Robert Burns’ memorable poem about a louse he spotted crawling on a woman’s bonnet in church contains the lines below. He imagines what the woman would do if she knew she had a louse in her hair. Since the Scottish original is unreadable to those unfamiliar with the language, I quote from an English translation:

Oh, would some Power give us the gift
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

It is important that the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) and her sisters understand how others see us. It might from many a blunder free us!

That gift was provided recently. How others see us was made clear in a recent exchange that was brought to my attention by Sonny Hernandez at Reforming America Ministries.* The exchange occurred on the Facebook page of Rev. Daniel Hyde that Sonny Hernandez follows. I should say followed. Reverend Hyde peevishly blocked Sonny from commenting on the page after an exchange between the two men.

Social media is not a domain I inhabit, but is one with which I am familiar. Characteristic of social media is that what would otherwise be kept out of a respectable publication by cautious editors is allowed free reign on social media. I doubt that what Reverend Hyde wrote would ever see the light of day in a book published by a respectable publishing house. It is actually quite sad that publishing houses today do not publish what men really think. This belongs to the age in which we live that is squeamish about theological controversy, so that editors keep a tight grip on language.

Martin Luther, for instance, as he wrote in his time could never get published in today’s publishing circles. He was much too fierce. He will be published as a historical curiosity, but if someone sent an article like Luther wrote against the pope and the false doctrines of Rome to about any magazine published today, the article would be rejected out of hand. 

So in this instance, I am thankful that on social media, Reverend Hyde opened up.

I doubt that what he wrote on social media would find a place in a meeting of representatives of the United Reformed Churches with representatives of the Protestant Reformed Churches. On social media men are free to be who they are and say what they think, whereas otherwise they keep a tight, buttoned-up, professional façade. Safe among professing friends, people open up on social media, and surprising things come out.

Rev. Daniel Hyde is a respected minister in the United Reformed Churches. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Puritan Reformed Seminary and at Mid-America Reformed Seminary. He has written many books. He is erudite and prolific. He runs a website and works other aspects of social media. He has many followers.

As background, it is necessary to understand that on November 13, 2012, at the thirty-eighth annual gathering of the ecumenical organization known as the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC), Daniel Hyde gave a speech in which he called for more unity among the various member churches of the organization. He chastised the churches of NAPARC for being like the factious and squabbling members of the church at Corinth. With that admonition in mind, he called for more unity among the member denominations and pleaded that the many doctrinal differences that divide the churches not be allowed to stand in the way of unity. On his own admission in that speech, the doctrinal differences that should not be allowed to hold up closer unity among the member churches of NAPARC include such important doctrines as creation, the atonement, and the relationship between justification and sanctification. He did not mention his own denomination’s division from the Christian Reformed Church over women in office. This is apparently still a legitimate reason for the separation of these two denominations. Instead of removing obstacles to unity through discussion of doctrinal differences and coming to an agreement about the meaning of the truth by exposing lies that militate against the truth and cause the division, Reverend Hyde’s proposal was akin to stepping over these doctrinal obstacles in order for the member churches to peacefully coexist with the doctrinal differences—a thing not possible, since unity can only be in the truth.

For me personally, I would insist on agreement that the truth is what is officially maintained in the Protestant Reformed Churches, especially regarding such topics as the covenant of grace and the rejection of common grace and the well-meant gospel offer. Relating this to my denomination and Reverend Hyde’s denomination, in any meeting of representatives of the two denominations, what would need to be discussed would not be current doctrinal issues or denominational struggles, for instance federal vision, but that the federal vision has its roots in 1924—in common grace and the well-meant offer of 1924, officially adopted in the Christian Reformed Church and still maintained by the United Reformed Churches.

I critiqued Reverend Hyde’s 2012 speech to NAPARC. His call for unity among the member churches was not unity in the truth, the only unity that scripture and the Reformed creeds know.

In early May of this year, for some reason Rev. Daniel Hyde posted his 2012 speech on his website and took to social media to promote it. Apparently, he is still inclined to the thinking he promoted in that speech to NAPARC, and he would still urge the organization to go in the same direction. In his renewed promotion of his speech, Reverend Hyde savaged my critique of his speech with a mocking little meme about the Protestant Reformed Churches.

I have no idea why in his mocking meme he made the issue about the PRC. The critique was my own. There may be others in these churches who agree with my critique as well. It is equally likely that some in the PRC want these churches to join NAPARC as member churches and desire close ties with the United Reformed Churches.

Certainly the Protestant Reformed Churches have made official declarations about NAPARC as an organization. NAPARC does not promote unity in the truth. NAPARC and its member churches say that they are faithful to the creeds. However, it is a demonstrable fact that these member churches have departed from the creeds in significant instances, such as common grace, the well-meant gospel offer, and the conditional covenant. It is a demonstrable fact that some denominations belonging to NAPARC have exonerated federal vision teachers, and others have failed to discipline these teachers and allowed them to flee to other denominations that are more favorable to their federal vision teachings and where they continue to spread their false doctrine.

But the critique that Daniel Hyde mocked was that of an individual. He used my critique as an opportunity to savage a denomination with which he disagrees about important gospel issues. He substituted mockery for argument.

When Sonny Hernandez called out Reverend Hyde on his attack, he responded with more mockery.

What does Rev. Daniel Hyde of the United Reformed Churches think of the Protestant Reformed Churches? I would add, what does Reverend Hyde of the United Reformed Churches think of the truth of sovereign and particular grace officially maintained by the Protestant Reformed Churches? How does he see us?

He wrote, “Talk to any former PRC member and you’ll learn their theology really quick; we’re the truth (sic) church on earth and if you leave us…we call that a cult and spiritual abuse nowadays.” He did not state what he thinks the PRC believe about someone who leaves the denomination. He leaves that to implication, an implication that makes these churches a cult and spiritually abusive.

His followers chimed in similarly. One, Steven Carr, wrote, “The PRC is a group of sectarian schismatics and not a faithful church. There, I said it.” And, of course, there were allegations of “hyper-Calvinism,” the tired old trope that is trotted out whenever the Protestant Reformed Churches’ rejection of the Arminian notion of the well-meant gospel offer is brought up and the opponents do not want to deal with the careful and nearly one hundred-year-old arguments raised against the well-meant gospel offer by Protestant Reformed theologians.

While I disagree with the comments of Reverend Hyde and his friends, the candor is appreciated. I am a member of the Protestant Reformed Churches. I love these churches. I love the truth they maintain. If someone sees these churches at cultic, unfaithful, spiritually abusive, sectarian schismatics who teach the false doctrine of hyper-Calvinism, then I for one would like to know that.

Then I also know that when there are professions to want to hear what the PRC have to say on some subject, that is not true either. Who wants to hear from cultic, unfaithful, spiritually abusive, sectarian schismatics who teach false doctrine? I would not. I do not even think it is possible to engage in a serious argument with such people. Daniel Hyde apparently thinks the same thing. He does not engage in real argument, but descends into mockery.

The mockery is serious. Disagreement about the truth is one thing. Opposition to the truth in the form of serious argument is one thing. Writing back and forth about what constitutes the truth is one thing. It is proper that the language in these exchanges and debates be spirited and vigorous, since the debates are about the truth. I wish there were more. Such a debate today must include questions about God’s covenant and salvation by grace. All these things are still in dispute. Especially, such a debate must include the questions of whether or not there are conditions in the covenant; whether God’s gospel is an offer of salvation graciously extended to all, or the gospel is the promiscuous preaching of a particular promise; whether God shows a common grace to all men and restrains sin in their hearts by his Holy Spirit, so that they can perform much good in the eyes of God, or God shows grace only to his elect; whether God has a sincere desire—will—to save all who hear the gospel, or God wills to save only his elect and brings all salvation into their possession by the gospel, while the rest he reprobates and by the gospel hardens them.

It is quite another thing entirely to mock churches that bear the name Reformed, that stand for the Reformed truth on these matters, and that testify sharply against errors and false doctrines that militate against the truth. Disagreement and mockery are two different things.

The seriousness of the mockery is that the Protestant Reformed Churches are true churches of Jesus Christ according to the marks of true churches. They preach the pure gospel, administer the sacraments according to Christ’s command, and exercise Christian discipline against the impenitent. They have stood courageously—and virtually alone—with a testimony to the gospel of pure, sovereign grace in a Reformed church world that has departed from that truth. They are true churches, or I would not be a member of them and a minister in them.

This also means that these churches have Christ in them. The local churches that make up the Protestant Reformed denomination are the kingdom of Christ in which he rules in the hearts and lives of his elect people by his Spirit and word and in which Christ is king. In its explanation of the petition for the coming of God’s kingdom in the Lord’s prayer, the Heidelberg Catechism says, “Rule us so by Thy Word and Spirit, that we may submit ourselves more and more to Thee; preserve and increase Thy church” (A 123). When the churches speak Christ’s truth, they speak his word and in his name. This is in harmony with Christ’s words to his disciples: “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” (Matt. 10:40). The application of the truth to the various issues and situations that confront the world and the church world—especially false ideas of church unity today—is a legitimate use of the truth. One can disagree with that. One can separate from that. One can depart from the truth. One can argue and oppose that truth. But to savage it with mockery is a different matter altogether.

Then there is the name calling. A cult? Not faithful? Sectarian schismatics? Hyper-Calvinists? With no evidence given? This is the tactic of dismissing with a name one you will not deign to answer. The enemies of Jesus Christ did that to him too. They called him a Nazarene and said that no prophet arises out of Galilee (Matt. 2:23; John 7:52). Instead of hearing Jesus and evaluating what they saw and heard and coming to the only possible conclusion, namely, that he is the Son of God, they dismissed him with a word! Their dismissal led to the mockery of his trial and the cross. So the Protestant Reformed Churches today are dismissed as a cult, perpetrators of spiritual abuse, sectarian schismatics, and unfaithful churches that teach the dread error of hyper-Calvinism. Thus, they are not worthy to be listened to or answered with an argument.

This also shows that whatever expressions of interest there may be within the United Reformed Churches in the Protestant Reformed Churches’ joining NAPARC, or in the PRC’s testimony against the doctrinal errors of the old and the new day within the quarters of the United Reformed Churches inhabited by Rev. Daniel Hyde and his friends, there is no interest at all in what the Protestant Reformed Churches have to say. They dismiss us.

At least we know what others think!