The dilemma is real, not imaginary.
Also in the Christian Reformed Church.
Anyone who denies this is either deliberately blind or pathetically uninformed.
Changes are introduced, subtly and gradually; and that makes them so dangerous. Toss a frog in a tub of hot water and it is said he will jump out in a flash. But heat the water gradually to the boiling point with the frog in it from the start and he will stay right in it and perish. The analogy has been put to good use. Confront the conservative with a drastic change head-on and he will be roused to action. Give him the changes gradually and subtly—and chances are he will fall asleep.
But the wide-awake conservative in the CRC is not being fooled. He sees the dilemma clearly. Discussing this with others, telephone calls, and correspondence I receive convince me that this is so. All crackpots and malcontents, someone may say. Don’t you believe it! There are among them also those who really know the score and who are thoroughly conversant with what is Reformed and what is not Reformed.
What is the answer to their dilemma?
To ask this question is Scriptural. The Psalmist asks it thus in Psalm 11:13:
“If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do?”
Chipping away at the foundations may seem innocent. Actually it is deadly. Specific instances of this are by no means difficult to find. For regular readers of this publication it is hardly necessary to belabor the point. Our aim right now is to try to come lip with certain possible options, the elimination of some and the recommendation of another, all of which may hopefully be of some help to the honest and deeply concerned conservative as he wrestles with his dilemma in a changing church.
Four options call for consideration. It is the fourth or last of these I would recommend as presently viable for our purpose.
1. The first course is the path of least resistance followed by those who consciously or unconsciously take refuge in detachment from changes that thrust themselves upon us.
Those who make this choice are the Rip Van Winkles in the church who, like the five foolish virgins, sleep while the Bridegroom is coming. They prefer to be lulled into complacency by wishful thinking. To have to become realistic about their changing world and their changing church disrupts life and business as usual. By their attitude of detachment they say: Please don’t rock the boat; and please don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up. Just look the other way and the whole thing will disappear like a bad dream. But they are fooling no one but themselves.
Like an alarm clock, words like the following from a religious periodical should arouse us from such slumber:
“Seething, wrenching, compacted change eats away old values, guts our traditions at every level. And the church? Where is the church in all of this? Though not of the world, we are in the world. And like the world, the church, too, is in revolution. In its structure, in its concepts. Even in its commitments. In times like these the church needs, and has, a tether point. Jesus Christ remains constant. He antedates creation but is vitally alive and freshly present each new day. The challenge for the church in this time of change is to find new ways to relate the gospel to man’s needs. Never has the church seen greater opportunity, greater challenge” (Action, February 1967).
Shall we now simply try to be detached from all this? To do so would be irresponsible, immoral, apostate!
The urgent need for church members to be aroused is being pointed up, for one reason or another, also by others outside of CRC circles. For example, Paul S. Rees in his book, Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, tells us:
“We only play a grim joke on ourselves if we imagine that these are not profoundly revolutionary days. Try looking at your current reading matter. See how many times ‘revolution’ and ‘revolutionary’ turn up as noun and adjective . . . .
“Nor does this tell the whole story. Many an author uses many a synonym for ‘revolution.’ He will employ such expressions as ‘rapid social change,’ ‘population explosion,’ a ‘crisis of confidence,’ the ‘student rebellion,’ the ‘knowledge explosion’” (p. 10).
Consider also the following from the book jacket of Jeffrey K. Hadden’s The Gathering Storm in the Churches:
“Will the Christian church survive into the next century or are there disruptive forces at work that are heralding its possible demise? Evidence in this abundantly documented survey of the church in America today, by an eminent sociologist, indicates that there is a growing conflict between clergy and laymen that gravely threatens the traditional role and influence of the church.
“First is the increasing doubt among clergy and laymen regarding the central theological doctrines of faith. For instance, statistics in this study show that only 40% of Methodist and 51% of Presbyterian clergy believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.”
Merely to drift along in the comfortable assurance that the CRC will somehow be spared from all these winds of change would be to court disaster. Conservatives in the church who refuse to be aroused—and who knows how many there may beware no small part of the problem that we face.
2. The second course that is convenient and enticing also to erstwhile conservatives is that of adaptation, capitulation, or surrender. This is a path strewn with the pitiful remains of those who still would like to consider themselves to be the “salt of the earth.” But our Lord, the Head and King of His church, has stern words for them when He says:
“Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it he salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men” (Matt. 5:13).
The late John F. Kennedy, prior to becoming President, wrote a worthwhile book, Profiles in Courage, in which he tells that somewhere along the line in his political career he was given this advice: In order to get along, you have to go along. As well as I recall it, JFK’s idea was that the country is drastically in need of statesmen who present profiles in courage rather than politicians who follow and subscribe to this bit of pragmatic counsel.
To betray one’s country by playing the chameleon’s game in politics is bad enough. But to sell one’s church and the faith of the fathers down the river by placing policy above principle is even worse. Abraham Lincoln is credited with having said he would rather be right than President. The church today, and also the CRC, is sorely in need of states-manlike clergy and laymen alike who dare to do their own thinking and hew to the line of the Reformed faith, come what may. Dr. J. Gresham Machen did that, and from his deathbed he was taken home i.n a blaze of glory when he said to a bystander: “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand!”
Over and over again we are being told today that times change. Of course, times change, but so what? Watch out for that worn-out alibi for getting rid of that which we cannot afford to do without. When someone starts out with that apparently innocent sounding generalization, times change, be on your guard as to what is coming next. Once you accept the liberals’ basic or major premise that times change you are in real danger of swallowing hook, line, and sinker all the innovations he wants to make.
In the church of Jesus Christ we are dealing first of all and basically not with the times that change but with that which is eternal. Our chief concern may never be to find ourselves as a church first of all in the mainstream of contemporary Christendom but always and only in the line of the historic Christian faith. From God’s own Word we know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that, even though heaven and earth pass away, the Bible shall never pass away.
Let the skeptic dismiss all this as a tub-thumping, old-time religion harangue if he will, but the scripturally-informed and bona-fide conservative will refuse to be laughed out of court. As one of their number once put it: Let the whole world call me a fool if they will, if only Jesus Christ does flat call me a fool in the end.
To be sure, times do change. But through it all, our God-given obligation and calling to keep the Bible intact as God’s Word from beginning to end, to faithfully uphold the marks of the true church, to guard divine worship against the innovation of trivia and the “strange fire” for the bringing of which Nadab and Abihu were smitten with death, and to withstand today’s diabolical whitewashing of adultery, fornication, divorce, and the like as a “new morality”—this God-given obligation and calling does not change and never will.
Adaptation, compromise, surrender, and the good-Joe tactics of those who go along with every wind that blows—these are written large in the history of the Christian church and have repeatedly called to heaven for men of God to turn the tide lest the true church should perish from off the face of the earth.
Ecumenicity at the price of purity and truth, relativism, and umbrella-like decisions that offer the church’s protection and blessing to both friend and foe of the plain teaching of the Word constitute a menace that the informed and alert conservative knows we dare not ignore.
Note: At the outset I promised to consider four options, of which we have looked at only two. The Lord willing, we shall look at the other two (secession and polarization) in the next issue.
ABOUT WOMEN IN CHURCH OFFICES
Elsewhere in this issue the reader will find a timely and significant article about Women in Ecclesiastical Offices by Rev. Jelle Tuininga of Smithers, British Columbia. As a background to this article, the following should be borne in mind:
1. The CRC study committee (with the exception of Rev. Peter M. Jonker) recommended that the 1973 Synod should adopt the conclusion that: ‘“The practice of excluding women from ecclesiastical office cannot conclusively be defended on biblical grounds,” and that Synod to report to the Reformed Ecumenical Synod.
2. Instead of adopting the recommendations of the study committee, the 1973 Synod decided:
a. To refer the entire report of the study committee to the churches for study and reactions on the following grounds:
(1) The importance of this subject demands that we proceed with care. A long standing policy of the church is substantially affected by this report.
(2) All the churches should have an adequate opportunity to react to this report produced by a study committee over a period of three years.
(3) The decisions of this Synod (1973) re the report on “Ecclesiastical Office and Ordination” will have bearing on this subject.
(4) There is ample time to present synodical decisions re this subject to the Reformed Ecumenical Synod of 1976.
(5) Several issues need further examination: for example, the method we may use in interpreting the biblical data; the question whether equality also involves similar roles with respect to the ecclesiastical office; the creation order and the appeal that can be made to it; the meaning of headship; the roles and functions of women in the church; the concepts of feminity and masculinity.
b. Synod decided also to appoint a new study committee witl1 the following mandate:
(1) To study, evaluate, and report on the study committee’s and advisory committee’s reports as well as on other communications addressed to Synod on this matter.
(2) To receive and evaluate the reactions of the churches and to structure the discussion as it deems best, with a view to presenting a report to Synod 1975, if possible. Reactions should be forwarded to this committee no later than July 1974.
(3) To study the place and role of women in the Christian Church.
Also in the Christian Reformed Church.
Anyone who denies this is either deliberately blind or pathetically uninformed.
Changes are introduced, subtly and gradually; and that makes them so dangerous. Toss a frog in a tub of hot water and it is said he will jump out in a flash. But heat the water gradually to the boiling point with the frog in it from the start and he will stay right in it and perish. The analogy has been put to good use. Confront the conservative with a drastic change head-on and he will be roused to action. Give him the changes gradually and subtly—and chances are he will fall asleep.
But the wide-awake conservative in the CRC is not being fooled. He sees the dilemma clearly. Discussing this with others, telephone calls, and correspondence I receive convince me that this is so. All crackpots and malcontents, someone may say. Don’t you believe it! There are among them also those who really know the score and who are thoroughly conversant with what is Reformed and what is not Reformed.
What is the answer to their dilemma?
To ask this question is Scriptural. The Psalmist asks it thus in Psalm 11:13:
“If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do?”
Chipping away at the foundations may seem innocent. Actually it is deadly. Specific instances of this are by no means difficult to find. For regular readers of this publication it is hardly necessary to belabor the point. Our aim right now is to try to come lip with certain possible options, the elimination of some and the recommendation of another, all of which may hopefully be of some help to the honest and deeply concerned conservative as he wrestles with his dilemma in a changing church.
Four options call for consideration. It is the fourth or last of these I would recommend as presently viable for our purpose.
1. The first course is the path of least resistance followed by those who consciously or unconsciously take refuge in detachment from changes that thrust themselves upon us.
Those who make this choice are the Rip Van Winkles in the church who, like the five foolish virgins, sleep while the Bridegroom is coming. They prefer to be lulled into complacency by wishful thinking. To have to become realistic about their changing world and their changing church disrupts life and business as usual. By their attitude of detachment they say: Please don’t rock the boat; and please don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up. Just look the other way and the whole thing will disappear like a bad dream. But they are fooling no one but themselves.
Like an alarm clock, words like the following from a religious periodical should arouse us from such slumber:
“Seething, wrenching, compacted change eats away old values, guts our traditions at every level. And the church? Where is the church in all of this? Though not of the world, we are in the world. And like the world, the church, too, is in revolution. In its structure, in its concepts. Even in its commitments. In times like these the church needs, and has, a tether point. Jesus Christ remains constant. He antedates creation but is vitally alive and freshly present each new day. The challenge for the church in this time of change is to find new ways to relate the gospel to man’s needs. Never has the church seen greater opportunity, greater challenge” (Action, February 1967).
Shall we now simply try to be detached from all this? To do so would be irresponsible, immoral, apostate!
The urgent need for church members to be aroused is being pointed up, for one reason or another, also by others outside of CRC circles. For example, Paul S. Rees in his book, Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, tells us:
“We only play a grim joke on ourselves if we imagine that these are not profoundly revolutionary days. Try looking at your current reading matter. See how many times ‘revolution’ and ‘revolutionary’ turn up as noun and adjective . . . .
“Nor does this tell the whole story. Many an author uses many a synonym for ‘revolution.’ He will employ such expressions as ‘rapid social change,’ ‘population explosion,’ a ‘crisis of confidence,’ the ‘student rebellion,’ the ‘knowledge explosion’” (p. 10).
Consider also the following from the book jacket of Jeffrey K. Hadden’s The Gathering Storm in the Churches:
“Will the Christian church survive into the next century or are there disruptive forces at work that are heralding its possible demise? Evidence in this abundantly documented survey of the church in America today, by an eminent sociologist, indicates that there is a growing conflict between clergy and laymen that gravely threatens the traditional role and influence of the church.
“First is the increasing doubt among clergy and laymen regarding the central theological doctrines of faith. For instance, statistics in this study show that only 40% of Methodist and 51% of Presbyterian clergy believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.”
Merely to drift along in the comfortable assurance that the CRC will somehow be spared from all these winds of change would be to court disaster. Conservatives in the church who refuse to be aroused—and who knows how many there may beware no small part of the problem that we face.
2. The second course that is convenient and enticing also to erstwhile conservatives is that of adaptation, capitulation, or surrender. This is a path strewn with the pitiful remains of those who still would like to consider themselves to be the “salt of the earth.” But our Lord, the Head and King of His church, has stern words for them when He says:
“Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it he salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men” (Matt. 5:13).
The late John F. Kennedy, prior to becoming President, wrote a worthwhile book, Profiles in Courage, in which he tells that somewhere along the line in his political career he was given this advice: In order to get along, you have to go along. As well as I recall it, JFK’s idea was that the country is drastically in need of statesmen who present profiles in courage rather than politicians who follow and subscribe to this bit of pragmatic counsel.
To betray one’s country by playing the chameleon’s game in politics is bad enough. But to sell one’s church and the faith of the fathers down the river by placing policy above principle is even worse. Abraham Lincoln is credited with having said he would rather be right than President. The church today, and also the CRC, is sorely in need of states-manlike clergy and laymen alike who dare to do their own thinking and hew to the line of the Reformed faith, come what may. Dr. J. Gresham Machen did that, and from his deathbed he was taken home i.n a blaze of glory when he said to a bystander: “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand!”
Over and over again we are being told today that times change. Of course, times change, but so what? Watch out for that worn-out alibi for getting rid of that which we cannot afford to do without. When someone starts out with that apparently innocent sounding generalization, times change, be on your guard as to what is coming next. Once you accept the liberals’ basic or major premise that times change you are in real danger of swallowing hook, line, and sinker all the innovations he wants to make.
In the church of Jesus Christ we are dealing first of all and basically not with the times that change but with that which is eternal. Our chief concern may never be to find ourselves as a church first of all in the mainstream of contemporary Christendom but always and only in the line of the historic Christian faith. From God’s own Word we know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that, even though heaven and earth pass away, the Bible shall never pass away.
Let the skeptic dismiss all this as a tub-thumping, old-time religion harangue if he will, but the scripturally-informed and bona-fide conservative will refuse to be laughed out of court. As one of their number once put it: Let the whole world call me a fool if they will, if only Jesus Christ does flat call me a fool in the end.
To be sure, times do change. But through it all, our God-given obligation and calling to keep the Bible intact as God’s Word from beginning to end, to faithfully uphold the marks of the true church, to guard divine worship against the innovation of trivia and the “strange fire” for the bringing of which Nadab and Abihu were smitten with death, and to withstand today’s diabolical whitewashing of adultery, fornication, divorce, and the like as a “new morality”—this God-given obligation and calling does not change and never will.
Adaptation, compromise, surrender, and the good-Joe tactics of those who go along with every wind that blows—these are written large in the history of the Christian church and have repeatedly called to heaven for men of God to turn the tide lest the true church should perish from off the face of the earth.
Ecumenicity at the price of purity and truth, relativism, and umbrella-like decisions that offer the church’s protection and blessing to both friend and foe of the plain teaching of the Word constitute a menace that the informed and alert conservative knows we dare not ignore.
Note: At the outset I promised to consider four options, of which we have looked at only two. The Lord willing, we shall look at the other two (secession and polarization) in the next issue.
ABOUT WOMEN IN CHURCH OFFICES
Elsewhere in this issue the reader will find a timely and significant article about Women in Ecclesiastical Offices by Rev. Jelle Tuininga of Smithers, British Columbia. As a background to this article, the following should be borne in mind:
1. The CRC study committee (with the exception of Rev. Peter M. Jonker) recommended that the 1973 Synod should adopt the conclusion that: ‘“The practice of excluding women from ecclesiastical office cannot conclusively be defended on biblical grounds,” and that Synod to report to the Reformed Ecumenical Synod.
2. Instead of adopting the recommendations of the study committee, the 1973 Synod decided:
a. To refer the entire report of the study committee to the churches for study and reactions on the following grounds:
(1) The importance of this subject demands that we proceed with care. A long standing policy of the church is substantially affected by this report.
(2) All the churches should have an adequate opportunity to react to this report produced by a study committee over a period of three years.
(3) The decisions of this Synod (1973) re the report on “Ecclesiastical Office and Ordination” will have bearing on this subject.
(4) There is ample time to present synodical decisions re this subject to the Reformed Ecumenical Synod of 1976.
(5) Several issues need further examination: for example, the method we may use in interpreting the biblical data; the question whether equality also involves similar roles with respect to the ecclesiastical office; the creation order and the appeal that can be made to it; the meaning of headship; the roles and functions of women in the church; the concepts of feminity and masculinity.
b. Synod decided also to appoint a new study committee witl1 the following mandate:
(1) To study, evaluate, and report on the study committee’s and advisory committee’s reports as well as on other communications addressed to Synod on this matter.
(2) To receive and evaluate the reactions of the churches and to structure the discussion as it deems best, with a view to presenting a report to Synod 1975, if possible. Reactions should be forwarded to this committee no later than July 1974.
(3) To study the place and role of women in the Christian Church.