REACTIONS TO THE SYNOD

The Verhey Case

Dr. Verhey, a minister of the Christian Reformed Church who teaches at Hope college in Holland. Mich., questions the speaking of the serpent in Gen. 3 and the reality of the earthquake in Matt. 28:2. Synod was asked to make a final decision of this matter this year. But Synod’s action was disappointing, for it did not speak clearly on the matter. Instead, it gave Verhey a mild warning, and told him to keep discussing the matter with his consistory (Neland Ave. in Grand Rapids). But this consistory has defended Verhey from the very beginning, so this advice is like asking the coyote to guard the chicken coop, as one delegate put it.

The question I have is this: If one denies the factuality of the first part of Matt. 28:2 (the earthquake), what’s going to stop someone else (on the very same literary and hermeneutical basis) from denying the reality of the second part (the angel and the stone)? And what’s going to stop someone else from going one step further (as Bultmann has done) to denying the actual resurrection of Christ?

The plain answer to this question is, notwithstanding all kinds of nice pious talk: Nothing! And the history of the Geref. Kerken in the Netherlands ought to teach us a lesson here. Prof. Kuitert already denies the existence of Adam and Eve, and has about a dozen interpretations of the resurrection, from which we may choose one, according to him. That’s exactly where this kind of thinking leads us. Our children have no trouble believing these miraculous events in the Bible. And Jesus says that we must all become like children in our approach to God’s Word. Too bad that we no longer have the courage of our convictions. Too bad Synod did not have the courage and integrity to speak out unequivocally on such a crucial issue. It’s time we wake up.

Promoting Women Deacons

In conversation with some of my colleagues about the Agenda of the 1979 Synod, more than one expressed disappointment at the number of overtures/appeals dealing with the matter of women in the diaconal office. Their reasoning was: What a lot of time and energy is wasted on such a relatively minor matter, “while the world is burning.” We have so many more important issues to discuss.

Now in one way I agree with them. The matter of women-deacons in itself is not that important an issue, even though I believe it is part of a bigger picture—having to do with our view of Scripture in the first place, and paving the way for women in all the special offices in the second place.

But the point I want to make right now is this: What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander too. In other words, if it’s a waste of time protesting this trend, then it was also a waste of time proposing it in the first place. But that is what my colleagues are not so ready to admit. To advocate these matters is a matter of “progress” in the church. To resist them is a waste of time. But that type of reasoning I don’t buy for a moment.

If we’re really so concerned about the big issues in church and world, (secularism, worldliness, apathy, etc.) then let‘s get busy and do something about them. And stop wasting our time on matters which don’t affect these issues at all, and which needlessly divide the army of the Lord. However, the zeal and determination with which some advocate women in (eccles.) office makes it appear that this is suddenly going to put the church into gear and into action. Then we can really make headway. But woe to those who stall time by trying to hold it back.

The crux of the matter is, of course, that if we‘d stop allowing the world to write (part of) the agenda of the church in the first place, we’d be way ahead of the game. But the church likes to swing with every new fad that comes along in society—and then try to baptize it with “Christian principles.” But it is a vain undertaking. And the church’s relevance in society becomes more questionable all the time. We would be much better off if we were not so enamoured by the spirit (Spirit = idol) of the age, but more governed by the Spirit which is from above.

Following Fads

In a recent article in the Dutch magazine Koers, Drs. J. Klatter wrote an article entitled “Watch Out for the Desire for the (latest) Fashion & Keep Your Eye on the Pendulum.” In this article he mentions the strong impulse toward “emancipation” and “freedom” today in our society. One result is the Women’s Liberation movement. To be sure, says Klatter, a correction was needed in our attitude toward women, particularly when we remember that during the Middle Ages a discussion could be held as to whether a woman was really human. Even in Christian circles a woman/wife was seen too much as a slave or underdog of the man/husband.

But now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and the drive for egalitarianism wants to wipe out all distinctions between man and woman. Everything that reminds us of the essential, creational differences between man and woman must be wiped out and offered on the altar of egalitarianism. Such talk Klatter calls “passionate prattle.” The correction has become a defect.

From the world we can expect such “prattle” and such pendulum–swinging fads. But it’s a sad business when the church thinks she has to get into the swing of things too, in order to be “relevant.” We’ve had enough of such faddishness in the CRC of late.

JELLE TUININGA Smithers, B.C.

Dear Editor:

I want to set the record straight. Contrary to Mr. Peter DeJong’s statements in the July issue of The Outlook (“Marxist Influences in Education”), I am and always have been in favor of structured, orderly, and disciplined learning situations in the classroom. A school exists for structured learning activities, and in my position as a Christian school teacher, principal, and education coordinator I have always advocated well-planned, goal-directed, and thoroughly Christian units and courses.

My point in the article in question in the Christian Educators Journal was that many of our Christian college graduates do not know how to structure t he classroom effectively for the multi-grade situations that are prevalent in our province. Such a situation calls for effective grouping, in· eluding the use of work stations -but with more structure and discipline than is normally required in a classroom. It seems to me that in doing so, however, to show love and concern for God’s covenant children, to lead them to self-discipline wherever possible, to meet their individual needs, and to allow them to develop their God-given creative talents is neither “Marxist” nor unReformed.

For readers interested in my views on education, I refer them to Shaping School Curriculum: A Biblical View (Signal Publishing, Terre Haute) or to my recent series of articles in Renewal, Does Re· formed Christian Education Have a Future? A careful reading of these -or of my essay in To Prod the “Slumbering Giant”—will convince readers, I am sure, that there is no danger that I am causing “Marxist or other anti-Christian affinities” to be at work in our Christian schools.

Sincerely yours,

HARRO VAN BRUMMELEN

EDITOR’S NOTE

The point of the article which I translated was not that a large part of the leadership in the schools has become Marxist, but that Marxist propaganda and influence have been so continuous and prolonged in modern society in general and in the school systems in particular that many people who wouldn’t dream of being Marxists adopt some of their cliches as self-evident assumptions on which they base their own views. And some even labor to devise “Christian” arguments to support these views.

I alluded to the exchange in the Christian Educators Journal as a recent striking example of the way in which a “structured , orderly, disciplined traditional classroom procedure” was criticized in favor of an “informal, relaxed, open, less-structured arrangement adapted to the child’s individual ‘needs’ and ‘creativity’”—the kind of stress which Dr. Troost described as one characteristic of the Marxist influence.

Mr. Harro Van Brummelen’s reply (I regret the misspelling of his first name in the OUTLOOK) expresses a markedly dif. ferent emphasis from that in his Journal article. His letter sounds more like Mr. Vanden Bosch‘s criticism of his viewpoint in that Journal. If he has more reservations about the revolt against established authority and order which characterizes the Marxist movement and the temper of our times than his other writings would lead one to expect, so much the better.