Registering an extremely serious charge against leaders in the AACS movement, Rev. Peter De Jong, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan, states in this article: “Despite the fact that the Lord has warned us that without holiness no man shall see Him or inherit His kingdom, our consideration of many of the writings of these enthusiasts for the ‘Kingdom’ reveals them to be indifferent or contemptuous of any such emphasis on holy living!”
“Follow . . . holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification . . .” (I Thess. 4:3).
There are indications that one of the points at which we have been getting farthest away from the Lord and His gospel has been in our general neglect of holy living—of separating from sin and consecrating ourselves to the Lord.
A LOST EMPHASIS
Some of us who are getting on in years can recall sermons, writings, and church decisions that stressed the Lord‘s demand for holy living. We were often warned against “worldliness” and particular expressions of it such as immodest clothing, improper behavior, dating someone from outside of the church, and so forth.
We had the notorious synod pronouncement against “dancing, theater-going and card playing.” People often discussed and criticized the warning against that trio, usually overlooking or not even knowing that the largest part of that report was not devoted to them at all but to the necessary and distinguishing characteristics of real Christian living. Now neither principle nor practice seems to get much attention as all of these and many more invade our homes in the form of TV programs.
The letters in recent copies of THE OUTLOOK about movies at the church’s Calvin College show how far the church itself has moved from the warnings of not long ago. Most of this concern has now been dismissed as hopelessly out-of-date, the useless legacy of a defensive immigrant mentality that refused to
Americanize. In fact, the very existence of our churches is being explained away as nothing more than a relic of the same provincialism which we have really outgrown and ought to be shedding.
HOLINESS IS NECESSARY
That there was provincialism among us, who can deny? But in the present eagerness to discard it and everything related to it we easily overlook the fact that distinctive Christian living is not Dutch, immigrant, or provincial but simply the demand of Christ. and therefore an essential characteristic of every life that is really Christian. Any individual or church that lacks it, that is not interested in it, is just not Christian at all. The Bible does not leave this fact open to question. The common name in Scripture for Christians is “saints,” “holy persons.” Therefore there can be no such thing as an unholy Christian.
Jesus calls those who lack holiness, whatever their religious pretensions may be, “hypocrites,” “actors.” He said, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). Accordingly, the Word of God goes on to warn us, “Follow . . . holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification . . .” (I Thess. 4,3).
Because it is so much easier to talk about these things than to bring our lives into conformity with them, the temptation has always been great to substitute talk for practice. Therefore the Word of God warns us the oftener: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (Jas. 1:22). “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men [homosexuals, RSV] nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” [I Cor. 6:9, 10]. “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting. which are not befitting: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know of a surely, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no man deceive you with empty words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them” (Eph. 5:3–7).
In contrast with all of this offensive behavior, we who believe in Christ are everywhere in the Bible, summoned to a liIe that is as different from it as light is from darkness, to lives that are as full of virtues as the other kind are of vices. “Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other . . . and above all these things put on love . . . and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts . . . and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another . . .” (Col. 3:12–16).
Such a godly life necessarily involves separation from all kinds of sins and association with them. “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers . . .” “Come ye out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and [will] receive you, And will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilements of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (II Cor. 6:14–7:1).
Considering these plain commands of the Lord and His gospel and the increasingly general neglect of them goes far toward answering the questions being raised about why the churches, ours included, seem to be losing ground, why they lack influence, and why members and ministers seem to be leaving in increasing numbers. We can hardly expect the Lord to strengthen and prosper those who persistently ignore His commandments. An essential feature of any real revival and reformation must be a renewed concern and dedication to holy living. Those who would walk with the Lord must walk in His way.
THE AACS CALL TO REFORMATION
Within our church family in the last years no one has called attention more loudly and insistently to the need for a Reformation than the men associated with the Toronto-based AACS (Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship) movement. Arising especially among the immigrants who came from Europe after World War II and claiming a dedication to the zeal and faith of Abraham Kuyper, who led such a Reformation in the Netherlands al· most a century ago, they called upon all to support them in beginning a similar crusade on this continent. It was to be a movement to recall men not only to faith in Christ as Savior, but rather to acknowledge Him as Lord and King in every area of our lives so that in that way the ideal of His Kingdom might come in renewed lives and a renewed society. That ideal attracted the support of many of us, and it continues to draw interest and support in many areas. With this announced zeal for Christ’s Kingdom we might expect this movement to stress the Lord’s requirements of holy living as indispensable if one is to have any “inheritance” in His Kingdom.
WHERE IS THE HOLY LIVING?
Turning to one of the earlier AACS writings, Understanding the Scriptures, we find Dr. A. De Graaf rightly observing that a moralistic treatment of Old Testament history which stresses only practical lessons about virtues and vices does much less than justice to it as God‘s Word. But he goes on to criticize our deriving any moral teachings from it, expressing something very like contempt for teaching “a comfortable, North-American, middle-class virtuous life,” encouraging unselfishness, avoiding evil companions, teaching brotherly love, courtesy, etc. (pp. 24, 25). He assures us that the Bible “does not contain any moral lessons,” “does not teach us how to be good and how to avoid being bad,” and that “to keep the law, according to the Bible is not a matter of observing a lot of rules, of do’s and don‘ts, something negative that spoils your fun . . .” (p. 29). He states flatly that other than the “one Directive,” the law of love, “none of them [the Bible laws] can be literally followed or applied today, for we live in a different period of history in a different culture” (p. 35).
In a later publication, Hope for the Family. the same writer begins a discussion of “Family Breakdown” by stating as a basic assumption that recent “historical and cultural changes as such are unavoidable and good, for life keeps unfolding and developing. A change in the form or functions of the family, therefore, could not possibly be considered a cause in the breakdown of the family” (p. 5). From where does he get this assumption that historical and cultural changes must necessarily always be good? The Bible certainly teaches us no such thing. It teaches us quite the opposite, that man in his apostasy from God turns naturally toward evil and that his history and culture arc full of instances which demonstrate this. Plainly the writer’s basic assumption is simply the common evolutionary theory which is still held by many unbelieving sociologists and psychologists (although it is largely abandoned by historians).
From this point of view the writer surveys various family problems; and, at the end, reveals the same assumption with which he started. He sees how many parents “have lost their personal responsibility for the upbringing of their children” since “the old traditions have disappeared and the old standards of morality no longer seem to hold,” and how “other Christian parents desperately try to hang on to outdated traditions that do not fit our times and to a morality that shows more kinship with the old Human· ism than with the Word of God.” In this situation, committed to change as inevitable and good, he would have us listen anew to “the Word of God” (which he has assured us also has no unchanging rules) and “dedicate ourselves to the development of a new life style” and “seek to find new forms and new direction to our family lives . . .” (pp. 12, 13). What the nature of those new styles and forms are he has no way of knowing, but he invites us to join him in showing others the way to them!
How utterly contrary all this is to the teachings of our Lord. Remember how Christ in dealing with the problem of broken homes (Matt. 19), reprimanded the religious leaders who also lost themselves and their followers in endless and fruitless discussions. He asked them: “Have ye not read” what “He who made them from the beginning” did and commanded? That definitive and absolute law of God to which the Lord called their attention is the same now and is just as clear as it was then. The folly of the Pharisees was their silly notion that they could dismiss it as dated—the same foolish notion that is now being proposed.
“RENEWAL” WITHOUT LAW
The last essay in this same little book, an essay on “The Family of the Future” by Hendrik Hart, expresses the same constitutional hostility to whatever is old and a commitment to a future whose outlines he cannot define. He too assures us that the “principles,” really the one directive of love, “are no concrete rules or ways” and “that changes in our traditional responses to the principles of human life are unavoidable and necessary from time to time as our cultural situation changes.”
Hart tries to give “biblical” proof for this by asserting as a “fact” that “the law of Moses, the teachings of Christ and the letters of Paul all give different responses to the principle of fidelity in marriage.” Therefore he concludes “that a change in our most honored, most time-established and most sacred traditions should not be resisted but welcomed . . . .” “The family of the future,” he says, “must raise up a generation of men and women with a clear vision of the coming of the Kingdom of our God, men and women who do not fear but welcome change, who . . . instead of miring God‘s people in the mud of traditions that have lost their meaning, . . . can shape freshly, clearly and powerfully the principles of God’s Word to show forth the redemptive power of the Word in a world that is . . . falling away in sin.”
In this program Hart informs us, that “new traditions will have to be formed,” “all family customs, habits, rules and traditions will have to be flexible …” “children must not be led to do or not to do things because father says so,” must be taught “the relativity of all principles except … that of love,” so that “their failure to tell their parents the desired truth is not necessary wrong.”
Dr. Hart, too, makes it plain that we must repudiate the old customs and manners. With respect to “manners, social etiquette, proper dress, etc.” he assures us that “our society is totally lost on what is proper in these areas and the people who insist on doing the things the way they were always done don’t understand that most of the traditions in this area are completely outworn. How do we eat, how do we greet, what is polite?” And so he would have us become decisive, responsible people, who do not need to have all things spelled alit or who otherwise follow blindly in the paths of tradition” (pp. 46–52).
What disturbs the reader about all this is not that we are warned against being slaves of tradition. If there are still such people in this age of change they need to be awakened. What is disturbing is that we are advised to ignore the plain “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” of God‘s Word, to assume that the changes in the world are necessarily good and that therefore we should go along with them guided by nothing but a vague, undefined directive of “love.”
Instead of calling men who are lost in a sea of relativism back to God and His unchanging laws, Dr. Hart (who, we recall, denies the Bible has any unique inspiration—see his The Challenge of Our Age, pp. 118, 119, 130—and wrote, “I think that I too have the Spirit of God”—see The Vanguard, Feb. 1972, pp. 5, 20) here tells us that we as modern men and women are to “shape . . . the principles of God’s Word.” Instead of having our lives renewed and restored to conform to that Word, he is telling us that use must “shape the principles of God’s Word” to fit this changing situation. In what significant way does this differ from the “situational ethics” of the Liberals who with their undefined and lawless “love” can give no resistance or corrective at all to the moral and spiritual apostasy of the age? W. Aalders in his De Groote Ontsporing characterized adjusting the gospel to the world as the heart of the modern religious apostasy.
A CALL TO DISOBEDIENCE!
Observe how this teaching advanced by De Graaff and Hart harmonizes with that of Peter Schouls in his Insight, Authority and Power to which I called attention in the April issue of THE OUTLOOK. Although both Old and New Testaments command children to obey their parents, Dr. Schouls tells us that, if children have more “insight” than their parents, “obedience to parents then becomes a concept that in many instances simply doesn‘t apply. It will never do any good (in fact, it is evil) to tell children to obey their parents when counselling families where severe conflicts arise in this kind of context.” And he supports this call for disobedience to parents by citing the words of James Olthuis, also of the AACS, who said, that in such a situation “there is no necessity to obey; much rather there is a call to ‘disobey’” (pp. 36, 37).
The Bible indeed teaches us that an exceptional situation may arise when an earthly authority forbids what God plainly commanded. Then “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). But this by no means justifies disobeying parents or other authorities whenever their insight seems to be imperfect. The Word of God commands us to “be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (I Pet. 2:13) and commands particularly, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee . . .” (Eph. 6:1–3).
Notice particularly that the fact that the fifth commandment which Paul quoted had been given from Mount Sinai more than a thousand years earlier under totally different conditions and to a completely different people had nothing whatever to do with its validity. It remained valid because it was God’s law. Referring to this same commandment the Lord pointed out that the Pharisees and scribes, the experts on the law (rather like the AACS teachers with their “philosophy of law” thought that they had discovered profound and adequate reasons for setting aside this commandment, “Honor thy father and mother.” Instead of getting appreciation from Him for their “insight,” their conduct elicited this scathing rebuke from the Lord: “Why do ye transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” “Ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people honoreth me with their lips but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.” “Let them alone; they are blind guides, and if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit” (Matt. 15:1–14).
The pattern of promoting revolt against authority in the name of reformation can be traced into other areas in these writings. The Bible commands us “Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters. . in singleness of your heart as unto Christ . .. with good will doing service, as unto the Lord . . .” (Eph. 6:5–7; cf. Col. 3:22; I Pet. 2:18ff.). Compare that with the “Reformational” view given us by H. Hart in Our of Concern for the Church (p. 42): “No man has or should have a human master, nor is any man to be another’s master. Managing is not some men‘s work, but the task of all.” Consider the anarchy that adopting and applying this principle throughout the business world must produce—or should we say—is producing! In this setting he also calls us to use “radical methods” to ask whether “ownership is important at all,” to begin “overhauling the whole of Western Society” (pp. 36, 41).
We may recall also the AACS advice on education, to which I called attention in the January issue, as it is expressed particularly in To Prod the Slumbering Giant. Although the Bible commands us to “Train lip a child in the way he should go” (Prov. 22:6), teaching him the kind of behavior as well as attitude God commands, warning against the sins He forbids and correcting him when he is disobedient, this AACS book on education forbids us to “teach subjective responses, values and virtues” and to exercise “discipline in the sense of negativity” (James Olthuis, p. 36), and assures us that children given freedom in a happy environment “will discipline themselves” (Peetoom, p. 140). While the Word of God commands us to “abstain from every form of evil” and not even to speak of the shameful things men do (I Thess. 5:22; Eph. 5:12) C. Seerveld suggests we learn “how to Christianly read dirty books” (Out of Concern, p. 52).
ON GIVING OFFENSE
The Bible teaches us to “take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men” (Rom. 12:17; II Cor. 8:21), to “render to all their dues; tribute to whom. tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom
fear; honor to whom honor” (Rom. 13:7), to avoid giving “occasion of stumbling to any” (I Cor. 10:32), and “to live lives that are so blameless that an ungodly world is compelled to respect them” (I Pet. 2:11, 12) and to see in them the “light of the world.” It is disturbing to find much of this AACS material recommending an almost exactly opposite way of life, advising us to reject all old standards of respectability, decency and courtesy and to join the revolutionary movements of our time in challenging all authority. When then these writers and speakers at times also slip into obscenity and profanity in their writing and speeches (see pp. 13, 133, 135 in Will All the Kings Men and pp. 33, 38 in Out of Concern for the Church, for example) should anyone be surprised to find this raising all kinds of offense to the cause of Christ and His kingdom, both in the church and in the world, especially through its influence on young people?
I am not saying that all in the AACS are engaging in such unholy teaching or conduct. I am sure that many are not. Their better training and consciences may even move them at times to deplore it. It remains true, however, that such teachings, so flagrantly opposed to what our Lord and His word teach us, cannot help but have an evil influence and should be avoided and opposed. God‘s Word warns us: “Be not deceived: Evil companionship corrupt good morals” (I Cor. 15:33). “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them” (Rom. 16:17).
NEEDED: A HOLY REFORMATION
Someone might ask, “Why give so much attention to the AACS? Isn‘t the problem of the lack of holy living bigger than that?” Of course it is. It is found throughout the churches and is one of the great evils of our time. Seeing an immoral show at Calvin College is just as demoralizing as enjoying a blasphemous presentation of “Godspell” with the AACS. We must turn away from sin and “follow holiness” everywhere.
Within our church family no one has been calling attention more loudly and persistently to things that have been going wrong with our way of life, our churches and our society, and urging liS more insistently to return to acknowledging Christ as King over all of life than the AACS men. In focussing attention upon these matters they have performed a real service and attracted the interest and support of many of us. When we ask what course we should take to correct what is wrong and how we should go about “seeking the kingdom,” however, we find ourselves disappointed in almost every way by these “Reformational” leaders.
Despite the fact that the Lord has warned us that without holiness no man shall see Him or inherit His’ kingdom, our consideration of many of the writings of these enthusiasts for the “Kingdom” reveals them to be indifferent or contemptuous of any such emphasis on holy living! Rejecting the plain words and commandments of the Lord as outdated they in their practical advice copy the teaching of more radical liberal religious leaders and recommend a “situational ethics” that seems to differ little from that found in the unbelieving world. Such disobedience to the King in the promotion of His Kingdom must be clearly exposed in the hope that many in and outside of this erroneous movement will turn away from it and return to the clear direction the Lord Himself has given us. The way to real Reformation is the way back to the Lord and His Word.
The Apostle Paul had to remind Titus in his labors among the people of Crete—so like the society of our age—that “the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works (Tit. 1:10–13; 2:11–14). “How vast the benefits divine which we in Christ possess.” We are redeemed from sin and shame and called to holiness.