Some time last August the long arm of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, reached across the Atlantic and tapped on the shoulder of a professor in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The professor in question, Charles Curran, an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church, had his license to teach as a theologian of Roman Catholic doctrine revoked by the powers that be.

This latest manifestation of the Vatican’s resolve to keep the Roman Catholic Church true to its authentic teaching hardly came as a surprise. Not only had a similar penalty been applied some years ago to Professor Hans Kung at the University of Tubingen, Professor Curran‘s opinion on sexual morality—the specific point of difference between him and the church to whose teachings he is committed by virtue of his priestly vows of obedience—had been subjected to lengthy investigations, spanning several years. Professor Curran was fully aware of what was awaiting him should he decide to abide by his opinions concerning abortion, divorce, premarital sex, and other similar sensitive subjects. He had even made a compromise proposal to the Vatican—namely that he keep his position, but not teach sexual ethics courses. It was all to no avail. The Vatican conceded that it was the “length and breadth” of Curran’s dissent that caused the disciplinary action against him—the first of its kind in the circles of North American Catholic educational institutions.

As could be expected, some Roman Catholic educators viewed this recent Vatican insistence that the Roman Catholic Church be what its name indicates with utter dismay. Strict adherence to precisely formulated doctrines has long been deemed a hindrance to “academic freedom.” Insisting upon doctrinal loyalty on the part of officially licensed and commissioned ministers and professors of theology is easily decried as having a chilling effect upon the wholesome exchange of scholarly opinion which one likes to associate with the educational enterprise. It is also usually pointed out by the opponents of this type of Vatican discipline that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was at one time called the Holy Office of the Inquisition. In an article I read, printed in the New York Times of August 29, 1986, p. A27, the charge was also made that Cardinal Ratzinger had “sidestepped canonical legal processes” and that there had been no charge that Curran’s teachings transgressed against papal pronouncements.

It is not our purpose to dwell at length upon the internal Roman Catholic aspects of this case. For non-Roman Catholics and Catholics alike the case raises anew the question of what constitutes the Roman Catholic Church’s “authentic” teachings. This church has its unique dogmas, such as that of transsubstantiation, the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary, her bodily assumption, and the dogma of papal infallibility. Besides, there are of course the “decrees” of various councils, such as Trent, Vatican I and II. Rome also knows the phenomenon of the so-called papal encyclicals. An encyclical is a letter sent by a given pope to all the Roman Catholic bishops in the world. Such encyclicals usually are considered to have a certain force as expressions of the ever ongoing Roman Catholic “magisterial” teaching. For the non-Roman Catholic onlooker the charge that the recent Vatican action might possibly smack of “creeping infallibilism” does indeed seem to have a certain plausibility.

From a formal point of view, however, a Reformed person in a creedally committed church such as the Christian Reformed Church, the pope’s desire to keep the church, which he heads as the alleged, but non-real, “vicar of Christ,” true to what the church teaches, is to be applauded. Honest is honest. Priests who solemnly vow obedience to the hierarchy and what it teaches, should be held responsible for their vows. The present writer considers the church of Rome in error on many important points of doctrine. Though Vatican II may have changed the posture of that church in some significant ways, the church’s fundamental teachings regarding the mass as an unbloody sacrifice, the validity of indulgences as a means to release the sinner from temporal penalties, the use of saintly intercessions, and the special place accorded to Mary within the scheme of redemption—to name just these few—all these have not undergone any basic change in recent Roman Catholic doctrinal pronouncements. The present pope is an ardent Mariologist. Only a few years ago he sovereignly dedicated the whole world to Mary. This same pope and his lesser hierarchy can, upon a simple fiat, open the treasury of merit to release a certain amount of the surplus of good works stored up there and provide indulgence.

Faithful to Its Teachings

As concerns the Curran case itself, I doubt if many of the readers of this journal would care to be as strict as the church of Rome is in matters of artificial birth control, allowing no other means than the so-called rhythm method. So it is the formal rather than the material aspect that we wish to emphasize here. The Roman Catholic church does not appear to have anything comparable to our type of creedal subscription. To have creeds, and to insist that they be maintained and taught in full accord with Holy Scripture, is a characteristically Protestant and Reformed phenomenon. Yet, I believe all men and women of good will, i.e. of Reformed good will, can rejoice that a church insist on careful adherence to its own teachings. Much as one may deplore the errors of Roman doctrine, much as one may wish that the Roman Catholic Church would not insist upon the teaching of those erroneous doctrines, the fact that in this late twentieth century, with its often seemingly unlimited license in doctrine and morals, there is a church body that dares to maintain the teachings it considers authentic and divine, such a fact is indeed a source of satisfaction to all who would like to see that same thing happening in churches that do not teach false doctrine but adhere, by God’s grace, to the whole counsel of God.

As was stated repeatedly, the point of comparison is a formal one. Yet it appears to be worth making. The present writer was heartened by the remarks made in The Banner a few weeks ago by the Rev. Jacob Eppinga, president of the 1986 synod of the Christian Reformed Church. He observed that the synod had given evidence of its willingness to adhere to the Three Forms of Unity. What is also heartening is that the new Contemporary Testimony was adopted with the stipulation that this Testimony should be considered “subordinate to the Creeds.” None of us wants to raise the creeds to the level of infallibility. In fact, the creeds themselves explicitly warn against any such procedure. Yet, in those creeds we have, by common and voluntary consent, learned to accept the doctrine of salvation contained in Holy Scripture. Though in their relative emphasis upon the doctrines which were in dispute in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the creeds do show the marks of their times of origin, they are not by any means outmoded or lacking in contemporaneity.

Benefits of the Subscription Formula

This is why standing guard by the unabridged enforcement of the Formula of Subscription is such a vital concern for all of us. The teachings of our creeds are worth enforcing in a way that the teachings of the Church of Rome are not, or at least not always and not fully.

To speak about the great usefulness of the Formula of Subscription is not a vain and superfluous matter. For it sometimes appears that what we as a church give with one hand we are taking away with the other. While it is gratifying to note that the church wishes to be faithful to the Three Forms of Unity, we continue to hear voices that insist that the Formula of Subscription, by its strictness, is somehow hampering theological discussion. Such allegation was made a few years ago at the retirement of Dr. John Kromminga as president of Calvin Seminary. The one who made it was the Rev. Clarence Boomsma, a man widely respected in the church and a past president of several CRC synods. The almost complete silence in the church in response to Rev. Boomsma’s suggestion, a suggestion which has many ominous overtones, was eloquent, not to say deafening.

Ties with the RCA?

And what about the church’s ever closer cooperation with the Reformed Church in America? That denomination does not have a creedal subscription formula in the specific sense of the word. One can find the exact words of the formula used by the RCA on p. 559 of the Acts of the 1976 CRC synod. The study committee reporting to the synod at that point rightly points out that the RCA formula—not required of its elders and deacons, but only of ministers and professors—has “changed its character as a form of subscription to the standards extensively.” At stake is the word “standards” here.

Not only that, the RCA has since adopted “Our Song of Faith,” a contemporary formulation of what it believes is a fourth standard. Yet, that Song of Faith has been criticized in another study report of the CRC as containing questionable formulations of the doctrine of Scripture. This criticism was made by the New Confession Committee, the predecessor of the Contemporary Testimony Committee. Still, in spite of such confessional weaknesses the CRC has entered into a status of “ecclesiastical fellowship” with the RCA. This status involves recognition of the fact that the other denomination is Reformed in faith and practice. Significantly, a declaration that the Reformed Church in America is Reformed in actual fact was omitted from the decision of the synod of 1976 which regulated the new relationship. All that that synod had the courage to say, and all that could be said in view of the circumstances, was that the two denominations had already been doing the things which belong to the status of ecclesiastical fellowship.

Repeated attempts to set forth publicly where the RCA stands on the all-important question of confessional loyalty have been thwarted, the last one by the recent CRC synod of 1986. Instead, the Interchurch Relations Committee (IRC) assures us, almost petulantly, that it is fully aware of all the “differences” between the RCA and the CRC, and that it is making every effort to address these differences. I cannot help thinking that the choice of the word “difference” instead of “issue” is deliberate. At stake between the RCA and us are not umpteen differences—the IRC has an imposing list of no less than eighteen of them at stake is one issue, that of confessional loyalty. And this not just in a certain segment of the church, let us say the Midwest region, but the whole of it, also the older Eastern part of the RCA.

So of what practical use is it being assured of how greatly minded the 1986 synod was to give pride of place to the confessions? When that synod had the chance to show that it meant business, in voting on the matter concerning the RCA, it let the Interchurch Relations Committee have its way (Acts 1986, p. 614).

The CRC and WARC

Another glaring inconsistency in our professed stance with and under the confessions is the recent attempt to make the CRC join the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). This organization, as organization (!), is neither Reformed nor is it confessional. To be sure, it makes a polite gesture in the direction of the Reformed confessions and it insists that there must be “general agreement” with these as a condition of membership. But immediately it adds that the Reformed “tradition”—a rather horrendous word in this context—is a “biblical and doctrinal ethos, rather than any narrow and exclusive definition of faith and order.”

I ask in all candor, place this vague and vacillating formulation next to the clearcut words of the CRC Formula of Subscription and notice the vast difference. Is it any wonder that one of the chief spokesmen of the Interchurch Relations Committee, the Rev. Boomsma, has difficulty with the Formula? How else could he possibly, together with his fellow committee members, advocate membership in the WARC?

As to WARC’s stated aims, these are, as far as Reformed faith and practice are concerned, equally as vague as its reference to the confessions. This world-wide organization of Reformed churches does not pledge itself to the defense and propagation of the Reformed faith , something which one would certainly expect an organization of this kind to pursue with vigor. No indeed, all the WARC pledges itself to do is to “examine together the traditions (!) of faith and practice within the Reformed family.” Is that all we as Reformed churches are to do with the Reformed faith in this day and age? Does one have to join a doctrinally and confessional [SIC] weak “alliance” to do this “examining”? An alliance is not a forum. This is what its proponents try to make of it. An alliance is what the word says: a solemn league and covenant. The word “covenant” is used in the language of the WARC’s own “Act of Union.” See Acts 1985, p. 230ff. It is a fallacy to make the WARC over into what by its own admission it is not, and to do so in order to make membership in this organization palatable to the CRC.

The things I have just touched upon are worthy of further elaboration. I shall attempt to give such at a future point. Ever closer cooperation with the RCA, and proposed membership in WARC, were only cited here as illustrations of glaring inconsistencies within a church which, thanks be to God, still says it wishes to adhere to the Three Forms without compromise.

So let us guard by the Formula by which we all pledge our adherence to the creeds. These creeds are both inclusive of the whole gospel, and yet narrowly exclusive of everything that militates therewith. I assure the potential Currans among us that to teach within a strict confessional context is a glorious thing, not hampering, not prohibiting the comparison with views of others, but liberating in the sense that the truth shall make us free.

Morten Woudstra is a professor emeritus of Old Testament at Calvin Seminary where he taught from 1955 to 1985.

Reprinted, with permission, from the Oct. 6, 1986 Christian Renewal.