By John Van Dyk

 

Over the last few years, and possibly farther back, the waters in which the Protestant Reformed Churches sail have been stirred by inner turmoil, and the concentric rings that resulted continue to disturb and foment.

This somewhat insulated Reformed denomination of 33 churches with around 8800 members (but fewer now) underwent a serious and nasty division within its ranks, over matters of theology and orthodoxy, which came to a head in 2021. The result was that a small group of members and ministers (one deposed) left to form a new denomination called the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). Leading the new group are three former PRC ministers: Andrew (Andy) Lanning, who was deposed from the PRC ministry, and former PRC ministers, Martin Vander Wal and Nathan J. Langerak.

Prior to leaving the PRCs, however, the disgruntled ministers were charging (and continue to charge) that the PRC was and is tolerating heresy in its ranks on matters of the doctrine of justification (faith and works; a conditional covenant and on church order matters).

Claiming to have been “banned” from sharing their concerns in the denomination’s publication, The Standard Bearer, the men launched their own magazine giving themselves a voice to counter that of the SB and those who write in it, their one time brother colleagues who now are clearly adversaries.

The new magazine called Sword and Shield was swift to wield its cudgel against what it saw as censorship by the SB editors and publishing board. The new magazine is under the supervision of an organizational board called Reformed Believers Publishing, paralleling the arrangement The Standard Bearer has with the board that supervises its work—Reformed Free Publishing. The editors of Sword and Shield are Andrew Lanning (editor in chief), and contributing editors Langerak and Vander Wal. The magazine was also swift to secure the high ground, stating in essence that they (the editors) would publish the truth, and nothing but the Biblical and confessional truth in contrast to what they considered the compromising and a compromised Standard Bearer.

Both sides in this bitter dispute would likely agree that the flashpoint for the Protestant Reformed churches was Synod 2018 and its decisions concerning a minister charged with heretical teachings. But the breaking point was in 2021 when disciplinary decisions were taken against the dissenters, which led to the three ministers, one seminary student, and now portions of at least ten congregations leaving. The upheaval has also somewhat adversely affected missions stations connected to the PRCs in the Philippines.

Both magazines have been on the offensive in this battle.

The result of all of this skirmishing is divided churches, divided families, divided friends—long time fellow believers no longer worshipping with nor speaking to one another, and a scattering of the sheep.

 

What Happened?

One source in the Protestant Reformed Churches suggested that the background of the split actully goes back two or more decades.

He told CR, “There were fault lines under the surface for many years, particularly in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. But the occasion which brought about the split was the preaching of a minister in the Hope PRC in Grand Rapids in 2015 and beyond.”

The first red flagged sermon that came to light was from John 14:6. The minister at the center of the controversy who has since resigned from the ministry, said in his sermon that 

Jesus is the way to the Father not only in the sense of his atoning work on the cross and 

justification by faith, but also in the sense of his work of sanctification in our lives. There were other controversial statements, such as: “…the way to the Father includes our obedience” and “obedience matters, it is the way to the Father.” Objections to his preaching were raised and then other sermons were scrutinized by members of the church. Initially, most of the consistory supported the minister although one protesting elder was deposed. The classis also initially supported him, but the synod did not.

The difference for those who left had to do with judgments made or in their view, avoided. For the dissenting ministers who would eventually leave the PRCs, what was being preached by the one minister under investigation, was blatant heresy, pure and simple. The classis and the synods, on the other hand, deemed it to be “serious error that is out of harmony with the Reformed creeds.” The assessment was that the minister was out of his league in his understanding of some tenets of Reformed theology. But the damage was done and the controversy continued to stir, to rise and to boil over.

Things continued to fester from 2016–2018. By the spring of 2018, a massive denominational split was a definite possibility. Synod 2018 sided with the protest of an individual against a number of sermons delivered by the minister under scrutiny. But as CR was told, following an examination of the minister himself on the basis of his answers he was judged to be orthodox, until another sermon that he preached later in 2018 on the reward of grace in the Heidelberg Catechism (LD 24) led to more protests, which finally led to his resignation.

His departure from the ministry, voluntarily, did not lead to a restoration of peace, however. The most vociferous among the protestors called for his deposition instead. While some saw gross heresy, the ruling body (synod) held to the position that the minister had given to the believer’s good works “a place and function out of harmony with the Reformed confessions” (Acts of Synod 2018, p. 61). This difference in assessment was at the heart of the divide as the two sides dug in, in opposition to each other.

The continued public criticism led in January 17, 2021 to Rev. Andrew Lanning’s deposition from the ministry. Two days later a letter of separation from the denomination was received from Lanning and his church. Continued agitation by Rev. Langerak led to his suspension by the consistory in April of 2021. On May 5, 2021 another letter of separation from the denomination was issued by Rev. Langerak and those who left with him. On July 6th, 2021 a third minister and a small portion of the congregation led by Rev. Vander Wal issued its letter of separation as well. And on July 4th, a portion of a fourth church withdrew from the denomination.

 

Charges/Counter Charges

Since then, and from the PRC’s perspective, the dissenters continue to be “schismatic.” According to PRC Professor Brian Huizinga’s article in the SB of Jan. 1, 2023, they seek to draw more members from the Protestant Reformed churches. Huizinga, a professor of Dogmatics and Old Testament at the seminary writes, “Together now, they create more schism and try recruiting more followers by slandering the PRC with preposterous and oft-repeated claims like ‘the PRC teaches salvation by works’ and ‘the PRC hates the gospel and persecutes those who love it’ and ‘the PRC is the great whore of Babylon.’ Under the judgment of God, schism always begets more schism and endless fragmentation until finally even chief friends are estranged and, most grievous of all, a generation of children is scattered.”

Obviously the RPC leadership sees it quite differently. Its spokesmen have labelled the crisis as one of a glorious “reformation,” on par with the original formation of the Protestant Reformed churches in 1924, and even all the way back to the original reformation of the Church in 1517. In an article in Sword and Shield, RPC minister Andy Lanning writes, this latest “reformation of the church that has taken place began in the hearts of a group of concerned men, men who were not afraid: men who were not afraid to begin a new paper, men who were not afraid to associate with the truth and to see to it that that truth was published, come what may. Without Reformed Believers Publishing and Sword and Shield, the reformation of the church that has begun would not have been possible.”

In another article, this one referring to the PRC Synod 2018, Nathan Langerak writes, “Synod 2018 was the devil’s most stunning victory that I know of in all of church history. There has never been a synod like that in church history. In all of church history, there has never been a synod where the devil won in the name of the truth. In all of church history, there has never been a more stunning example of the devil’s transforming himself into an angel of light. So stunning, I myself was fooled. I cannot be fooled anymore. It was a victory for the devil, and it would be simply a matter of time before that principle worked through.”

 

Noisy Gong; Clanging Cymbal

The division has been nasty; the rancor palpable, and the evidence of this is chronicled publicly and monthly in the RPC’s Sword and Shield. 

For its editors, Truth with a capital T resides alone in the new denomination—the Reformed Protestant churches (see the Jan. 2023 issue of Sword and Shield)—and all who desire to live in that Truth need to join it, since all other Reformed denominations, according to Lanning, are “an abomination of hell.”

Speaking at a public meeting in a Protestant Reformed church recently, seminary professor Huizinga described these difficult past few years as a time of “chastening” for the denomination. God was not rejecting the PRC’s, he said, but was chastening them as a loving Father would his son, a chastening that though painful, was necessary. And just as King David, a man after God’s own heart, was harrassed, mocked, accused and had rocks thrown at him by Shimei, son of Gera, recorded in 2 Samuel 16, neither did God abandon his servant, and David did not allow Shimei to be killed because he realized that in this painful and trying experience he saw it as the Lord’s will.

“Though with a scornful wonder,
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, ‘How long?’
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.”

(Verse 3 of The Church’s One Foundation)

 

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Letter to Christian Renewal

 

To: Christian Renewal

Re: Letter to the editor

 

March 27, 2023

Thank you to Mr. John Van Dyk and to Christian Renewal (CR) for the February 18, 2023, article entitled “A Division that Continues to Shake the Protestant Reformed Churches.” As one of those who is named in the article, I submit a couple of brief observations, with the request that they be published in CR at your convenience.

First, I appreciated Mr. Van Dyk’s focus on doctrine in his article. Doctrine was and is at the root of the split between the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) and the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). The doctrinal issue between these denominations is not whether Jesus is our righteousness and our sanctification (he is) or whether God gives his people faith and works (he does). The doctrinal issue is whether the child of God comes to God by faith alone in Christ alone or by faith and works. Both before and after the split, those who now make up the RPC have maintained that salvation, justification (including forgiveness of sins), covenant fellowship with God, peace with God, and all other blessings are received by faith alone in Christ alone, while works are the beautiful, necessary, inevitable, and non-instrumental fruits of faith. Both before and after the split, those who remained Protestant Reformed have maintained that some aspects of salvation—whether the forgiveness of sins, fellowship with God, or the conscious experience of God’s blessing—come by means of faith and works. I realize that I am merely making an assertion here without demonstrating it. However, since its first publication in June 2020, the magazine Sword and Shield has been chronicling and demonstrating this doctrinal difference. I daresay that you could almost choose an issue at random (free at reformedbelieverspub.org) and find at least one article on this doctrinal difference.

The doctrinal issue between the PRC and the RPC is not a little quibble in a corner. It is the heart of the gospel, and it is a question that faces every Reformed and Presbyterian church member. Does your church teach salvation by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone without works? That alone is the gospel. Or does your church teach salvation by grace “alone” in Christ “alone” through a condition and a prerequisite, whether that condition is your believing, your repenting, your feeling, or your working? That is a false gospel.

Second, I want to correct a misquotation in Mr. Van Dyk’s article. I did not say that “all other Reformed denominations…are ‘an abomination of hell.’” I did say that NAPARC is an abomination of hell. I stand behind that statement because NAPARC is a formal relationship among Reformed and Presbyterian denominations in spite of doctrinal differences among those denominations. The doctrinal differences are significant: creation versus evolution, the nature of faith and assurance, and the well-meant offer of the gospel, to name a few. I consider formal fellowship at the expense of the truth to be devilish and antichristian. It is not God and his Christ who forge official relationships at the expense of sound doctrine but the devil and his antichrist. Thus my statement that NAPARC is an abomination of hell. Perhaps that sounds harsh, but it truly is dangerous to the souls of Christ’s sheep to join them to false doctrine. Officebearers in NAPARC churches have an obligation to stop trying to cozy up with teachings that will get their sheep killed. That warning is not a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal but the more excellent way of love.

Thank you again for the article and for considering publishing this reply. I plan to publish Mr. Van Dyk’s article and this reply in the May 2023 issue of Sword and Shield. I will send a copy of the issue to CR’s office.

In Christ’s service,

Rev. Andy Lanning