Each year the OUTLOOK prints an overview of the materials which require the attention of the Christian Reformed Churches’ June synod. This year the printed Agenda is somewhat shorter than usual although it still includes 435 pages –more than most consistory members who obtain copies will ever read. A summary may be useful to them as well as to many other interested church members.
Radio and TV
As usual the first and one of the most encouraging reports comes from the Back-to-God Hour which reported releasing 65,000 programs during the year. The continuing growth and effectiveness of that activity should be seen in the light. of its continuing and expressed sense of direction: “Our commitment to preaching demands that the direction our work takes be controlled by the contents of the Scriptures—not first of all by the latest development in broadcast gimmickry, nor even by a sophisticated analysis of what the audience wants.” “For within the Bible we find not only the message we proclaim, but we discern information about the way the Christian message must be related to the several cultures we seek to penetrate” (p. 12).
The report on the English broadcasts observes that they contain “a polemic element . . . . primarily oriented to views of the Bible that dilute its trustworthiness and authority, and to views that tend to fragment it” and that they also express “an aggressive opposition to the increasingly hostile world view which has yielded such degenerations of human life as abortion on demand.” “And with this there is always a call to conversion and salvation,” an effort “to make clear the way of salvation by faith alone and by grace alone” (p. 13). “A special daily half-hour broadcast called ‘Radio today’ . . . is . . . designed to meet the need of in-depth Bible study of those who have not had the opportunity to study the Bible before” and is directed to over–seas areas. One wonders whether this popular English broadcast might profitably be directed to listeners at home where even in our churches ignorance of the Bible and its doctrines is often surprising and evidently increasing. Among the foreign language broadcasts those in Arabic have been getting special attention and a growing response out of t he Moslem world. Those broadcasts resist the pressures to compromise the gospel message in order to make it “more acceptable to the followers of Muhammad” under the conviction that the gospel “cannot be assimilated into what was first a Muslim world view.” Our Arabic preacher, Rev. Bassam Madany, “considers the Scriptures as the controlling dominant element in all that He does; there is the conviction that the scriptural language and methodology do not admit of modification or adjustment” (pp. 17–18). Very striking in the development of these various foreign language broadcasts is the fact that the preachers are men who are bringing the gospel in their native languages: Mr. Madany is a Syrian, Rev. Juan Boonstra of the Spanish language ministry is a native and citizen of Argentina, Rev. Isaac Jen, himself a native of Shanghai, preaches to the millions of Chinese. Rev. Aaron Kayayan, a Reformed pastor in Paris, addresses the French and French-speaking people elsewhere and is seeing a remarkable response in the African country of Zaire, Rev. Junus Atmarumeksa, a former Buddhist, addresses the Indonesians, the Japanese broadcast is to be taken over by a Japanese minister of the Reformed Church of Japan, and Dr. Wilson Castro Ferreira, a native of Brazil, established the Portugese language ministry and as he nears retirement may be replaced by Rev. Celsino Gama, one of his former students.
The Report on our television efforts, still in their infancy, detail some of the experiments that have been made in using this somewhat different media. Will the singleminded determination to “be controlled by the contents of the Scriptures—not first of all by the latest development in broadcast gimmickry, nor even by a sophisticated analysis of what the audience wants which have directed our radio programs also continue to direct our TV efforts in defiance of the enormous pressures to give viewers what most of them want?
Calvin College and Seminary
The Report of the Calvin Board of Trustees is very brief—less than 7 pages. There is no financial or salary report. One could hardly guess from the few housekeeping details that are reported that these, our church–owned and supported schools, strategically important in the training of many of our leaders confront us with some of our most threatening problems. It is simply a fact that many of the leaders in college and seminary follow and defend a policy, diametrically opposed to that envisioned in our radio programs, the liberal critical treatment of the Bible which permits one to freely “reinterpret” or contradict it whenever he thinks he has adequate reasons for doing so.
World Missions
Our world missions now reach into 15 countries. Faced by a policy decision whether to send few missionaries into many fields or more missionaries into relatively few fields, the board decided in favor of the latter course of concentrating missionary resources in fewer fields, “in a commitment to word and deed ministries . . . ,” while trying “to avoid excessive establishment of mission institutions or the creation of a climate of dependency.” This matter of basic policy is not submitted to the synod for the churches’ decision (as it formerly might have been) but is simply reported as a fact.
One of the most significant developments reported in one field after another is that as the local churches and denominations grow, the responsibility for and control of missionary activities which was formerly in the missionary organizations is now being taken over by the churches, and our missionaries who are still in those fields work with, for or under them. This is happening in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This is in general a natural and welcome development—our avowed aim, especially since about 1950 when our synods committed themselves to “indigenous” church development. At the same time there are bound to be problems in making adjustments to the new situation. The “indigenous policy,” seeking to follow Biblical precedent, envisioned speedy development of churches that would be self–propagating, self–governing and self-supporting. Often there seems to be, on the part of the churches on the fields, greater enthusiasm for the self–government than for the self–support. I noticed in the report on Mexico that the national church “wants to have a voice from t he very beginning in what is going on within her borders. She is asking for direct granting of funds which are to be expended in kingdom causes according to the national church’s ideas of priority.” While there may be occasion to give help in special needs the notion that when churches are mature enough to handle their own responsibilities in other respects they are still entitled to expect financial support from outside sources ought to be challenged. We must not forget that the Biblical injunction “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” is accompanied by another, “For every man shall bear his own burden” (Gal. 6:2, 5). The cut–back on our expenditures forced upon us by economic recession compel us and should compel us to drop permanent subsidy programs (which were sometimes debatable or objectionable from the beginning). In this connection we may observe that the board is asking this synod “for a supplementary quota to compensate for the possibility of on–going dollar devaluation and overseas inflation” amounting to $1.50 per family (above the regular $60.35 per family mission quota).
One notes in this report, as in previous ones, that many of our missionaries are engaged in training pastors for these increasingly independent national churches. The Nigeria field in 1979 reported having 118 pastors and 481 evangelists at work there.
Home Missions
The Home Mission Board favors the organization of a classis of our Indian churches. It presents a single nomination (Rev. Dirk Hart) for Minister of Evangelism? Why is the Synod offered no choice? It reports that the payment of its quota by Canadian churches increased in the last ten years from 42% to 82%. The quota request is for $75.55 per family.
Publications
The Board of Publications reports regarding its church school curriculum, “out of its 1619 accounts, 788 are CRC, 472 are RCA, and 253 are Presbyterian (various denominations).” With a view to the nonCRC customers it is asking for approval of creating “an advisory position on t he Education Committee” for a qualified person from the RCA and a similar position for a Presbyterian (p. 97). We ought to observe that a considerable number of our churches are using little or none of this material because it simply does not attempt to teach the doctrines of the faith as systematically and extensively as the older catechism materials and classes do. Are we trying in these publications to teach and promote what our churches are supposed to confess, or are we trying to promote commercial sales of materials we think may appeal to most buyers? The Board asks approval for providing special curriculum materials for the mentally impaired. The Banner gets its new editor August 29.It will continue to print its widely criticized movie reviews, which are supposed to be “extending Christ’s dominion”! De Wachter will continue to be issued as the denomination’s Dutch publication.
The 1978 Synod instructed “all those agencies requesting quota support to include their salary and fringe benefit schedules” in the Agenda. Although the mission boards report this information (see pages 68 and 92), this board, not wanting to publicize this information, states it will give it in a supplementary report to Synod. Why may our churches not find out what they are paying their employees? The Board (which sells most of its publications) asks for a $2.50 per family quota.
World Relief
The World Relief Committee, taking up its project to combat hunger in Sierra Leone, plans to spend between $10,000,000 and $15,000,000 over a 15–year period on it. Cooperative planning between the relief agency and the mission boards, while under discussion, is not yet a working policy.
The relief agency is arranging a conference to “lay the groundwork for” its “work on social justice and structural change” (p. 112). Did the Lord assign to His church the job of restructuring society? The relief agency “disturbed by its inability to incorporate an evangelical witness into its program” in the nation of Jordan, is closing down that program. It has also phased out its Korean family assistance program. Its total budget for 1980–81 is $3,768,897.
Bible Translation
The Bible translation committee has reviewed the New International Version of the Bible and presents an informative report on that version as well as. on the broader subject of Bible translation. Although it has some criticisms of the NIV (It observes that NIV could have given more footnotes and that it is somewhat more inclined to follow the principle of “dynamic equivalence” while the RSV is more a word–for-word translation.) it judges the NIV to be an excellent modern version and recommends that the synod designate it as one of the versions acceptable for use in worship services.
Professor Bastiaan Van Elderen (who in 1966 as a synod committee member opposed this translation project, Acts 1966, pp. 384, 385), now as a minority of one, opposes the recommendation to approve this version. He criticizes the NIV’s use of the principle of “dynamic equivalence,” observing that this “may promote greater clarity and understanding of a passage, but often this at the expense of precision and fidelity to the original language. For private use, devotional reading and study purposes this may be acceptable. And the NIV is an excellent contribution to the collection of such versions. However, one must question whether a version employing the principle of dynamic equivalence can be used liturgically in the church.” He opposes the approval of this version especially because it has not yet been generally accepted by the ecumenical church world.
Translation and Educational Assistance
The 1979 Synod decided to combine two quite different programs, one for translating and publishing Reformed literature in other languages and the other for supporting advanced education for students from Reformed churches in other parts of the world, under one “umbrella–type organization.” It is evident that the uniting of these two has not produced a happy union. The efforts to raise money for supporting the education of Reformed students from abroad has not been very successful. The committee complains, “unfortunately, our letter appeals to all of our congregations and diaconates have not generated the kind of response that our commitment as a church requires of us, even though many churches give generously to similar scholarship programs in various other schools and Bible institutes.” It is not hard to see why this cause generates little enthusiasm. Uprooting students from their own culture and manner of living for an extended period of study in the U.S. sometimes does more to hinder than to help them prepare for effective Christian service in their home country. Some feel that such training can better be given within their country. More serious than the economic and social disruption which such a program may bring about is the question whether training at Calvin College and Seminary with their divided and compromising policy regarding the fundamental Reformed principle of the unqualified authority of the Bible, will strengthen or weaken the Christian convictions of those church leaders.
Besides being generally handicapped by weak support, the report mentions one more policy which the committee is promoting, an effort to recruit and support black South Africans for training here in what is frankly called a kind of “affirmative action” program. The transparent hypocrisy of claiming to oppose discrimination by such a discriminatory program of giving special priority to students of one race and one area over all others can hardly expect to generate much respect or support. The report calls attention to the incidental benefit that students in this program are helpful to other students in broadening their missionary interests. That is understandable, but whom is the program seeking to educate?
Interchurch Relations
This committee comments on its contacts especially with the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the Reformed Church of America. The Christian Reformed Churches in the Netherlands are approaching “ecclesiastical fellowship” with us, but their affiliated Free Reformed Churches on this continent, who are better acquainted with us, are opposing that move.
Liturgical Committee
The Liturgical Committee confronts us with a new collection of prayers ranging from the historical (some from John Calvin) to the non-traditional contemporary, a new form for readmission (of those who have been disciplined) and new Advent and Christmas variations on the new (4th) Form for the Lord’s Supper. While there is merit in some of the material, hasn’t this perennial liturgical tinkering gone about far enough? In our worship we must try to do all things “decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40), but the annual productions of this committee often seem to multiply disorder. One can find some appropriate prayers in its collection of antiquities and novelties, but do we have to have synodical sponsorship for the whole motley collection including even one ambiguous sentimentality of St. Francis of Assissi which I was startled to hear sung in one of our churches (p. 207)? About the only thing I did not observe in the collection was a prayer for reformation or revival of dead churches that seek to compensate for their boredom with God’s truth by elaborating ritual. (Someone the other day compared D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ unadorned Bible expositions in a crowded, shabby Westminster Chapel with t he many beautiful British churches, exuding religious atmosphere and elaborate liturgy but virtually empty.) Hasn’t the time come for us to discharge this committee and declare a moratorium on liturgical novelties? Synod action on them is really rather superfluous, for the churches that most want them are often those which are least likely to feel bound by what the synod decides.
Race
The Synodical Committee on Race Relations was appointed some years ago with a grandiose mandate to work “to eliminate racism, both causes and effects, within t he body of believers and throughout the world in which we live,” but with no specific job assignment. The results over the years have been predictable, frequent frustrations for the committee and an obvious waste of the churches’ money. A review of its budget usually told the story. Half or more of it went to man the office and its activities and the rest had to be given to other agencies that had assigned jobs! This year the program is being enlarged by creating a new staff position to “develop minority leadership,” to be paid at the “Executive Level II’” scale (which is the $21,600–$32,400 bracket, see page 68) plus fringe benefits and a part-time secretary. This year while there is a request for $2.40 per family quota, the budget of this agency doesn’t even appear in the Agenda! Rev. William Ipema has already been appointed for the new job.
To promote the unity of believers across the barriers of race and diversities of national origin is a good thing, but how a program that deliberately discriminates in favor of certain minorities over others can contribute to that by removing discrimination is a mystery. How long will our churches, pressed by an economic recession, keep on spending between $100,000 and $200,000 on such a self-contradicting enterprise?
Synodical Interim Committee
The synodical interim committee mentions one of its more nettlesome problems, that of trying to determine why an increasing number of ministers are in trouble and leaving the ministry and what can be done about it. This is in the hands of a subcommittee on “healing ministries.” That this problem is demanding attention tells us something about the spiritual condition of the denomination.
Dancing
A report on “dance and the Christian life” was occasioned by the Board of Calvin College’s approval of social dancing at the college. A synod committee now in an 18-page study (pp. 291ff.) in effect endorses that position with certain conditions, arguing that the dance is an area which the Christian ought to be “redeeming,” and even suggesting that we ought to be looking into its “liturgical” use. Although many of the considerations and arguments are truisms with which almost all would agree, one is troubled by the direction the whole discussion takes as well as the unrealistic outcome. The report recalls a discussion I once had with a sailor after a Bible study of Romans 14, the famous chapter which gives direction on matters in which Christians disagree. It calls attention to two principles: (1) “each one of us shall give account of himself to God” (vs. 12) and (2) “that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” The sailor began by stating that he was going to quit dancing. I asked him, “Why?” He replied that if this scripture showed how the Lord wanted us to live he would have to stop the practice. I responded that I was inclined to agree with him, but that another evangelical chaplain with us on the same ship felt that such a negative judgment was too strict. His retort was, “I’ve danced too much for anyone to tell me he could be hugging a girl on a dance floor and thinking about his Sunday school lesson”; if this was the Lord’s teaching, he’d have to quit. The judgment in this case was not mine—the subject of dancing had not come up before—it was his conclusion from what the Bible was saying.
And as to the subject of “liturgical dancing,” can anyone seriously show how it can be deduced from the Lord’s injunction to “preach the Word”? I once saw a woman dancing what was announced as “the Lord’s Prayer.” She was a skilled dancer, but I could find no conceivable connection between her gyrations and the prayer our Lord taught us. Perhaps the performance was addressed to some other “lord.”
Marriage Guidelines
Another 18 page report reviews again the often reviewed Biblical materials and church discussions on marriage, divorce and remarriage. The conclusions, stated in broad terms, generally restate what has been said before: the “God–willed permanence of marriage,” His opposition to divorce, t he need for discipline in cases in which there is no repentance from sin, etc. At the same time there is so much flexibility in the report’s advice that one can go in a variety of directions with it. “Even where there is great guilt in divorce with no apparent repentance, the church must continue to minister persistently and patiently.” “However recognizing the limits of human ability to discern the subtlety and intricacy of human motivation, the church must recognize the limits of its ability to assess guilt and blame in the intimate and private turmoil of marital distress” (p. 326). “Deal pastorally with those who have failed to keep the biblical principle by a. Refraining from a strictly legal approach to remarriage that tries to provide a basis for judgment that certain categories of remarriage are always compatible or incompatible with the teachings of Scripture” (p. 327). The fact is that the evils of unbiblical divorces and remarriages are growing at an enormous rate within our churches as well as in society outside of them. While we cannot try to lay down a complete legal code to cover such matters, a broad report such as this with so many qualifications is likely to have little effect in deterring the church from its present course of becoming “conformed to the world.”
Boer’s Gravamen Against the Canons
The largest single item in the Agenda is the 72–page report of the study committee that had to evaluate Dr. Harry Boer’s attack on the doctrine of reprobation as our churches confess it in the Canons of Dort (1, 6 and 15). The committee points out that the Canons do not teach what Dr. Boer misrepresents them as teaching, that the doctrine of reprobation is a decree which makes God the cause of man’s unbelief and which condemns men without merit or demerit on their part. Therefore it recommends that the synod do not accede to Dr. Boer’s request to take this doctrine out of the creed or make it non–binding. The committee’s case is in general competently argued and its conclusion invites approval. Since this subject has been discussed in a variety of OUTLOOK articles, what they said does not need to be repeated. A few comments, however, seem appropriate. (1) Dr. Boer attacked the doctrine of reprobation confessed in the creed by appealing to the Bible, alleging that the Bible does not teach it. His appeal to the Bible is rather unconvincing since he also attacks the Bible as being full of mistakes. (Anyone who would question that should read his little book Above the Battle? the Bible and Its Critics.) Whatever arguments anyone might draw from the Bible could hardly be expected to convince him since he is free to set them aside. Regardless of Boer’s own specious appeal to the Bible, however, the church should be prepared to maintain its credal doctrine of reprobation, (the important fundamental truth that in choosing some out of the group God was not choosing the whole group) by showing how the Bible teaches it. The attack of Boer and others on the doctrine directs attention to the way in which this Bible teaching has been neglected. It needs to be reaffirmed and taught. (2) Reaffirming this Biblical teaching becomes the more urgent because the synod’s faulty handling of this matter three years ago really makes the churches’ commitment to this doctrine questionable. At the beginning of every synod the delegates declare their adherence to the creeds and restate their ordination promise to defend them especially against attacks of the kind that were made against the Canons. Despite that promise the 1977 Synod decided to print the attack of Dr. Boer against the creed and declare the matter open to general discussion without anyone even making a gesture to defend that creed against what the study committee now points out was a false charge. Even if this synod does not sustain the attack of Dr. Boer, doesn’t the question still have to be asked whether t he churches still believe the creed which they have invited anyone to freely criticize for the last three years? If we still hold this creed will we discipline officers who break their ordination vows and publicly attack it? (3) This study committee report while pointing out that Dr. Boer’s allegations about what the creed teaches are false, in its treatment of some of the Bible texts involved states that it “agrees with Dr. Boer that the Scripture passages which he cites in his gravamen do not specifically and explicitly teach the doctrine of reprobation” (p. 390).
The problem that one senses here, as in much of the modern exegetical work on such texts and in the views of Dr. Boer and others who think like him, is that the whole approach to these texts and their doctrines lacks what is embodied and assumed in the creeds, a sense of the overwhelming greatness of God, and of His sovereign control over all things. Think of how that truth constantly recurs in Isaiah, for example. “Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?” “Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, he taketh up t he isles as a very little thing.” “All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God?” (lsa. 40:13–18). Or think of the Lord Jesus‘ reminder that “Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Lk. 12:7), and that a sparrow “shall not fall on the ground without your Father” (Mt. 10:29). In the light of that pervasive teaching of the Bible how can one lightly set aside as un-Biblical the teaching of Romans 11 that He determines the destiny of men or of Eph. 1:11 that He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will”? One senses a certain arrogant ungodliness, rather like that of all modern secularists, prompting men to approach the Bible in this way. In fact one suspects that those who presume so airily to argue what God can or cannot be permitted to do are not really talking about the same God that we worship at all, or have forgotten, in their argument, Who and What He is. We must worship, as men such as Luther and Pascal reminded us, the Living God—not the god (or idol) of the philosophers.
Use of Members’ Gifts
There has long been a tendency in our churches as in other Protestant churches to become dominated by the ministers in much the way the Roman Catholic churches became dominated by the clergy. What has contributed to this has been a failure to appreciate the Bible’s teaching about the calling and office of each real believer and the way in which the special offices are properly related to that. (A key Biblical passage in disclosing this important principle is Ephesians 4:11.) A growing awareness of this neglect of the use of ordinary church members’ gifts led in 1977 to the appointment of a synodical study committee which now submits its report. The aim of the committee invites agreement and support, but its report also reveals a peculiar prejudice which limits its persuasiveness and usefulness. The report, for example, finds the use of members‘ gifts inhibited by a “fear of change.” “Change (e.g. in worship services or in starting deaconess programs), it may be felt disturbs the peace. . . .” The remedy it suggests (with a reference to Romans 14 and 15 and 1 Cor. 8) is “that the weak-those who fear change?—must grow up in faith. The strong—those who are mature in faith?—must coach the weak without offending them.” Notice the naive assumptions in this: The “strong” are those who want to introduce all kinds of experimental novelties in worship and those who are crusading to put women into church offices, and the “weak” are the poor deluded people who are not ready to buy these novelties and who need patient coaching to enlighten them (p. 408)! That way of presenting the matter is, to say the least, debatable. In the Bible’s presentation those who are “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind” of change are not the mature but the “children” whose immaturity badly needs the ministry of pastors and teachers to help them grow up (Eph. 4:11ff). And those who can’t tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, but will swallow anything (Heb. 5:11–14) are not grownups but retarded children. Advice and recommendations that come out of such a distorted perspective as the report at this point displays, had better be critically reviewed before they are followed.
Overtures
The Agenda contains 18 pages of overtures:
1 – requires a year of pastoral experience for every 5 years a professor serves in our seminary. This might make the seminary course more useful.
2 – would require all denominational agencies to give each consistory a full financial report, including salaries. Don’t the churches have a right to know what they are paying for? May we support those who refuse to tell us what they do with our money? Notice also Overture 9.
3 – would equalize clergy and lay representation on all denominational boards and eliminate “members at large.” It sounds like a good idea but would be hard to arrange.
4 – would study the Elks Lodge to see whether membership in it is compatible with membership in the church.
5 – would restrict the role of seminary professors as advisors to the synod so that they no longer assume the right, as they have been doing, to speak as though they were delegates, on any subject. The analysis of the history of this advisory role and the way it has been abused substantiates the overture.
6 – would divide the overgrown Classis Grand Rapids East into two normally sized classes.
7 – would designate a “sanctity of life Sunday.” Any effort to oppose the atrocity of millions of abortions invites sympathy and support, but ought we to set aside a special Lord’s Day for this purpose?
8 – would have classical stated clerks send to the church papers announcements of accepted calls.
9 – would have the Synod urge all denominational boards to report on salary schedules as they were instructed to do in 1978 but many have not done. Why not order them to comply with the decision? Who is supposed to be responsible for the government of the church, the boards or the synod?
10 – would restrict quota assistance to seminary students to those who intend to enter the regular CRC ministry, on the basis that this is in line with the Church Order. This looks like straight thinking.
11 – would exempt churches who had previously introduced women deacons from last year’s decision that their election to office should not be further implemented. It seems that last year’s prohibition is simply being ignored by a number of churches, and the synod will have to deal with this matter unless it periJlits its decisions to become meaningless.
12 – would reverse a decision of the Fund for Needy Churches Committee which did not grant a consistory’s request for aid.
13 – would discontinue movie reviews in The Banner on the ground that they are unnecessary. The ground sounds rather weak. Those reviews sometimes show little discrimination, not to mention Christian evaluation.
16 – would replace synod’s rules of order with Robert’s Rules of Order and arrange for a parliamentarian. It seems that recent synods have sometimes shown a callous disregard of their own rules. Would they obey any other rules?
17 – would delegate deacons to major assemblies. This lengthy overture again obscures the biblical principle that the governmental authority in the church is entrusted to the elders. As a general resistance to the very principle of authority increases among us, the lines of the Lord’s order in His church as in other areas of life become increasingly obscured.
18 – aims at making the churches’ relief committee cooperate more closely with its other agencies.
19—would form a separate classis of Indian churches. There will, no doubt, be other materials added to the agenda before the synod meets. Rev. W. Haverkamp, editor of De Wachter in it and The Banner has been calling attention to a serious new development in our old mother churches, the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands. Those churches have long been tolerating among their leaders denials of basic Christian doctrines including that of the atonement. Now they have officially declared their toleration of practicing homosexuality among their members. The Wachter editor suggests that this “appalling” decision has brought him to the “conviction that the time has come to take steps to sever the existing relationship” with those churches. Since our interchurch relations come up for consideration at every synod it would appear in order that his suggestion should be taken up as an urgent matter. The Bible enjoins us to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11). In the face of this scandalous contempt of our old mother churches for even most elementary Biblical standards of Christian conduct (See Romans 1:24ff. for example), our emphatic repudiation of such behavior should be firm and prompt. Continuing “fellowship” with them implies our approval or indifference.
The Verhey case should be coming back to the synod, belatedly because of the dubious technical demand that it must first again go through the classes, but still being presented, in case synod delegates have a mind to address it. Forthright dealing with this compromise of our adherence to the Bible has been too often and too long delayed.
The Agenda issues that demand decision seem to be fewer than they have sometimes been. The churches are always called to be faithful to the Word of God, and especially the problems that arise where that faithfulness is threatened must be faced. Evading or compromising worsens the threats. Let us never stop praying and working for a real reformation in our churches—one directed by God’s Spirit through His Word.