Dear Editor,

Thank you for your response to my letter in the May 2022 issue of Sword & Shield. Thank you for your response and especially your criticisms. It is responses like this that help us sharpen one another in the truth. I can see how my first letter was a bit confusing and contradictory, so I would like to begin by clarifying what I believe regarding the demand of the covenant and christian education.

In the first place, I believe the christian school is still grounded in the demand of the covenant, even though the school is not itself the demand of the covenant. The reason why parents (not you, not me, but the parents collectively) decide to start a school is because they see it as necessary for themselves as parents to fulfill their covenant callings. As I understand the first point of your response, you contend that there can be no ground for starting a christian school unless the school is itself required by the demand of the covenant. However, just because the school is not required does not mean that parents cannot start a school and that there cannot be any other proper grounds for starting one. Bible studies and special services are not required either, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have them to help us fulfill our callings to be daily in the Word, to edify one another, and to redeem the time. There is therefore nothing wrong with establishing schools as tools to aid in rearing one’s children and instructing them of God in every area of life. Nor must we necessarily conclude that parents are abdicating their calling by hiring teachers to stand in their place for a part of the day. Certainly, if the parents view the school and use the school as a replacement for their personal instruction of their children and figure they have fulfilled their calling simply by sending them to the christian school, then they would be abdicating their calling. But, when the schools and teachers are used as tools and aides rather than as replacements, then they can be properly used by parents without abdicating their calling, which I maintain does indeed belong to them as parents. If the parents decide that a school would be helpful, then they can form one. Such is not sin and no one has to legislate to them when they need to form one. But if all the parents in a church believe they can fulfill their calling best by homeschooling, then I don’t understand what would be wrong with that. Why is it wrong for all the parents in a church to decide to home-school rather than form a school?

In the second place, I believe you are correct that CO art 21 and the confessions have in mind instituted schools rather than home-schools when they refer to schools. However, I also do not believe that the meaning of the articles would be changed at all if the word “school” was replaced with “christian education.” Just as much as the history may show that “school” refers to instituted schools, so also does the history show that the concern of those writing the articles was not so much that a school was formed but that the children be educated in the fear of the Lord. (See The Church Order Commentary, Third Edition, by Idzerd Van Dellen, Martin Monsma, pg. 92ff and Notes on the Church Order, by Prof. Herman Hanko). When the CO was written, the schools were a given, and it was a given that the parents sent their children to the schools. This is because of the church/state relationship that existed in the Netherlands. The Netherlands was interested in raising up good, Reformed Netherlanders, so they delegated to the church the calling to make sure the education in the schools was Reformed. The main concern was not the school itself but the content of the education in the school. The purpose behind CO art. 21 was to make sure all the children were instructed from a Reformed perspective. The schools may have been the way the children were being instructed at that time, but the main concern was what they were being taught. Since consistories today still have the calling to oversee the spiritual life of the parents and children, they still have the calling to ensure that parents are fulfilling their calling to instruct their children in the fear of the Lord.

Furthermore, even the wording of CO art. 21 itself identifies instruction as the demand of the covenant rather than the school as the demand of the covenant. In CO art 21, “according to the demand of the covenant” is modifying “instructed,” not “school.” They must be “instructed according to the demand of the covenant,” which is to say that they must be instructed in the fear of the Lord. I do not understand how it is impossible for parents to rear their children in the fear of the Lord through homeschooling. Thus, while the CO and confessions clearly see christian schools as important, the deeper question we must answer is: why do they consider those schools so important? I believe the answer is not because the school itself is a demand of the covenant as such, but because they see them as instrumental in rearing the children in the fear of the Lord so that they can take up their callings in the church and so that men will be prepared for the ministry. Therefore, while schools mean instituted schools in the CO and the confessions, the overall meaning would not be lost if the word “school” was eliminated.

In the third place, I can see how using phrasing from Deuteronomy 6 in connection with the calling each of us has toward the children of the church is confusing. You are correct that I do not believe that Deuteronomy 6 is instructing all of Israel in what they are to do collectively as a body. As I explained in my first letter, I believe God in Deuteronomy 6 is instructing all of the fathers in Israel regarding their individual calling to rear their own children in the fear of the Lord. While this calling to rear a child in the fear of the Lord belongs to that child’s parents particularly, that does not mean that all the rest of the members of the church have no calling whatsoever toward that child. As I demonstrated from several other passages of scripture in my first letter, each of us in the church does have a calling toward every other member of the church, including each child, when we come into contact with each other. When God brings one of the children of the church upon my pathway, I have a calling to be a godly example, instruct and admonish them as the opportunity arises, and demonstrate care, love and compassion toward them. This is included in my calling to love God and my neighbor, which is the summary of the whole law, which God gave to all Israel in Deuteronomy 5. We all share in this common calling to love God and our neighbor, but the keeping of this calling is, nevertheless, performed by each of us individually, beginning in our individual hearts. You contend that God’s address to “Israel” in Deuteronomy 6 indicates that the following instruction is something they are to fulfill together as a body. However, the “Israel” being addressed in Deuteronomy 6 is the same “Israel” being addressed in Deuteronomy 5. If you could explain how God was indeed instructing all of Israel in what they were called to do collectively in the giving of the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy 5, that would be helpful to me in understanding how God’s calling to all Israel in Deuteronomy 6 is also a calling they are to perform collectively rather than individually. To help me understand how the christian school is itself the demand of the covenant, therefore, I would appreciate it if you could explain at least one of the following: 1. How my understanding of Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78 as set forth in my first letter is in error, 2. How the school is an ordinance of God as the way He has ordained that parents are to instruct their children, which ordinance therefore is required or 3. How it is impossible for parents to fulfill their covenantal calling to instruct their children in the fear of the Lord through homeschooling.

As for your last editorial in the May 2022 issue, I can see how the truth of election and the truth that the children belong to God explains why they must be instructed in the fear of the Lord, but I do not see how it explains why they must be instructed in a school and why parents must cooperate in this instruction. Could you further explain how the truth of election requires that parents cooperate in instructing their children in a christian school?

Sincerely in Christ,

Sara Doezema

REPLY

I do not agree with the perspective of this letter that the writer and the editor are sharpening one another by our correspondence. My perspective is that the writer and the editor have a sharp doctrinal disagreement with one another and that we are engaged in mortal combat for the destruction of one of our positions and the establishment of the other position. I know that this may sound harsh to some, just as some apparently considered my previous reply to Miss Doezema to be harsh.¹ For what it is worth, I do not intend to be harsh to Miss Doezema personally. But I do intend to be clearly and sharply Reformed. I also intend that any doctrinal position that is not Reformed be driven from our midst. I believe that Miss Doezema shares this intention. Miss Doezema writes with a certain grace of style and deference of tone that may be lacking in my writing, but her letter is still very clear that the position that I am advocating is unbiblical. The letter is very clear that I must abandon my doctrinal position on the school and that I must allow for a biblical and confessional right to homeschool. In our correspondence neither one of us is at some stage of sharpening the other, but we are locked in an attempt to overthrow the error that we perceive the other to hold. It is in that spirit of controversy on behalf of the truth that I intend to write this reply, God being gracious. In order to make clear that I am attacking a doctrine and not a person, I intend to refer in my reply to “the letter” and not to “Miss Doezema.”

The issue for which the letter contends is that the parent alone has the covenant calling to rear his own children. The demand of the covenant is merely Christian content in education, but the demand of the covenant is not the Christian school. The parent may decide to have a Christian school, but he may just as legitimately decide to homeschool. Because the demand of the covenant is not the school, no one may require the parent to have a Christian school.

I believe the christian school is still grounded in the demand of the covenant, even though the school is not itself the demand of the covenant. The reason why parents (not you, not me, but the parents collectively) decide to start a school is because they see it as necessary for themselves as parents to fulfill their covenant callings.

If the parents decide that a school would be helpful, then they can form one. Such is not sin and no one has to legislate to them when they need to form one. But if all the parents in a church believe they can fulfill their calling best by homeschooling, then I don’t understand what would be wrong with that. Why is it wrong for all the parents in a church to decide to home-school rather than form a school?

I consider this position to be entirely contrary to the Reformed confessions, the Reformed Church Order, and the Reformed doctrine of God’s covenant of grace with believers and their seed. I have written and spoken about this at length already, as has Reverend Langerak, so I will not repeat every argument. Let me only say here that the letter’s position and my position cannot exist together in the church of Christ. One is Reformed, the other is not. One is confessional, the other is not. One is love, the other is not. It is up to each individual and family to decide where they stand. If one agrees with my position, then that one is Reformed Protestant. If one agrees with the letter’s position, then that one is not Reformed Protestant. Such an one must either be instructed so that he understands his own confessions or he must leave the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). (And before anyone shouts, “Hierarchy!” those who agree with the letter must leave not because I say so or because I am the measure of what is Reformed Protestant but because the Reformed confessions and Church Order of the Reformed Protestant Churches do not allow for the letter’s position.)

As for the specifics of the letter, here are my brief replies.

First, I maintain that if the school is not a demand of the covenant, then no parent has a right to form a school. The letter’s examples of a Bible study or special services are entirely beside the point. In a school teachers stand in the place of parents. That is not the case in a Bible study or special services. God says to you, “Heed my word.” You don’t send your friend to church in place of you. You go to church, and you perhaps go to Bible study. So also in a school, if God says to the parent alone, “You teach your children,” then the parent is not at liberty to say to God, “Well, I sent my friend in place of me.” God says, “You rear your children,” and rear your children you must, without anyone standing in your place. This is why when one denies that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant, one must eventually destroy the school. The homeschooling movement and the Christian school cannot exist side by side. So I say again to our readers, if you are of the homeschooling movement, either repent of your loveless independentism or leave the Reformed Protestant Churches. (And before anyone cries, “Hierarchy!” I say this not because it is my denomination to order around, thanks be to God, but because the Reformed confessions of the RPC do not allow the homeschooling movement to exist in the RPC.)

Second, the letter is ignorant of the history of Christian schools. The letter proposes that the real concern of our Reformed fathers was not schools as such but merely that the content of the children’s instruction be Christian. So, the theory goes, when the fathers formulated article 21 of the Church Order, their references to “schoolmasters” and later to “schools” merely reflected the local circumstances in the Netherlands. Schools just happened to be a given at the time. But the fathers could just as easily have written about “homeschools” if they wanted because their only concern was the content of the children’s instruction.

This theory is preposterously wrong, but it is popular. It is the favorite theory of those who want to divorce “the demands of the covenant” in article 21 from “good Christian schools” in article 21. If one can assert that the only point of article 21 is that there be Christian instruction, then “schools” can mean anything. Any place where Christian instruction is given is now a school. How absurd this is! If you give Christian instruction in your home, then your home is a school? Well, what about when I pray before eating pizza at Chuck E. Cheese? In my prayer I have given Christian instruction to my children. Is Chuck E. Cheese now a good Christian school referred to in article 21 of the Church Order? Absurd!

Here is clarity. A home is a home. A school is a school. Chuck E. Cheese is Chuck E. Cheese. I may give Christian instruction in all of them, but that does not make all of them a school.

The truth is that the concern of our Reformed fathers was just as much that there be schools as it was that there be Christian instruction. Schools and Christian instruction were inseparable for our fathers. The schools were the institutions where the covenant children would be reared in the Reformed and Christian faith. Our fathers’ insistence on schools was not merely a reflection of circumstances as they happened to find them in their own day. Their insistence on schools was deliberate. The only difficulty in demonstrating this is to limit oneself to a quotation or two, when one could just as easily quote the entire history of the Reformation. Here is a quotation from Luther:

When schools prosper, the Church remains righteous and her doctrine pure…Young pupils and students are the seed and source of the Church. If we were dead, whence would come our successors, if not from the schools? For the sake of the Church we must have and maintain Christian schools.²

Here is a quotation from a historian regarding the influence of the Christian schools that the Reformation established: “Everywhere the evangelical Reformation flourished, Christian school education was right there on the front line and provided depth and durability to its noble objectives.”³

The theory that our Reformed fathers were only interested in Christian content is wrong. This theory should stop being peddled to us as if it were great knowledge. Our Reformed fathers required schools.

Third, the whole debate about which phrase modifies which in article 21 of the Church Order has worn thin for me. We could debate whether “demands of the covenant” is about schools until Gabriel’s horn sounds, but advocates for homeschooling will not accept that it is, just as I will not accept that it is not. We could debate about whether “schools” means schools until we are interred, but advocates for homeschooling will keep the term up for grabs, just as I will insist that the term is not up for grabs.

Happily, we do not have to debate forever about article 21. The debate about article 21 of the Church Order is settled by Lord’s Day 38 of the Heidelberg Catechism. What does God require? That the schools be maintained. It is as simple and clear as that. God requires schools. Not merely Christian education. Not a homeschool. But schools. God requires schools. To what purpose, then, is the home-school movement’s endless wrangling about article 21? The Reformed confession is that God requires schools.

Therefore, if you want to be Reformed Protestant, you must not debate and wrangle about article 21. And if you do not want schools to be the demand of the covenant in article 21, then you are not Reformed Protestant. I wish you would be instructed on the matter from your own confession in Lord’s Day 38. I maintain that it is your duty to be instructed on this matter. But if you will not heed this instruction, then you should separate from the RPC, go your own way, and have your own church where “schools” can mean whatever you want it to mean. As for the RPC, God being gracious to us, we will happily and gratefully hold our confession in Lord’s Day 38: God requires schools.

Fourth, the constant agitation over Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78 is fruitless. I have explained how these passages are the biblical foundation for the Reformed doctrine of the school. The letter takes issue with that explanation, offers its own explanation again, and asks for clarification on how these passages teach the Christian school as demand of the covenant.

This correspondence is becoming like the controversy between Baptists and the Reformed over the doctrine of infant baptism. There is no verse in the Bible that explicitly says, “Baptize infants.” The doctrine of infant baptism is certainly found throughout the scriptures and can be decisively demonstrated from the scriptures. The doctrine of infant baptism is established by the biblical doctrine of God’s covenant with believers and their seed. Reformed churches confess in their confessions (Belgic Confession 34 and Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 27) what they have found in the scriptures regarding infant baptism. The Baptists hear all of this explained to them again and again, but they still do not accept it. They complain that the verses that we cite do not explicitly say, “Baptize infants.”

So it is with the biblical basis for the Christian school. The doctrine that the Christian school is a demand of the covenant is found throughout scripture and can be decisively demonstrated from the scriptures. The doctrine of the school as demand of the covenant is established by the biblical doctrine of God’s covenant with believers and their seed. Reformed churches confess in their confessions (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 38) what they have found in the scriptures regarding the schools. Those who are opposed to the school as demand of the covenant hear all of this explained to them again and again, but they still do not accept it. They basically complain that the verses that we cite do not explicitly say, “The school is the demand of the covenant.”

If there are readers opposed to my explanation of Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78 and who are in favor of the letter’s explanation, my reexplanation of the passages (followed no doubt by another reexplanation of the passages and another) is not going to advance anything. If anyone is interested in being instructed on the matter, I highly recommend that he listen to Rev. Nathan Langerak’s speech given for Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church in Iowa.⁴

There are members of the RPC who are at a crossroads. The dividing point is the doctrine of the Christian school. The choice is clear. Either maintain the stand of the RPC as that stand is expressed in her confessions and Church Order or find or form a church that will maintain your stand.