This is a question that I approach with a bit of hesitancy, because I come to it as something of an outsider. I was not reared in a Christian Reformed Church. I am not of Dutch background, am not a mid-westerner and was not educated in any of the institutions of the Church. But I think that sometimes an outsider’s perspective can be helpful, because sometimes an outsider can see a little more clearly. After all, I am a minister of the Christian Reformed Church, and more important to me than that–I found Jesus Christ as my Savior in the Christian Reformed Church, and so that church, in its past and its future, is very precious and a matter of great concern to me. I feel privileged to reflect with you on the question of where we are going as a church. In connection with it the words of Hebrews 2:1 have kept corning to my mind, “Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”

         

What Have We Heard?

That set me thinking about what I have heard in the Christian Re form ed Church. What were the distinctives of that church as I experienced them in the early sixties as a junior in high school I first began to attend one? I had occasionally attended a rather Liberal church with my parents, although we did not do so regularly-and I remember being struck when I started to attend a Christian Reformed church by the wonderful sense of community that I observed there. I remember being struck in the first worship service that I attended by two things. One was the singing. Suddenly I heard a volume, enthusiasm and warmth in singing the praises of God that was most impressive. And then I saw families sitting together—what I later came to know as the covenant character of the church in action-sitting together to praise the Lord. There were people of all ages worshipping God. And that covenant community life has become the more precious to me as I have come to better understand it. A variety of things, some of them ethnic, united these people. But there was something much more important than the ethnic unity; there was a real common commitment to Jesus Christ and a realization that He came to lay claim on all of our lives and He had created in this church a loving, caring community. It was a community that stood at odds with a lot of American evangelical communities, which were good in many ways, by showing a balance and fullness that I did not see in other places . It did not seem to be infected with the anti–intellectualism that is found in some evangelical groups. These people had given themselves to building Christian schools and Christian colleges. They were not just concerned about saving souls, but had a broader sense of ministry to the whole person that impressed me. I was struck too by the piety that I saw as I heard people singing the Psalms, the very Word of God. I saw people keeping the sabbath day holy as a source of spiritual renewal. And I saw what I came to know as the antithesis between Christian living and the living of this world, manifested in the church that I attended.

A Community Formed by God’s Word

I felt the Biblical character of this true Christian living , of its understanding of God and His service. I could see that this community had been formed by careful listening to God’s Word. The community helped me begin to study the Bible. Patiently it led me as a teen-ager who knew nothing about it into that Word by careful and inductive Bible studies. It helped me to see not only the depth, but also breadth of the system of Scripture, and I began to treasure the systematic theology of the Reformed Faith, the system of doctrine I found in the Scriptures. I realized that the Scriptures were not just random statements, but that the Scriptures came from God and therefore reflected His unity, His singleness of purpose. There was one message to be found in the Scriptures, and I believed then and believe now that that message is best contained and comprehensively summarized in the Reformed confessions of faith. The Christian Reformed Church in the early sixties opened up the Bible to me and said “This is God’s Word; believe it!” And I did and I continue to do so. In the words of Hebrews, I have placed my hope in God’s promise as a “sure and steadfast” “anchor of the soul.” That is where the Christian Reformed Church stood and that is what it taught me. That is where I came to stand, and I thank God for that heritage.

We as a denomination have been uniquely blessed by having heard in depth and in fullness the Word of God. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews warned that Christian people faced the danger of “drifting away from what they heard.” The word for “drifting” as here used suggests a gradual, almost imperceptible movement by which one slides away from where one once was and ought to be, in a direction that is more and more dangerous. These Hebrew Christians had heard God’s Word . They had come to His Son Jesus Christ. Now the danger flag is being raised against their drifting away. There may be no more apt word to describe the problems we are facing as a denomination than the word “drifting.” Are we drifting away from our Reformed heritage? It is not so much that we are consciously turning our backs on it—or have studied it carefully and said, “That’s wrong!”—as just letting it fade away.

What Is “Reformed?”

What does it meant to be “Reformed” today? As I read or :n en to some in our church, it seems that to be “Reformed” is being defined as alway s changing. I begin to wonder whether we have clearly in our minds what it really means to be Reformed. A Banner article some time ago stated that :he Reformed haven’t given much thought to worship. As a church historian I was amazed at that statement, in view of the whole libraries filled with books that the 16th and 17th century Reformed wrote about worship! Perhaps we haven’t given much thought to what our fathers wrote about worship. The Reformed gave intense study to the subject of worship because they were so concerned that our worship be according to God’s Word. We haven’t examined our heritage of worship and seen that it was grounded in the Word of God. And so we are in great danger of being led astray by music :hat doesn’t honor the holiness of God, by ritual more oriented to our experience than to God’s grace, by novel forms of worship such as liturgical dancing, utterly alien to the Reformed tradition and the spirituality of its worship. See how we are drifting in our worship.

Now consider our churches’ discipline. I was impressed as a teen-ager by the careful conduct of discipline in the church which I attended. It was apparent too in the careful catechising of the young, its care in teaching them the Reformed Faith from the catechism. I remember sitting in church when sins against the 7th commandment were publically announced and the consistory expressed its joy at the signs of repentance. Now we seem to be losing discipline altogether, as gross public sins apparently go unchecked. Discipline has always been peculiarly precious to Dutch Reformed Christianity, and its Belgic Confession was the first Reformed confession to declare that discipline was one of the marks of the church. If we are losing our sense of discipline we are losing an essential part of our heritage.

Although our synod agendas are filled with more and more study reports about more and more subjects, we seem to be less and less certain about what it means to be Reformed, to understand the Word of God, and to live before Him as Reformed people. Our community is threatened by this drift into uncertainty and indifference. The drift is shown and perhaps has its cause in our attitude toward the Scriptures. We no longer as a church have much confidence in the Scriptures. Psalm 119:105 declares, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s Word is proclaimed as being a lantern that we can hold up when we walk in a dark place so that we will see how to walk and not trip. Yet voices in our church today often imply that the Word of God isn’t really a clear light, but that it seems to cast only a pale shadow for many. Our confessions declare that we believe without doubt all things contained in the Word of God, but our conduct raises questions about whether we are sure of that.

The Canons of Dordt are particularly precious to me and I spent two years studying to write a doctor’s dissertation on them. They are part of the great heritage of the church, as they unfold for it the doctrine of God’s sovereign elective purpose. But we are told in The Banner that for most of the Christian Reformed Church the Canons’ teaching about the doctrine of election and reprobation is a dead letter. Is the Biblical message of the canons living in the teaching of our churches and in the hearts of our people as it should?

Misusing the Bible to Contradict the Bible

There is a growing impression that the Scripture doesn’t speak clearly and comprehensively, and that there is no real system of doctrine to be gained from the Scripture in all of its parts. We are being told that the most we can hope for is that the Scripture gives us certain broad principles and that we then have to decide how those principles are applied. As I listened carefully, I think that has been the basic line of argument put forward in the discussion about women in office in recent years in our churches. Those favoring women in office say that there is a great principle, stated in Gal. 3:28, that “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus, “and that we can take that great principle and understand it to say that, since in Christ there is neither male nor female, both male and female may hold offices in the churches. Although that may seem reasonable, I can find no good interpretation that can explain away the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2: in which he says, “I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men.” He goes on to say a few verses later in the third chapter, that he writes “so that ye may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the Living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” He was not saying that this applied merely to that church or to the special conditions of the first century. These are the rules of the church of God. Some want to put all these specifics of the Word of God aside and speak only of a broad principle. I fear that as a church we are in danger of adopting the same kind of approach to the Scripture as Korah. In Numbers 16 we learn that this leading Levite became envious of Moses and Aaron and charged Moses with having forgotten the principle that all of the congregation were holy, in putting himself over them. God had indeed said that all of His people were holy, as we read in Exodus 19. But Korah concluded from that principle that therefore all of God’s people may be priests. The trouble with Korah’s interpretation was that he had not allowed the principle stated in Scripture to be interpreted by the specifics of God ‘ s revelation. God had specifically restricted the priesthood to Aaron and his family . Korah did not take the whole ofScripture. He took one principle out of its context and therefore drew absolutely wrong conclusions. We must see and understand every principle and every specific in the light of the whole of the Bible. We must honor all of God’s Word and live all of our lives in its light.

A few chapters previously this book of Numbers tells of the spies’ return from Canaan bringing a majority and minority report. While the majority reported that the people of Canaan were too powerful for Israel to attack, the minority urged them with God’s help to proceed. Because the people refused to go ahead, they were condemned to forty years of wilderness wandering. Then, changing their minds, they tried to attack Canaan despite Moses’ warning that their resolution came too late, and they were defeated. We must as Reformed people take very seriously Moses’ warning that whenever we transgress the commandment of the Lord we are not going to find progress, development or success in the service of the Lord, but only failure.

Why Have We Begun to Drift?

Why have we begun to drift? Why are problems besetting us? I suppose that answers may vary from person to person.

1. Some seem to be looking for new kinds of experiences. Finding something lacking in their own experience, they see that as a failure of our Reformed tradition and they look for something new. 2. Some find that the virtues of Calvinism have made them prosperous, and the delights and pleasures of good material things in this world have tempted them to drift away from their heritage. 3. Some, I think, drift because of their desire for the approval of this world, for respectability—It is a great temptation for scholars (who may hope to be immortalized by being quoted in a footnote) to seek the approval of unbelieving as well as believing fellow scholars. Churches get a desire to be recognized as significant by other churches—that seems to account for voices urging us to join the World Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and never to discipline anybody at the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. It betrays a tragic indifference to the forces of unbelief that dominate institutions such as the World Council and the World Alliance. We are drifting even into fellowship with unbelievers. We are in danger of adopting a policy of accommodation and completely losing our recognition of the antithesis between believer and unbeliever. 4. I believe that the real cause of all such drifting is worldliness. In church a couple of weeks ago we sang the familiar hymn, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” My attention was especially caught by the third stanza, “Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God?” It struck me that many people are answering that question, “Yes,” and “It’s old-fashioned to call this world ‘vile’.” “When you see all the positive characteristics of this world, you see how it is a friend to grace to lead us on to God.” But, brothers and sisters, I don’t believe that this is true. The evil one is still ‘“a roaring lion seeking to devour.” The world is vile and an enemy to grace. We need to beware of worldliness in our hearts, in our homes and in our churches.

Where Are We Drifting?

Where are we drifting? What are the options open to us as we drift as a church? Where are we likely to end? The options are really few.

1. If we keep drifting we could split, as the Hervormde Kerk split a hundred years ago. I do not think that that is likely at this point.

2. Or we could drift to a point where two factions agree to live and let live, somewhat as the Reformed Church in America has done. I do not think that likely either. As a church we have always done things together and have moved together.

3. We could move progressively in a Liberal direction. Probably many think that that could not happen here, just as many in the Gereformeerde Kerken in the 1950s said that it could not happen there.

Also here, 60 years ago in May of 1925 the Presbyterian Church in the USA held its General Assembly. At that assembly the Conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing members had a clear, working majority. Many said, “Now is the time to stand up against the Liberalism in our church. Now is the time to say to the Liberals who are denying the resurrection of Christ and His virgin birth that they have no place in our church.” But they didn’t do anything. They appointed a study committee. Within eight years their general assembly began the process of disciplining those conservative and consistently Reformed members of the church who formerly had had great authority and influence in the general assembly. Only eight years separated a general assembly with a conservative majority from the beginning of discipline against uncompromising Reformed members of the church. Within eleven years of that general assembly meeting Dr. J. Gresham Machen and those who supported him had been disciplined by the church and suspended from office and had formed a new, though tiny, continuing Presbyterian church. Reformed churches that have strong institutions at the top run the risk of moving very quickly in a Liberal direction. Machen himself expressed his surprise that the church could have gone so far and so fast. And he commented that here, as elsewhere, the destructive forces have been content to labor for the most part in the dark, working behind the scenes, so that one did not know what was really happening. But many continued to claim that the conservatives who left to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church were too hasty, because the conservatives were still a majority in the old church. And the church slid steadily away from the Truth. Machen in his great book, Christianity and Liberalism, said that part of the problem was the lack of honesty in the Liberal. parties in many church bodies, so that they misrepresented as mere differences about Bible interpretation views of people who were really hostile to the very foundations of the Faith. These people used the same language but meant something very different by it. In this· way a once great Reformed Church slipped away into Liberalism.

Thank God, our problems are not that great. We do not have the kind of virulent Liberalism that denies the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that Machen faced in the 20s in the Presbyterian Church. But the writer ofHebrews in chapter 3 reminds us, “Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the Living God.” We must recognize that our faithfulness as a church is not a foregone conclusion, that it will not stand without effort. We must recognize that we are the same kind of church institution that the Presbyterian Church was, with a strong synod. We are under great pressure to do everything together. Our tradition, unlike those of some Reformed churches who do not support their denominational projects, is to pay our quotas. This means that we could rapidly move in a very distressing direction.

Recently an article in The Banner warned against our becoming congregational, agreeing in our differences to live and let live, arguing instead that we all ought to have women deacons. Equal to our danger of becoming congregational is that of our becoming hierarchical. The synod is supposed to be a delegated assembly of the churches; it is the churches coming together for self-government. It is to represent the churches; when it doesn’t it is in danger of becoming hierarchical, and not Reformed. Doesn’t that danger of developing hierarchy appear when a pre-advice committee does not reflect the mind of the church? It is reported that the 1985 pre-advice committee which is to handle protests and appeals is not representative of the churches. One third of the classes have protested or overtured against the action 1984, and more than half of the classes have taken some ;.dnd of action toward exploration of what the 1984 decision means. But apparently, on the pre–advice committee there :s no minister and there is only one elder who opposes that decision. Is that representative? Is that giving a genuine voice to the classes and the numerous congregations that have protested? That looks like hierarchy and a sign of our drift from our Reformed heritage.

Confessional Renewal

4. The three directions in which our church could go, of splitting, of living and letting live, or of progressive Liberalism, are not our only options. A fourth option is a renewal of our confessional orthodoxy, a restoration of our Reformed heritage. Reformed friends in our dear church tell me that we do have a conservative majority. I don’t like the word “conservative,” just as I don’t like to call those who differ “Liberals.” I prefer to call us “Reformed” and them “innovators.” (They may not like that either, but it is a little more accurate. They are not historic Liberals. They do not deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But they are not genuinely Reformed either. They are innovators.) The fourth option is the hope that our Reformed, orthodox, confessional heritage, our commitment to the Scriptures, can be renewed. That happened in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in which there was a renewal of orthodox leadership in the church. (It is not easy to think of other examples in which that happened.) What we tonight must take very seriously is the fact that this happened in the Lutheran Missouri Synod because there were strong leaders who had an institutional base of power and influence from which to operate that gave leadership to the orthodox cause. We have to think about leadership of the Reformed cause in the Christian Reformed church. We have to think about institutional bases for that leadership if we are to have a realistic hope of a renewal of orthodoxy among us. We must pray, study, organize, and live out our faith.

A real antidote to our plight is offered to us in Hebrews 2:1. “Therefore we must pay the closer attention.” The antidote to drifting or sliding away, is to pay closer attention to where we have been and to where we ought to be. That is what God calls us to do. We must always begin with ourselves. We must be sure that our own houses are in order before we put the houses of others in order. Recall the words of our Lord to the Sadduccees in Matt. 22:29, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” I think that we as Reformed people in our churches know the Scriptures, but I think that we must be sure that we are manifesting the power ofGod in our lives—in our church lives. One of the most effective ways to revitalize orthodoxy will be to demonstrate in orthodox congregations the power of the orthodox Faith at work. I have known home missionaries who have gone out in that orthodox Reformed confidence and who have been amazed at what God has done through the faithful preaching of the Reformed Faith and through real covenant community life. We need to show how God works through the knowledge of His Scriptures. And we have to appeal to the innovators among us to return to the Scriptures and be faithful to them. We cannot have the power of God to the lasting good of the church if it is separated from the Scriptures. Psalm 119:24 says, “Thy testimonies are my delight; they are my counsellors.” We have to call our whole church to renewal by taking delight in the Word of God—delight in studying, in preaching, in hearing and in obeying the Word of God. That is how we will see renewal.

The synod of 1985 will meet in this room. I do not think that our church is as far gone as the Presbyterian General Assembly was when it met some sixty years ago. We do not, in the Providence of God, know what developments may come and what the condition of our churches may be five or ten or twenty years from now. The Lord calls us to be faithful now, to pray for the synod, that we support it by our prayers, by our study, by our efforts to open the Word to delegates to the synod, that they may serve the Lord, manifesting their knowledge of the Scripture and power of God. This is not a time for us to be either apathetic or despairing, but it is a time to be faithful. Machen in his book Christianity and Liberalism said, “God has always saved the church, but He has always saved it not by theological pacifists, but by sturdy contenders for the Truth.” That is what we need to be. We must go forward in the confidence of the Lord’s promise in Psalm 119:165, “Great peace have those who love thy law; nothing can make them stumble.” May God grant to us in this time of uncertainty and church drift, that we might be people who have great peace because we know, treasure and keep God’s Word so that nothing may make us stumble.