A while back a candidate being examined by Classis was asked the question, “Why do you seek to be a minister in the Christian Reformed Church?” The student gave the answer, “Because it is the closest to the truth, it is the closest to a correct interpretation of Scripture.”
In response to that answer, the questioner asked, correctly I believe, two more questions. 1. How many other churches have you intensely examined? 2. What if decisions are made in our denomination with which you cannot agree?
Why do you desire to be a minister in the Christian Reformed Church? This question was very important to me. I was asked the same question three and a half years ago when I was examined. But that was not the first time I faced the question. It was a question that I struggled with for four years before my classical examination as I prepared for the ministry. In fact I had entertained thoughts of other denominations.
Why do you desire to be a minister in the Christian Reformed Church? My answer to the question was not because of our doctrinal purity (“closest to the truth”) or as one writer put it “at the point of the wedge.” I could not make that boast of the Christian Reformed Church. Nor did I answer that we have the edge on “correct Scripture interpretation.” In fact, it was exactly those two issues that raised the whole question in my mind in the first place.
Rather my answer to this question was, “Because this denomination is my mother. This is the denomination in which God has placed me. I have a love for her, a deep concern for her, an obligation to her, and a continued prayer. I want to be a Christian Reformed minister in order to work in her, to be a servant of God to His People in this denomination.
The Old Testament prophets were called to prophesy in Israel, not because she was so pure or correct, but because Israel was God’s people. God commissioned His prophets to proclaim His Word over against the words of the false prophets, to call Israel back to Him, to lead, direct, encourage, and reprove.
In our denomination there is doctrinal impurity. And there is a lot of interpretation that is not Scriptural at all. There are also many sincere people of God in the Christian Reformed Church who are seeking for pure preaching of God’s Word, are seeking for Catechism teaching for themselves and their children and are deeply concerned about the direction that our denomination seems to be going. Why am I a Christian Reformed Church minister? Because I cannot walk out on those people. As an old cigarette ad slogan ran: “I’d rather fight than switch!”
As a Christian Reformed Church pastor and as members of the Christian Reformed Church we had better realize that there are real problems and sickness in our denomination. Out of love for the denomination and worry about controversy, we may not sweep the problems under the rug. Nor dare we bury our heads under the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong. As the Rev. J. Sittema said and wrote, we need to be contemporary confessional conservatives. Be aware of what is taught and what is being said!
How often the New Testament warns against the evil of false teaching! As the Rev. H. Vander Kam in his Bible Lessons on I Timothy correctly observes “in our day many have adopted the view that no one has all the truth, and the question of true or false teaching is a relative matter.”
Today we see that thought especially when it comes to Scripture interpretation. What do we do with passages such as Gen. 1–3 or I Tim. 2, and the list goes on. Will it indeed soon be up to each individual congregation to decide how they wish to interpret Scripture (especially I Tim. 2 on women in office)? And what about our doctrines of election and reprobation? Is it up to each individual minister what they believe or do not believe? And what about our creeds? The New Contemporary Testimony has a heading “Election and Reprobation,” but is deathly silent on reprobation. Are H. Boer and the editor of The Standard Bearer correct in saying that this doctrine is silenced to death in the Christian Reformed Church? God forbid that that should be the case!
What we need in the Christian Reformed Church is a renewed emphasis on sound teaching, correct doctrine, a renewed belief that Scripture is the Word of God and therefore is authoritative for what we believe and do! If we are willing to listen to Scripture and not try to be judges of Scripture, the Lord will grant His blessings to our denomination. But unless there is such a return to Scripture, many will be forced to switch to another denomination that does take God’s Word seriously and adheres to the historic Reformed creeds, giving them more than mere lip service.
In the Christian Reformed Church we need confessional conservatives, contemporary conservatives . . . and more . . . aggressive conservatives . . . men who do not just sit back but will speak out, will lead, guide, direct the denomination according to God’s Word. I am a Christian Reformed Church MINISTER because I must fight rather than switch.
Rev. Audred Spriensma is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church at Atwood, Michigan.
