In the past two years, the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) have had two official meetings with the United Reformed Churches (URC). The first meeting took place between the PRC delegation and the URC delegation to the November 2018 meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) (Acts of Synod 2019, 48–49, 101–2). The second meeting took place on October 23, 2019, between the Contact Committee of the PRC and the equivalent committee of the URC (Agenda for Synod 2020, 110–11). 

At the first meeting “both parties explicitly recognized that work towards denominational unity would not be the goal of meeting, rather the discussion would center on current topics in our respective denominations” (Acts 2019, 101). The one topic of discussion reported on was “the use of money on foreign mission fields” (101). At the second meeting the topics of discussion were “the Federal Vision” and “missions and money” (Agenda 2020, 111). The Contact Committee reports to Synod 2020 its judgment “that this was a good meeting. We see no need to continue meeting in the near future unless a matter comes to our attention that could be profitably discussed” (111). 

May I suggest that there is a matter for the Contact Committee’s attention that could be profitably discussed. That matter is 1924: the URC’s doctrine of common grace, the URC’s doctrine of the well-meant offer of the gospel, and the URC’s unjust deposition of Herman Hoeksema, George M. Ophoff, Henry Danhof, and several Reformed elders. In fact, so fundamental is that matter that no further discussions of any kind should be held at joint meetings of the PRC and the URC until that matter has not only been discussed, but also thoroughly resolved by the URC’s repentance for their false doctrine and for their persecution of God’s prophets.

The reason that this matter is fundamental between the PRC and the URC is that the URC is responsible for the Christian Reformed Church’s Synod of 1924 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and its aftermath. At that synod the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) adopted the three points of common grace as the official dogma of the denomination. The three points teach a universal grace of God for all men, including the reprobate; God’s gracious restraint of sin in the heart of unregenerate man; and the ability of unregenerate man to do truly good works. Included in the three points as a proof of God’s common grace is the teaching that God graciously makes a well-meant offer of salvation to all men who hear the preaching. Herman Hoeksema, Henry Danhof, and George M. Ophoff opposed common grace and the well-meant offer as false doctrine. They maintained that the grace of God is always particular grace for his elect alone, which grace actually accomplishes their salvation. God makes no well-meant offer in the preaching of the gospel, but makes a promiscuous call to repent and believe, and a particular promise of salvation only to those who believe, which believing is also God’s gracious gift. For those three men’s defense of the truth and opposition to the lie, they were deposed from office with their consistories by their respective classes in the CRC. The summary of 1924 is that the CRC adopted false doctrine and persecuted those prophets of God who maintained the truth and who rebuked the CRC for her errors.

To this day the URC remains responsible for all of the errors of the CRC in 1924. When the URC left the Christian Reformed Church in the 1990s, the URC’s reasons for leaving were not their objection to common grace, to the well-meant offer, or to the casting out of what would become the PRC. The decrees of the Synod of Kalamazoo in 1924 are still the decrees of the URC, for although the URC have separated themselves from the CRC, they have never separated themselves from 1924.

Therefore, between the PRC and the URC, there is ongoing schism. Because this schism is caused by Synod 1924 and its immediate aftermath, the blame for this schism lies at the feet of the URC. The removal of this schism can only be accomplished by the URC’s repentance for their false doctrine and for their ungodly treatment of Herman Hoeksema and the others. Such repentance on the part of the URC would be the beautiful fruit of God’s particular grace to rescue an entire denomination from long-standing, generational error. Such insistence by the PRC that there be such repentance would be the beautiful fruit of God’s particular grace that causes an entire denomination to love her persecutor and to seek her persecutor’s repentance. Until such time as the URC repents, there is no other topic to discuss at joint meetings. There is no possibility of a meeting in which “both parties explicitly recognized that work towards denominational unity would not be the goal of meeting” (Acts 2019, 101). There is no possibility of a meeting to discuss other important doctrinal issues, such as the Federal Vision, or important practical issues, such as money on the mission field. For the sake of God’s truth and for the sake of God’s grace, any official meeting between the PRC and the URC must deal with the only matter that matters between them. 

We respectfully bring this to the attention of the Contact Committee as a matter “that could be profitably discussed.”