Amalgamation

In the November 15, 2015, issue of The Standard Bearer, there appeared a letter to the editor that I wrote, seeking clarification for a statement that editor Prof. Barry Gritters wrote in his October 1, 2015, editorial. The letter I wrote and Professor Gritters’ response, quoted below, serve as an introduction to this article on the increasing amalgamation of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) and her members with other nominally Reformed denominations and their members, especially in the West Michigan area.

 

In the spirit of “iron sharpening iron,” there is a statement in Prof. Gritters’ October 1, 2015, editorial that I would like you to clarify.

Near the end of the editorial you wrote, “We will commit ourselves to living among the people of God who are members of the church”—first of our own congregation; then of our denomination; and “so too the church members who are closest to our denomination in confession and walk” (emphasis added, AJC). It is this last phrase that I would like you to clarify.

At present, the PRC, as represented by her Contact Committee with the yearly approval of synods, have no ecumenical relations with any Reformed or Presbyterian churches in North America because of significant doctrinal differences. Regarding the URC who, some may argue, are closest to us doctrinally, the official position of the PRC is:

1) As regards the creeds, the PRC are convinced that the creeds address such matters as common grace, the well-meant offer, and a conditional covenant, and in fact that the creeds condemn these errors. The CERCU [of the URC] insists that these matters are not confessional, and thus one may maintain or condemn them and still be within the bounds of the Reformed confessions. For the PRC to accept that position would not only be a compromising of all that we stand for, but would also deny the work of the Spirit of truth who has continued to guide Christ’s church into the truth. This we are emphatically unwilling to do (2002 Acts of Synod, 21, 22).

I am left with the impression that you are calling us to put into practice (living among) as individuals and families that which we will not do, for significant reasons, as a denomination. The church members you are calling us to live among are sincere members of denominations with which we have serious doctrinal differences—at least this is our official position.

Living among carries the idea of friendship, fellowship, and walking together in agreement (Amos 3:3). Am I to understand your exhortation to live among those “who confess like precious faith” in the same sense that I am to live among “the church members who are closest to our denomination in confession and walk”? Do you have any particular denominations in mind?

Sincerely,

Aaron J. Cleveland¹

 

Response:

The people of God must be able to see the significant difference between how a denomination may act in its official sister relationships and how individuals may act in their personal friendships. Although a denominational stance certainly sends a message to the membership in that denomination (there are differences!), it does not mandate what these members may do in their personal friendships. It is a mistake to argue this way: Because the PRC may not engage in official relationships with another denomination, PRC members may have no friendship with members of this other denomination.

To be clear: the editorial calls the membership of the PRC to live in the church. That is the main point of the article. Then, the three concentric circles of friendships, beginning with the inner circle, and with an order of priority suggested, was deliberate: First, Christians fellowship with members of their own congregation. We give priority to this. This is the body to which we belong and to which we give our energy. Second, as we have time and opportunity, we fellowship with other members of our denomination. This is sensible because we live in complete agreement with them. It is also natural when many PRCs are found in a certain locale. What with shared church functions, shared school functions, and friendships established in those schools, this is reasonable and healthy. But it does not have the same priority as our own congregational life. The third circle—and this will obviously have a lower, a “third-level” priority—refers to fellowship with other non-PRC Christians, beginning with those who are closest to us.

To have this as my “third level” is a recognition that they are not those whom I want closest to me, because there are differences that I do not want to influence my children. Scripture calls believers to fellowship with “the faithful in the land” (Ps. 101). To the extent that a Christian is less faithful to God according to my judgments, to that extent my fellowship will be less close. Thus, Mr. Cleveland’s question is easily answered: No, not “in the same sense,” as he asked.

But to put other Christians in a circle of friendship is also important. They are Christians. Even though we may believe that they are mistaken in some areas of doctrine or life, we do not judge them to be non-Christians. To refuse fellowship with them would be to say, I will have no fellowship with a brother.

To underline this point, I call the readers’ attention to an official decision of the PRC (Classis East, 1946) to allow, under certain circumstances, members of non-Protestant Reformed Churches (and, it is to be understood, non-sister-churches) even to partake of communion in a PRC. “…Members of other churches, not in all respects agreeing with our Protestant Reformed faith, may be admitted to our communion table….” Given that, it would be wrong to say, I will have no friendships, at any level, with them.

To conclude: to answer Mr. Cleveland differently would be leading the PRC into sectarianism, would not be following in the footsteps of the PRC “fathers,” and would be radicalizing the PRC to our ruin. Read the Belgic Confession, Articles 27 and 29 and remember the circumstances in which this was written.

—BLG²

A spirit of amalgamation is working powerfully among the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches today. The PRC and her members have ceased to be a warring denomination and people. That the church is militant upon this earth and that her members are engaged in combat against “mortal enemies” (Lord’s Day 52, Q&A 127, in Confessions and Church Order, 139) are lost in the PRC. And where a love for the truth is gone and warfare ceases, the inevitable result is amalgamation. By amalgamation I mean “the process in which separate organizations unite to form a larger organization or group.”³

This spirit of amalgamation is described in scripture:

3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

9. Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

10. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

12. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess. 2:3, 9–12)

3. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Tim. 4:3–4)

The entities that are increasingly combining and uniting are the various Reformed and Presbyterian denominations that have traditionally claimed to hold to the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, and the Westminster Confession of Faith. The members of the PRC are active and enthusiastic in their involvement in this process of amalgamation, as seen by their participation in many organizations, gatherings, and events that have taken place recently. To this I will return later in the article.

But first, I turn to Professor Gritters’ response in order to understand why this spirit of amalgamation is at work in the PRC. Professor Gritters is careful to make distinctions between the denomination and the individual and between official church relationships and personal friendships. His distinctions open the way for members of the denomination to live as they please, divorced from the doctrines to which the PRC officially holds. For a couple generations now, the members of the PRC have been taught that they may live as hypocrites. As a denomination and officially—that is, on paper—the PRC condemns the doctrines of common grace, the well-meant offer, and a conditional covenant.⁴ As individuals and unofficially, members in their everyday lives and relationships are free to live divorced from what they officially confess to be the truth.

Professor Gritters defines what the culture within the PRC has been for a long time. This culture explains why it took many years, even whole generations, for Protestant Reformed schools to be started. This explains why opposition to Protestant Reformed schools was allowed to fester in congregations for years. This explains why Protestant Reformed parents continued without being disciplined to use Christian Reformed schools when Protestant Reformed schools were available. In part, this explains the rampant culture of abuse that has grown like cancer within the PRC. The official confession of the church is one thing. What the individual members confess and how they live is an entirely different thing. Hypocrisy.

And this hypocrisy is not just the way of life for a few of the “mixed multitude” who live on the fringes of the PRC. This is the culture of the leadership in the PRC, in the seminary and in the consistory rooms. From years of personal experience with elders in the PRC, I am aware of their ability to separate the official confession of the church from the daily lives of the members. This is true especially regarding living an antithetical life. Tell a Protestant Reformed elder that you will not maintain fellowship with your so-called nice but impenitent family member because that family member belongs to a church that confesses common grace, the well-meant offer, and unbiblical divorce and remarriage. The response that you will likely get is this: “It is not so much what he believes; it is how he lives.” This word was brought to me on an official visit from two Protestant Reformed elders.

This anecdote illustrates the results of the distinctions that Professor Gritters makes in his response. Later in his response Professor Gritters opens the door even wider regarding maintaining friendships with those who confess and live out of their false doctrine. He writes, “We may believe that they are mistaken in some areas of doctrine or life.” We must “put” these other Christians in our “circle of friendship.” Professor Gritters never explains how this works. He speaks of doctrine in a very tentative way. If a person is only “mistaken” regarding the false doctrine he believes, that is a lot more palatable than maintaining a friendship with someone whom I know full well sincerely holds to false doctrine.

But what kind of friend am I if I allow others whom I put in my “circle of friendship” to go on year after year confessing and living out of their false doctrine, supposedly by mistake? Do I not immediately bring the word of God to that friend to show him the error of his way? And that word will have one of two effects. The friend will be brought to a right understanding of the truth, and we will rejoice together in the truth and in genuine brotherhood, or that word will harden that friend in his commitment to false doctrine and maintaining friendship will become impossible because of his enmity against the truth. Whether he agrees with the truth brought to him or whether he rejects that truth, he ceases to be “mistaken.” Do friends not walk together because they are agreed? (Amos 3:3). But Professor Gritters wants the unoffensive category of “mistaken,” leaving the door wide open for dangerous and corroding friendships that go on for years. There is the truth on one side and false doctrine on the other, with a wide swath of “mistaken” in the middle that allows for amalgamation and the certain corruption of the truth by its mixture with lies.

The amalgamation of the members of the PRC with members of other apostate Reformed denominations that clearly maintain false doctrine is plainly seen in gatherings and events that recently have taken place in the West Michigan area. The Protestant Reformed people are enthusiastic participants in these gatherings. The first of these gatherings is Men Sing Grand Rapids. Participants include Netherlands Reformed, Heritage Reformed, United Reformed, Free Reformed, and Protestant Reformed men and boys. According to the website of Men Sing, the

vision is to foster a reformed community where music is a shared passion and joy. We believe in the power of music to bring people together. Men Sing Grand Rapids aims to gather men to enjoy the singing of Psalms and Hymns in the heart of Grand Rapids.⁵

Dr. Mark Kelderman, of the Heritage Reformed Congregations, in his opening remarks at the first meeting of Men Sing Grand Rapids, stated, “We know the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts by faith through repentance through the work of the Spirit.”⁶ No doubt all the Protestant Reformed men gathered there that evening knew that they were in like-minded company when Dr. Kelderman added the words “through repentance.” Both Prof. Brian Huizinga and Prof. Cory Griess have ended these bald-faced ecumenical gatherings with their glowing prayers. The new generation of Protestant Reformed leadership is leading, and the members are following.

Another organization growing in the West Michigan area is the West Michigan Conservative Reformed Young Adults (WMCRYA). Young people from the United Reformed Churches, Heritage Reformed Congregations, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Christian Reformed Church, Messiah Independent Reformed Church, and PRC participate in WMCRYA-sponsored events. These events include Bible studies and hymn sings at various local churches, including Protestant Reformed churches. That Protestant Reformed young people study the Bible and sing hymns with common-grace-and-well-meant-offer-confessing young people is not shocking. They are following their leaders.

What is shocking is that the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, published by the faculty of the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary, publishes material expressly denying the amalgamation of the PRC and her members with other modernist denominations. As a matter of principle, Prof. Cory Griess, Prof. Barrett Gritters, Prof. Brian Huizinga, and Prof. Douglas Kuiper should not have published Prof. David Engelsma’s April 2026 article in the journal. In his article, “John Bolt, Common Grace, the PRCA, and Theological Modernism,” Professor Engelsma paints a picture of the PRC that is completely at odds with reality. And the current Protestant Reformed professors know this. Writes Engelsma:

From the Netherlands, the infection of modernism in the form of a common grace uniting church and world has spread to the CRC. It threatens all the supposedly “conservative” Reformed and Presbyterian churches that have been influenced by Kuyper and the CRC to embrace the doctrine of a common grace of God. They have the essence of modernism at their vitals. This is, in reality, the issue for the churches of NAPARC, not the issue of women in church office, which is merely a symptom of the real issue, and not the most important, but the issue of common grace, which obliterates the antithesis between church and world.

The most important aspect of the three points of common grace adopted by the CRC in 1924 is its main message of a non-saving grace of God that unites church and world. This is the introduction of the essence of modernism into the CRC…

I conclude by observing that this judgment of the three points of common grace adopted by the CRC in 1924 demands a certain analysis of the PRCA and their history. They are not merely another “conservative” Reformed denomination of churches. They are rather the one denomination in North America, if not in the world, that stands up today against the massive, malignant movement of theological and spiritual modernism. They deny that Christ and the world are one in grace. They confess that church and world are radically separated, are in fact at war. And what accounts for the separation and warfare is the grace of God, which is particular…

One small Reformed denomination of churches clearly, boldly, and without (fatal) compromise wars against modernism, resisting its fundamental principle. At a time in history when all other churches are preaching commonality, the PRCA uncompromisingly confess the antithesis…

It [the issue in 1924] was more significant than the PRCA have been aware. But now it is the solemn calling of the PRCA to recognize the strategic position in which God has placed them, and in their defense of particular grace, and condemnation of common grace, vigorously to carry out the calling of this position. They must not weary in this well-doing.⁷

Professor Engelsma notes that modernism in the form of common grace

threatens all the supposedly “conservative” Reformed and Presbyterian churches that have been influenced by Kuyper and the CRC to embrace the doctrine of a common grace of God. They have the essence of modernism at their vitals.

Engelsma later calls modernism “malignant.” Professor Engelsma needs to be honest and admit that this deadly malignancy has consumed the “vitals” of these supposedly “conservative” Reformed and Presbyterian churches. They are as dead as the Christian Reformed Church. And everyone in the PRC, from the current professors to the young people, is perfectly fine with blatant violation of the antithesis in the form of amalgamation with those who profess false doctrine. In reality, the leaders and members of the PRC demonstrate that they are doctrinally one with these other denominations.

A third example of this amalgamation is the recent participation of Prof. Brian Huizinga in a Turning Point USA Faith (TPUSA Faith) event at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This amalgamation brings the PRC into the realm of political activism. From the TPUSA Faith website:

TPUSA Faith exists to serve the American church by resourcing Christians across the nation to boldly stand for truth, liberty, and The Kingdom. We believe in the Gospel, and an outworking of the Gospel is for the Church to be salt and light in every aspect of life, including the public square. When the Church stands boldly for biblical truth and puts its faith into action, our nation will experience a God-breathed transformation as it turns towards Him. In everything we do, we aim to glorify Christ.⁸

Given the “God-breathed transformation…our nation will experience” because the Church is “salt and light,” “The Kingdom” to which TPUSA Faith refers is not the spiritual kingdom of God but a postmillennial kingdom established by man upon this earth. And make no mistake, this is a kingdom of man brought about by the cooperation of the false church and world-political powers. This kingdom is, and increasingly will become, the kingdom of antichrist.

Noah preached righteousness, and the false church and the world were hardened in sin, so that God “spared not the old world…bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Pet. 2:5). In Noah’s day

11. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

12. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

13. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen. 6:11–13)

We live in the days of Noah today. The preaching of the righteousness of Christ, the gospel, does not bring about “a God-breathed transformation” in “our nation.” But the gospel brings upon the true church the hatred of the false church and the world. Those who actually preach righteousness—not man’s righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ—know this. That Prof. Brian Huizinga was invited to speak by a chapter of TPUSA Faith at the thoroughly modernist Calvin University is telling. That the current professor of dogmatics at the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary accepted this offer and spoke tells you exactly where the PRC is today.

Officially, as Professor Engelsma would like you to think, the PRC stands against common grace and modernism. Officially, as Professor Huizinga would like you to think, the PRC pays tribute to Herman Hoeksema and his Reformed amillennialism.⁹ Unofficially, and in reality, the PRC and her members increasingly and enthusiastically amalgamate with apostate Reformed Christianity.

As in the days of Noah, righteousness—the righteousness of Christ alone for salvation—was preached in the PRC, and that righteousness was expelled out of the denomination. That which man must do to be saved was put in its place. The result is amalgamation with the false church and the world.