It is difficult to give an appropriate title to this article. The designation “conservative” is generally accepted and in a general way better understood than more suitable terms. If there were a consensus as to the meaning of terms such as reformed, calvinistic, confessional and historic faith, these would be preferable. Lamentably, the philosophical dialectic of this age has deprived us of an antithesis and rendered these and many other terms nearly useless for conversation.

Meaningful discussion is hindered by the necessity of first making distinctions and definitions. After the distinctions are made t he response is often still “You don’t understand,” or there is no time left to discuss issues.

What Is A Conservative?

A brief description of my understanding of a conservative may prove helpful here. A conservative is a person who wants to conserve the heritage God has given us through the fathers. He believes that God is true to His promise, that He will lead His church into all truth–that conviction is to be conserved. The confessions of the church are to be conserved as living confessions for all of life and they must stand. under the criticism of the greater standard, the Word, or the Bible. It must be emphasized that criticism of these confessions must be adequately proved to the church before they receive any acceptance. The Biblical traditions of the fathers are to be conserved, not simply because they are traditions, but because God has told us to grow in this way. Conservatives do, however, recognize that traditions always remain open to the criticism of the Scriptures. The basic intent of a conservative is simple adherence to the Word of God in faith; to share with the Apostle Paul, as we have learned from the Spirit speaking through him, the desire to shun the wisdom of men.

     

Compelled To Be Negative

In light of that description, I believe the vast majority of those who consider themselves conservative see their predicament as being against, or reacting to, a number of decisions and practices which have come into vogue in the last couple of decades. However, I fear the conservative often has little idea of what he stands for. This may partially explain the fact that he seems to seek a certain relief in repetitious complaint.

To be sure, the conservative has cause for grief and reaction. A cursory listing of some decisions and practices may substantiate this fact. The blatant ecclesiastical politics practiced at major assemblies was epitomized at the Synod of 1978 where it was decided that women could be ordained to the office of deacon and the Church Order was altered on the spot to fit the decision; the de facto ecumenism practiced; the secular and psychological approach to homosexuality; the indefinable position on divorce and  remarriage; the acceptance of the new hermeneutic by ministers and professors; the non–stand on limited atonement; the vacillating approach to and outright denial of the confessions; a use of the Form of Subscription which now places every position and stand of the church open to question; the worldly standard of entertainment and the secular guidance in societal affairs; these and more issues place the faith of a conservative in jeopardy. To this he legitimately reacts.

The Role of “Report 44”

It is at this point where most conservatives close their eyes. Every one of these decisions and practices mentioned are perfectly legitimate in light of the churches’ stand on the “Nature and Extent of Biblical Authority,” popularly known as Report 44. I am amazed that we can be so blind to this fact. I would have no difficulty with any of t he churches‘ stands on these various issues if I accepted Report 44. This report could not and would not have been written without modern theology, its mother. For your reference, the doctrinal, political and practical decline of the church has been documented by the Association of Christian Reformed Laymen and compiled in a recently published Handbook of Christian Reformed Church Issues.

Failure to Recognize the Antithesis of Liberal to Conservative

While all these issues demand a response, they do not in themselves constitute the predicament of the conservative. I believe that we are invariably giving the wrong response due to a faulty conception of conservatism. Perhaps we can best think of this concretely in the context of the “liberal/conservative” controversy with which we are familiar. To do that let me briefly describe the modern day liberal. The common and basic element which unites all theological liberals is a broadened view of the word of God. Liberals may disagree (even violently) on a number of issues but they are all agreed that the Bible is not the only word of God.

Report 44 makes that very simple matter extremely complex. Historically, in discussions of the Nature and Extent of Biblical Authority, it was simply stated –its nature is divine and its extent is total. Report 44 introduces a host of qualifications which negate that simple concept. One illustration may suffice to point this out: when Dr. A. Verhey denied that the serpent spoke to Eve and called into question the historicity (fact) of the earthquake at Christ’s resurrection, the Neland Ave. C.R.C. consistory upheld him. One of the reasons they gave for their action was that he (Verhey) was in harmony with t he doctrinal deliverances of Synod, specifically Report 44.

It is at this point that the conservative dilemma becomes apparent, for conservatives essentially, though unconsciously, think in a similar fashion. Let us picture the “liberal/conservative” controversy thus:

Conservative Traditionalist Institutionalist Evangelical Neo-Evangelical Moderate Biblicist Fence-sitter Liberal

At the top of this slanting line are the conservatives, and at the bottom are the liberals. You will notice that they are all on one line. However, in between these two extremes you have many different kinds of–what shall we call them?—conservative/liberal groups. There are, for example, the traditionalists; people who want to keep things the way they are just because they always were that way. Next, there are what is likely the largest group in the Christian Reformed Church, the institutionalists; people who worship the institution. Then come evangelicals, the neo–evangelicals, the moderates, the Biblicists, and don’t forget the fence sitters. And then there is a group who look over the church’s membership and say “Ahhh . . . there is the silent majority—if only that silent majority would speak.”

Wherever one fits on that line, he is still on the same line. Each group on that line has basically the same approach to the truth. Or, said another way, somewhere these groups can meet each other on that line and hold dialogue. A good example appears in the protests raised against women in ecclesiastical office. In practice it works like this—the liberal presents his position, the conservative reacts—because he is at the other end of the line. It has become a wearying continual action/reaction exhibition. The trouble with this is that the conservative fights the battle on the liberal’s terms. Why else do not conservatives approach the Verhey controversy, or one of many other examples which could be cited as antithetical positions dealing with the approach to truth, or with the “Nature and Extent of Biblical Authority?”

A correct description of the liberal/conservative controversy should rather be pictured as follows:

Nature and Extent of Biblical Authority

Liberal                             Conservative

                  Report 44

Not only does failure to recognize the antithesis in the two positions create the predicament of the conservative, but it is also the reason we are caught in the liberal/conservative, action/reaction syndrome of the past two decades.

Liberal and Conservative Theology Cannot Be Harmonized

With the slanting line concept of the problematics we are constantly in dialogue with the liberals. In reality the similarities between liberals and conservatives are superficial. True, liberals say “don’t be separated by theology,” but conservatives, if they would maintain their faith, must separate from error.

Liberal theology is not biblical and does not represent historic Christianity. It should not bear the name Christian. It is sinful man’s endeavor to determine what part of the Bible is palatable to him.

The diagram shows two opposing arrows. The antithesis between the two positions has become increasingly apparent in the more recent controversies and becomes concrete in the decision on women in office. It is indispensible that we be willing to recognize our problem and begin to act on that basis. If we refuse to do so, we should stop our endless complaining or ask if we truly desire to be conservative. True conservatives and liberals stand on different or opposite foundations that cannot be synthesized. Those in our circles who are classified as liberals are active, capable, determined, effective and vocal. They have kept the church in a state of turmoil for twenty years. Unless the current conservativism is dissolved by the accelerating attrition, the same can be predicted for the future.

We Must Recognize the Antithesis

Until conservatives reexamine or reevaluate their approach there will be nothing they presently hold as precious, conserved. It is this non-antithetical mentality of the conservative that has produced his predicament. Some have said that it is the intellectual dishonesty and politics of the liberals which have created the problem. To be sure, I believe there has been and is a vast amount of such dishonesty and politics, which make liberalism difficult to recognize and deal with. But basically, the predicament is caused and perpetuated by the non-antithetical liberal/conservative mentality.

The adherents of liberal theology have become bold. For a time they exercised considerable caution, all of which they have now thrown to the wind. Protests or appeals against decisions and practices are ignored or politically neutralized. Although it is not possible to detect the antithesis in each issue, there should be no doubt of its existence in our approach to the truth as the basis for decision making. When conservatives see Report 44 as an heretical approach to the truth they will understand their predicament.

I suggest that the answer to the question “why was the reaction not different, to many of the issues raised in the church?” may be found in the fact that for many decisions no tangible and concrete evidence was visible. However, with the issue of women in office we now have such evidence. It must now be indelibly clear that we are not dealing with a detail but an approach to what we conceive truth to be and where it is found—in the conservative’s Scripture or the liberal’s broadened word of God, enunciated in Report 44. I can think of no like case presenting itself unless it be the day an announced homosexual enters the pulpit.

Conservatives must understand that we .are not dealing with anything essentially new; only the form in which it is presented is new. In Calvin’s day holders of the liberal view were known as libertines; they were free thinkers in doctrine and became free livers. Calvin dealt with the liberal view quite differently than conservatives of this day do. Unless we bring back such words as antithesis and heresy, we will continue to make excuses or justifications for accepting or tolerating this view. These excuses fall into four categories: (1) we may not forsake the Lord’s cause; (2) our local situation is different; (3} we have an orthodox minister; and. (4) we pay no attention.

Luther and the Fence-Sitters

The most dangerous group is the fence-sitters, people who have neither convictions or opinions, who are more dangerous than the Boers or Verheys. Luther, shortly before his death, castigated. George Major for his studied silence about everything controversial. He said:

It is by your silence and cloaking of false doctrine, plus making it to appear to be acceptable or at least tolerable, or a matter of indifference, that you cast suspicion upon yourself. If you believe as you declare you do in my presence, then so speak also in the church, in public lectures, in sermons and in private conversation. And strengthen your brethren and lead the erring back to the right path. That is what true and honest Christian love demands, rather than that such poor souls should be left floundering in their error, not to speak of falsely influencing others. To contradict the spirits, otherwise your confession is a sham pure and simple, and worth nothing. Whoever regards his doctrine, faith and confession as true, right and certain, can not remain in the same stall with such as teach or adhere to false doctrine, nor can he keep on giving friendly words to Satan and his minions. A teacher who remains silent when errors are taught and nevertheless pretends to be a true teacher is worse than an open fanatic and by his hypocrisy does greater damage than a heretic. Nor can he be trusted. He is a wolf and a fox, a hireling and a servant of his belly, and ready to despise and sacrifice doctrine, word, faith, church and schools. And he is either a secret bedfellow of the enemies, or a sceptic or a weather vane waiting to see whether Christ or Satan will prove victorious. Or he has no convictions of his own whatever and is not worthy to be called a pupil, let alone a teacher, nor does he want to offer anybody or say a word in favor of Christ or hurt the devil or the world.

Surely, this is the major cause of the church’s predicament. We have a host of preachers who have, year after year, preached merely from the label of the jar and never looked into the jar. With controversy raging for at least two decades, these either could not or dared not utter a word and treated all issues as if they did not exist. Is it not true, “A teacher who remains silent when errors are taught and nevertheless pretends to be a true teacher is worse than an open fanatic and by his hypocrisy does greater damage than a heretic? Nor can he be trusted.”

Behind these leaders stand. a host of likeminded parishioners. The peace they imagine they maintain is that of the graveyard. In so far as these people would be known as conservatives we can assert that they are the liberals of tomorrow. This comes to pass when one sees the distinction between conservative and liberal as a declining scale and not as an antithesis.

For years we have accommodated the liberal. When in 1957 Dr. Daane announced, “The winds of change are blowing. The old guard has either died off or gone into retirement,” he astutely marked that as the beginning of this day when conservatives are in the minority, tolerated and relegated to a position of observing the liberal with benign concern.

Rue the day we have imagined lethargy allowed us to accept the predicament as if there were no cost. Surely, the disfavor of Christ is evident in this disunity, and we rob our children of the one thing they need to face the future. I am reminded of Solzhenitsyn’s characterization of Russia’s young people; “they do not see that it effects them, just as long as they themselves are at liberty with their tape recorders and their disheveled girl friends.” A torpid conservatism is useless; to say it even more strongly, detrimental in the battle for the historic faith which incessantly confronts us.

Personally, viewing the ecclesiastical scene, I see nothing short of the encroaching persecution which will awake n and bring recommitment to beleagured conservatives. However, should it please the Spirit of God to revive us in the midst of our years, four things will become evident: (1) First, a real sense of sin, not seen today; (2) a sense of standing in God’s presence. We are playing with the hosts of evil and doing it before God; (3) a burning desire for real Reformed preaching; and (4) the reevaluation of our life style. One gets the impression that we would rather see God go than our material things.

May it please God to send His Spirit to bring such a revival.