares Himself with us. The Church, as Body of Christ, is also a community of sharing. And wherever we find sharing in the relations between human beings, there we find the presence of God. Thus the WCC’s understanding of the very nature of God and the meaning of the cross lie at the basis of its social actions emphasis on peace and justice. In all of the official statements of the Council, there is very little about sin against the commandments of God nor about unbelief in His revelation. But there is a great deal about injustice, as expressed in poverty, sex ism, racism, economic domination and militarism. This focus on injustice is deliberate because its presence violates the ‘sharing’ essence of the Christian faith. Here the agenda of the world becomes the agenda of the Church.”

Zylstra has rightly seen that in spite of the Council’s slogan of “Jesus Christ the life of the World” the Council’s religion is really one lacking a sense of sin as well as a message of redemption and a Redeemer; it is really a radically different kind of religion from the Christian faith, one more akin to that of the non–Christian faiths which it welcomes and of the anti–Christian Communists which it promotes and supports.

The Ecumenical Fallacy

But whatever the deficiencies of the Council, shouldn’t we become more closely “involved” with it as long as it claims to believe in “Christ the life of the world” as several of our bureaucracy and many other “evangelicals” are urging that we do? The Lord and His apostles order us by precept and example to do exactly the opposite. When those with evil spirits testified to Christ saying, “Thou art the Son of God” the Lord did not welcome that support, but immediately silenced them as a matter of policy (Mark 1:23–25, 34; 3:11–12; Luke 4:41). The Apostle Paul followed exactly the same policy in similar circumstances (Acts 16:17–18). He warned, “Be not yoked together with unbelievers,” and called for separation from them (2 Cor. 6:14–18). D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his little booklet, The Basis of Christian Unity: An Exposition of John 17 and Ephesians 4, (p. 62), exposed the fallacious argument that seems to have captivated some of our church representatives, that we ought to bring a Christian testimony to those in the council by joining them. “To regard a church, or a council of churches as a forum in which fundamental matters can be debated and discussed or as an opportunity for witness-bearing is sheer confusion and muddled thinking.” “Those who question and query, let alone deny, the great cardinal truths that have been accepted throughout the centuries do not belong to the Church, and to regard them as brethren is to betray the truth.” “They are to be regarded as unbelievers who need to be called to .repentance and acceptance of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus . . . it is a sheer waste of time to discuss or debate the implications of Christianity with people who are not agreed as to what Christianity is. Failure to realize this constitutes the very essence of the modern confusion.” Although we must indeed testify to the misguided, that very fact prevents us from testifying with them. To argue that we should oppose an erroneous movement by joining it is both dishonest and foolish. We can never hope to promote the cause of Christ by identifying ourselves with His misguided enemies. The fact that one may find many sincere Christians duped by the WCC’s double-talking propaganda into supporting the devil’s policy of its bureaucracy hardly constitutes a reason why we should do the same.

Politicking with World Relief

The fact that we had such a remarkable number of “representatives” flying off to Vancouver (at whose expense?) to join what some have irreverently called its circus is no isolated phenomenon in our denominational offices. The Banner of September 12, p. 6 also contained the little news item: ”For the first time in the history of its existence, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee issued a statement on the political situation in countries where its emissaries work to alleviate poverty. The focus of this first communication is Central America. “The CRWRC staff encourages the members of the church to correspond with their political representatives , and it supplies models for such letters.” “The letter was mailed to all pastors and diaconates in the CRC.” It attempts to justify this first venture into such political action by appealing to a 1982 Synod statement and the new form for installing deacons which demand that we be “prophetic critics of waste, injustice, and selfishness.” Although the letter and enclosures are moderately worded, and the included Boldenow report on Guatemala admits all kinds of uncertainties, the net effect is a concerted political campaign to get our government to stop supporting the anti communist activity in Central America. It amounts to a weak and wavering imitation of the more aggressive World Council’s politicking to get the churches to contribute to the cause of today’s communist anti-Christs.

What right does our churches’ committee have to use its position and money given in Christ’s name to help the poor, to promote the political aims of the Lord’s enemies? Can we continue to support that kind of perversion of Christian benevolence? Will our churches protest against and stop this new venture in the kind of anti-Christian politics that not only has gotten a number of our missionary and diaconal representatives thrown out of their areas of work, but also actively serves the program of our Lord’s enemies? Is this timid new venture the prelude of worse to come? The letter solicits the reactions of our churches to this trial effort. May the protests not be few, or slow in corning. Or will we like King Jehoshaphat help those who hate the Lord, to the destruction of ourselves and our works?