Introduction

On January 17, 2021, I was deposed from the office of minister of the word in Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church. I had held the office of minister there since December 31, 2017, the Lord graciously giving me three years to preach the gospel to his sheep in Byron Center.

If my deposition only affected me personally, I would not be writing about it. I have no desire to talk about myself in these editorials. However, the decision of the assemblies to depose me was an attack on the word of God and Christ’s sheep. Therefore, I am compelled to answer, even if that means undertaking the distasteful task of writing about myself.

During those three years in Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church, by God’s grace, I fed the flock the sound doctrine of the word of God. I preached the sound doctrine of the word of God in the pulpit, I taught the sound doctrine of the word of God in the catechism room, I brought the sound doctrine of the word of God privately in my study and in the homes of God’s people, I led in the discussion of the sound doctrine of the word of God in Bible studies, I counseled according to sound doctrine in the consistory room, and I spoke and voted according to sound doctrine in the ecclesiastical assemblies. In its own way, the Protestant Reformed denomination testified that my doctrine was sound even as it deposed me from office. The official charge against me includes this declaration about my last sermons in Byron Center: “These statements are not false doctrine” (Minutes of Classis East, January 13–15, 2021, article 37.II.A).

During those three years that God gave me in Byron Center, I especially applied the sound doctrine of his word in warning and reproving Christ’s sheep with regard to the danger of false doctrine that threatened them. Within their own denomination, an error had arisen that compromised the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even after this error had been exposed, men in the denomination labored mightily to minimize the error, to protect the teachers and defenders of the error, and even to continue in the error. Readers of Sword and Shield are familiar with this controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), for it has been the continual subject of the editorials and many other articles since the magazine’s birth in June 2020. There is no more grievous danger to Christ’s sheep than a compromise of the gospel. Churches that compromise the gospel do so to their own destruction under the righteous judgment of God. Therefore, as a watchman upon the walls of Zion, I cried warning upon warning to God’s people in Byron Center and to the Protestant Reformed denomination. I daresay that anyone who has paid even a moment’s attention to the controversy in the PRC has heard me crying this warning to them.

I do not write any of this to boast (and God forgive all my pride). I have nothing of myself of which to boast, for I am prone to every error against which I have preached and written. I write this with humility and gratitude to God for his faithfulness to his servant, for he has caused me to cry a warning for three years, even in the face of the wrath and displeasure and opposition of many men and eventually of an entire denomination. I also write this with love and with grief for the congregation and denomination that I once served. By casting me out, Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church and the denomination as a whole have declared the biblical warnings of God’s word that I brought to be sin and wickedness, and God will judge those who call his word sin.

If anyone in the PRC who has heard my doctrine even a little for the last three years is still listening, then take heed: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:29–31).

In spite of my sound doctrine, and especially because of my warnings and reproofs based on that sound doctrine of the word of God, the Protestant Reformed Churches cast me out as a divider of the churches. The charge against me—the charge against my preaching of God’s word—was public schism. On this charge I was deposed from office and barred from the table of the Lord.

I contend that my deposition from office and my discipline was unholy and unjust. I contend that the charge against me was false. In these editorials I intend to give an answer to that charge. I do not intend to enter into all of the details of my deposition, which are ugly and disgusting. Those details must be brought to light for the protection of Christ’s sheep who remain exposed to the wickedness that transpired. Elder Dewey Engelsma is currently doing tremendous work exposing the hypocrisy and iniquity of the whole business in his blog, A Strait Betwixt Two, which I highly recommend. The blog can be accessed at astraitbetwixttwo.com. Much of the background and many of the details concerning my deposition can be found there, from the firsthand point of view of an elder in the church of Jesus Christ who witnessed exactly what treachery was carried out behind closed doors. My focus in these editorials will not be those things that are already being covered very well. Rather, my focus will be the specific charge and grounds that the assemblies brought against me and for which they deposed me.

Shifting Grounds

The great difficulty of giving an answer to the charge against me is that the grounds for my deposition were constantly changing. Every time another assembly rendered judgment against me, it wrote its own new set of grounds. By the time I was actually deposed, there were at least three distinct sets of grounds for my suspension and deposition: the original grounds written by the church visitors of Classis East; the grounds written by Trinity Protestant Reformed Church as a neighboring consistory; and the grounds written by Classis East itself. One could make a case that there was also a fourth set of grounds in the additional grounds written by the elders of Byron Center’s consistory after they had adopted the church visitors’ grounds but before the consistory went to Trinity. One could even make a case that there was a fifth set of grounds in Byron Center’s answer to my protest against my suspension. Whether there were three, four, or five sets of grounds, there certainly was not one set of grounds. Every assembly that judged the case wrote its own new set of grounds.

It would be one thing if the grounds were merely tweaked or clarified. But each set of grounds is a new set. In some places the grounds of these bodies do overlap. But in many places the grounds are very different. Some grounds included by one body are entirely ignored by another body. Some grounds used by one body are used by another body but explained differently. In at least one case, the grounds blatantly contradict each other. The grounds used by the last body—Classis East—are especially different from the grounds used by the previous bodies. Classis East’s grounds include material that was brand new to the case and that had not been brought to it by Byron Center, Trinity, or the church visitors but was written by classis on the spot. The one thing consistent from beginning to end is that each body that rendered judgment against me wrote its own new set of grounds.

The constant rewriting of grounds indicates two things. First, the grounds for my suspension and deposition were never sufficient to support the charge against me. If the grounds for my suspension and deposition were solid, meaningful, true grounds, each body that judged me would have been able to stand on those grounds. There would have been one set of grounds from the beginning to the end that would have proved the charge against me to be true. Every assembly that looked at those grounds would have been able to see that they supported the charge. Every assembly that judged the case would have been able to speak with one voice on the basis of the same grounds. The fact that each assembly could not stand on the grounds brought to it, but had to write its own set of grounds to stand on, demonstrates that the grounds were never sufficient. The assemblies could not speak with one voice together but spoke with three or four or five different voices by producing their own grounds. When each assembly wrote its own new set of grounds, each assembly was by that fact declaring that it could not proceed on the basis of the grounds brought to it. If each assembly had been able to proceed on the basis of one set of grounds, it would have. But no assembly could do so, and so each had to write its own grounds. 

But the grounds are all-important! If the grounds are no good, then the charge is no good! If the grounds are insufficient, then the charge cannot stand. It is extremely unjust for an ecclesiastical assembly to hear a charge against a man, find the grounds against him to be insufficient for the assembly to stand on, and yet condemn the man anyway. It is not only unjust but extremely dishonest for an ecclesiastical assembly then to prop up a bad charge against a man by constructing a different set of supporting grounds. If the grounds are so rotten that they cannot support a charge against the man, the assembly must deny the charge, not go in search of new lumber to brace the bad charge.

The second thing that the constant rewriting of grounds indicates is that grounds were never truly necessary for my deposition. The verdict was settled long before the process of deposing me ever began. The charge against me was that I was guilty of the sin of public schism in the church of Jesus Christ. The charge of schism has been swirling around my head for years. The charge of schism was made against me publicly in letters from consistories to their congregations regarding my writing in Sword and Shield; that charge was made against me privately to Byron Center’s consistory by the separate charges of three Protestant Reformed consistories; that charge was made against me to Byron Center’s consistory and to Classis East by the editors of the Standard Bearer; that charge was made against me privately to Byron Center’s consistory by the protest of a Protestant Reformed individual; that charge was made against me to Byron Center’s consistory and to Classis East by another Protestant Reformed individual; that charge was made against me privately by at least two Protestant Reformed ministers, neither of whom followed up by bringing it to Byron Center’s consistory; a similar charge was made against me privately to Byron Center’s consistory by the Theological School Committee of the PRC; that or a similar charge was behind the decision of three Protestant Reformed churches (that I know of) to bar me from their pulpits so that I was not allowed to fulfill my classical appointments to them in their vacancies. And these were only the official charges and decisions, to say nothing of private conversations. So constantly has the charge of schism been lobbed at me these last couple of years that I am almost sure that I am forgetting an incident or three in this list. Everyone had his own reasons, but all of the reasons had to do with my preaching and writing. The point is that everyone already “knew” that I was guilty of schism long before the process of deposing me ever began. By the time the process of deposing me began, grounds were hardly necessary. The charge of schism was going to be upheld with this set of grounds, that set of grounds, or no set of grounds at all.

How else does one explain that throughout the process of my deposition, no one ever even raised a concern that there were several sets of grounds? That no one ever questioned why there were grounds that flatly contradicted each other? That no one ever questioned why so much new material was introduced at classis that had not been brought to it by Byron Center or by Trinity or by the church visitors? That no one ever questioned why classis had ignored some things that the consistories brought? At a classis where nearly every single piece of advice was recommitted at least once, classis never even considered recommitting the advice on my deposition. Why not? Because the verdict was in before classis ever met. Classis could have voted after it deliberated, before it deliberated, or before it even convened, and the vote would have been the same. When everyone already knows that a man is guilty, the grounds can be this, that, anything, or nothing.

But the grounds are all-important! If the grounds are no good, then the charge is no good! If the grounds have to be added to, subtracted from, and rewritten by every assembly that gets ahold of them, then the charge cannot stand. When the grounds are not consistent, then everyone who already thinks he knows that a man is guilty ought to reconsider whether he actually knows that the man is guilty. If the verdict was so sure, then why were the grounds so unsure? If the decision was so firm, then why were the grounds so malleable?

When the church is exercising discipline, her grounds may not be shifting but must be firm. Discipline is the church’s activity of putting a man to death spiritually and ecclesiastically. It is the activity of binding a man’s sin and guilt on him so that he knows in his heart and soul that he is outside of Christ and that he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven except he repent. When the church disciplines, she puts a man to death. When she does so on solid grounds, then she puts that man to death according to the will and command of Jesus Christ. But when the church disciplines on shifting grounds, she murders that man. Spiritually and ecclesiastically she sheds his innocent blood.

Such was my discipline by the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Still, there that charge of schism sits, waiting to be answered, with all of its changing grounds heaped around it.

Next time, then, let us take hold of that charge and give it an answer.