Prof. Ronald Cammenga recently released a shabby screed, venting what I can only surmise is months and perhaps years of pent-up choler. His screed is printed following this article.
As a purely formal observation, I would advise that in the future he might consider engaging the services of a copy editor to spare himself the embarrassment of schoolboy errors in syntax and grammar. For the rest, the screed reveals how pathetic it is when a little man attempts to sound big and a pedantic one tries to sound grave. This is doubly pathetic when, to make his point, he must twist facts and engage in character assassination and the lowest forms of sophistry, such as empty name-calling and bare assertions.
He did not publish his dishonest rant in the Standard Bearer (SB). Very odd, considering that he writes “for the sake of our own Protestant Reformed people.” Reformed Protestant people are apparently beyond hope of recovery, and love does not extend to these benighted souls. One could be excused for thinking that what he wrote would nevertheless be important enough for Protestant Reformed members to publish in the SB, especially considering that he warns the people about false doctrine, schismatics, and Reformed Protestant harpies.
But we know that publishing such things in the SB is not allowed. The SB still refuses to engage in controversy. That onetime fiercely independent, fighting paper has become a timid rag that harmlessly parrots the denominational line. The SB is such a lazy dog that it will not even rise in defense of the denomination of which it is the “official” periodical. On its pages there may be laments; there may be hand-wringing; there may be generic statements of doctrine; there may be general notices of some error somewhere by somebody; but there may be no controversy.
Recognizing this, Professor Cammenga distributed his shabby email. Writing and widely distributing emails seem to be the favorite tactics of Protestant Reformed ministers these days. They can avoid the annoying censorship of the tone-conscious editors who police the pages of the SB. In emails the ministers can be themselves and write what they really think. I confess that their emails make for more interesting reading than the carefully massaged articles in the SB. By his base attacks on the officebearers of Wingham—men more honorable than himself—and on officebearers and members of the Reformed Protestant Churches, especially defenseless women who will have no opportunity to answer him, but more importantly his attacks on the truth, Professor Cammenga has entered the fray. He states that he responds only to what “I deem most important.” So we have in his email a considered response to what Professor Cammenga deems the important aspects of Wingham’s document and by extension of the whole doctrinal controversy that gave rise to the separation of the Reformed Protestant Churches from the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).
I disagree with virtually everything he writes, but I do commend him for being about the only Protestant Reformed minister who contended—and still contends—for what many ministers believed but would not say. He was willing to say boldly and repeatedly—some might say shamelessly, like a man wise in his own conceits—that the gospel of Neil and Connie Meyer is antinomian. I say many of them believed that because in my several conversations with ministers of Classis East, they stated plainly that Neil and Connie are antinomians and that their protests proved it. These ministers stated that the Meyers’ theology had to be condemned for the good of the churches and especially so that people would stop listening so critically to sermons. But Professor Cammenga publicly contended for that. He wrote protests about it, slipped it past the censors in his writings, and took some jabs off the pulpit for good measure. He said what everyone else thought and believed, even if they were embarrassed by his approach, his sources, and his words.
He now carries on with his very public I-told-you-so to the PRC. His whole email—if it were not so full of falsehoods—could be written off as shameless self-promotion and empty assertions unworthy of a response. Professor Cammenga loudly boasts that he has been proved right and forcefully asserts his case rather than proves it. He, of course, is allowed to instruct and even to criticize as he sees fit; and, while unseemly and unchristian, he may even boast. He is not going to lie and go unanswered. There are many Protestant Reformed people whom I love, and they should be warned of his falsehoods and that they should take them as more evidence to leave the PRC. This is your leadership.
The professor begins his self-justifying rant by saying, “I have been torn whether or not to respond to Wingham consistory’s document. It is a document in which four former officebearers level serious charges, never having pursued but disdained the biblical and church orderly way of bringing such charges prior to leaving our denomination.”
I take his profession of hesitancy with about the same seriousness as I would take a grubby Chicago ward politician’s profession of being hesitant to appear on camera. Ward politicians stumble over themselves to get their faces on the news, and Protestant Reformed ministers have been tripping over themselves to put out email responses to Wingham’s officebearers. Little Wingham has the PRC and her ministers fired up—mainly about defending their own reputations, but fired up nonetheless, which is a whole lot more than can be said about their reaction to the false doctrine that has plagued the denomination for years. Oh, would there had been so many and such strongly worded emails written against the lie of conditional justification and fellowship with God as we receive today to damn the truth as antinomian and the reformation of the church as schismatic and to rush to the ministers’ defense of themselves.
Besides, it is laughable that Professor Cammenga says about an email that contains almost nothing except praise for himself that he was hesitant. He was not hesitant. He waited to write because it would have struck the wrong note while many in the PRC were “lamenting” the terrible and unfortunate schism for him to say, “I told you so. I knew all along that the schismatics were antinomians.” Now was the right moment. Many had finished expressing their sham sorrow over the split, and so he could let everyone know that he had been right all along.
I note that Professor Cammenga instructs that the officebearers of Wingham are “former” officebearers. For a man who prides himself on being a church polity expert, he should know that officebearers are allowed to leave a denomination. This is the exercise of what is called the autonomy of the local congregation. He could have called the men former officebearers in the PRC. He could have used his favorite trope, schismatic officebearers. But one thing they are not is former officebearers. Who deposed them? Did Professor Cammenga take this prerogative to himself? Did he do this now by his shabby email? He should not be so willing, as Peter says, “to speak evil of dignities,” which officebearers surely are, whom Asaph and Christ called “gods…and the scripture cannot be broken” (2 Pet. 2:10; Ps. 82:6; John 10:34–35). Professor Cammenga should also know that by deposing these officebearers in his letter he puts himself in the place of Christ, which is a dizzying height from which mere men are cast down precipitously for their vaunting pride. But perhaps Classis East of the PRC deposed these officebearers, or perhaps the church visitors made an appearance on the scene again to depose them. If they did, they were hierarchical, and they committed the same error as the Christian Reformed classes in 1924, and they attempted to ascend to the same lordly heights as Professor Cammenga does in his letter.
The reality is that he shows that the PRC pay lip service to the truth of the autonomy of the local congregation, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the denomination neither knows what that autonomy means nor believes it in reality. This is a mark of apostasy, especially in those churches that violate this principle so frequently it is becoming commonplace. This is especially shameful in a denomination whose origin was occasioned by the Christian Reformed Church’s callous and calculated violation of this principle. The autonomy of the local congregation means at its essence that Christ is the head of every congregation himself, without the likes of Professor Cammenga telling Christ whom he may and may not put into office. Christ put the officebearers of Wingham into office, and Professor Cammenga cannot depose them, certainly not by means of his shabby screed.
I note as well that he accuses the officebearers of Wingham of leaving a denomination without pursuing the biblical and church orderly way of bringing charges prior to their leaving. He charges that they “disdained” that way. In this he is either ignorant or malicious, neither of which is commendable in one who takes to himself to instruct the people of his denomination.
First, there have been scads of protests in the PRC. Just a compilation of the various protests would take several books. One of these days, if the Lord permits, I am going to answer those protests that have been so shamefully treated in the denomination. Members of Wingham wrote more than one of those protests. All of the protests, in some way or another, centered on the doctrinal controversy that once troubled the PRC and that she has finished by savagely suspending, deposing, and driving away one side in that controversy. I say yet again that the doctrinal controversy is finished in the PRC. The denomination has shown where she stands. Those who agreed with those protests need not protest themselves. Those protests are their protests. I have agreed with virtually every doctrinal protest that has been written in the PRC, except Professor Cammenga’s disgraceful protest against antinomianism. Those protests are expressions of what I believe. I need not write my own protest. The denomination’s answers to those protests are her answers to me, just as they are answers to Wingham.
Second, when a denomination shows herself hostile to the gospel, begins killing officebearers routinely, and venomously drives out the truth, the Lord says, “Come out of the apostatizing church!” Here, too, Professor Cammenga is to be commended. He is willing to make this issue about the truth. Everyone in the PRC and elsewhere had better understand that the reformation of the church that has taken place was about the truth. The elders of Byron Center with the complicity of the consistory of Trinity and the hiss and fangs of Classis East lied and said the issue was only about a magazine editorship and statements in sermons they considered schismatic. But the controversy and the reformation were about the preaching and the truth. The elders of Crete, aided and abetted by the consistory of Peace, were unwilling to attack their minister’s preaching openly but did so in secret and then publicly lied against the truth and said that the issue was about writing in a magazine with a schismatic editor. The controversy and reformation were about the preaching and the truth.
Read his letter, and you will understand that Professor Cammenga believes this too. He is happy that “this schismatic group as a whole” is gone because this means for him that false doctrine has been driven out. The controversy and reformation were about the truth as the truth condemns the lie and is intolerant of that lie. Professor Cammenga, to his credit, does not use subterfuge here; he does not supinely and ignorantly chalk up the separation to the misbehavior of some ministers somewhere somehow. Nothing that has happened can be construed in this way so as to give many an excuse for their evil if they were directly involved, their inaction if they were witnesses, their lack of involvement if they were sleeping, or their indecision now that the facts are coming out. Professor Cammenga’s position and my position are the same in this regard: the split was about the truth and the lie. We disagree on what that means, but we can agree on this: the separation was about the truth.
Concerning the matter of protest and appeal, then, when a denomination makes clear where she stands on issues and that where she stands on issues is contrary to scripture, the Church Order, the gospel, and the creeds; when she is so utterly confusing—one would be tempted to say schizophrenic—in her explanation of the simple and pure gospel; when she persecutes the faithful by corruption of the mark of discipline, then officebearers have the calling to leave, as do all of God’s people. Officebearers do not have the calling to protest and appeal ad infinitum, especially to a denomination that has mishandled so many other protests. Officebearers have the calling to judge the denomination and what she believes by what she preaches and how she acts in discipline and to lead God’s people out if the officebearers judge that the denomination is apostatizing and dangerous.
What Professor Cammenga writes is really a denial of the free association of churches in a denomination and the autonomy of the local congregation. When so many protests have already been written, officebearers may withdraw from a federation without protesting yet more. Their grounds may be criticized. Their reasons may be judged. But they may not be called schismatics as such for doing so, and neither may the officebearers be deposed, even by so towering a figure as Professor Cammenga.
Does the PRC no longer believe in the autonomy of the local congregation? Is her view of the federation really that once a congregation or members join they are there in perpetuity? May a congregation withdraw from the PRC with grounds? Has Professor Cammenga not read Belgic Confession article 29 and what it says about true believers’ separating themselves from the false church and joining themselves with the true? Does he not believe what that article says, or does he suppose that there is an exception clause for the PRC? Perhaps this exception clause is included in a very small footnote that I have been unable to find. Perhaps Professor Cammenga can point out this exception clause to his readers.
What he confuses—ignorantly or maliciously—is the right to protest versus the calling to protest. It is the believer’s right to protest. It is a solemn and sacred right that the PRC has been busy undermining these past few years by delay, procedure, technicalities, intimidation, and character assassination—to name a few of the disreputable political maneuvers that have become du jour in the Protestant Reformed assemblies these days. A man writes a protest against a sermon and submits it to the consistory. He is bombarded by emails from the minister. Prominent ministers are called to weigh in on the merits of the protest. Committees from the consistory are appointed to meet with the protestant, and in efforts at intimidation, the elders call into question the protestant’s motives, his leadership, his qualifications for elder, and—most devastating to the types of men on these kinds of committees—tell him that he does not appear to be a team player because he had the audacity to write a protest without first having fruitless and interminable discussions in the consistory room and with the offending minister and because he protested against—gasp—a seminary professor!
The right of the believer is to protest; the calling to protest is another matter. I grant that when false doctrine first rears its head, then congregations, officebearers, and believers ought not immediately withdraw. They have an obligation—calling—to protest, if nothing else for the love of the truth, the honor of Jesus Christ, and the good of the denomination. The people whom Professor Cammenga so lovelessly assassinates did that, as he well knows, Wingham among them. When they did protest, he was one of the ministers who complained endlessly about how long the protests were, how complicated they were, how mean the language was, and how improperly the protests were written. He is still complaining about the supposed way people listen to sermons and the critical way they come to church. He writes, “It is clear that they are scrutinizing sermon after sermon in order to find fault.” Without a shred of evidence, he writes off the members of a whole denomination as petty faultfinders. And he admonishes, “We may not listen to sermons that way.” If only the sheep would stop baaing, the wolves could get on with their mauling.
But the professor confuses—whether ignorantly or maliciously—listening critically and being a chronic complainer. A chronic complainer brings nothing of substance except his own likes and dislikes or complains just because he is a complainer—who, if you gave him a thousand dollars, would bellyache because it was in fives. He does not scrutinize anything but rattles off his complaint instinctively and without reflection. Listening critically—“scrutinizing,” in the language of Professor Cammenga—is the calling of all God’s people. Critical listening where the spoken word is concerned is an aspect of critical thinking. Critical thinking is the skill of objective analysis in order to form a judgment. It is the right of God’s people—their honor, their glory, their dignity—to listen critically because the Spirit makes them spiritual people who can judge all things and who must try the spirits, especially in this evil age when many antichrists are in the world. Critical listening to the preaching is especially necessary, lest by sleight of hand and cunning craftiness false teachers deceive their listeners. Critical thinking removes all considerations about faces, relationships, positions, denominations, and the rest and asks only one question: Is this the truth?
If you do not want people to listen critically to your sermons, get out of the ministry. Indeed, if you do not want people to listen critically to your sermons, I suspect that you have nefarious intentions because if you, the apostle Paul, or Gabriel bring any other gospel than that of scripture, then I must say, “Anathema!”
The Holy Ghost and Paul commended the Bereans for listening critically to sermons. Paul opened his Bible, and the Bereans opened theirs to see if what he had said was so. Professor Cammenga contradicts the Holy Ghost and says that “scrutinizing” sermons—listening critically—is shameful and wicked.
I have a piece of advice to ministers: if you stay in the ministry and you do want people to stop scrutinizing your sermons, then stop preaching a fictitious antinomianism (Cammenga), an available grace that is distinguished from the sovereign grace of regeneration (Koole), two rails to heaven (Van Overloop), Christ is not enough (Cammenga), the regenerated and sanctified believer is not totally depraved (Bruinsma and a pile more), and all the other false doctrine that makes Reformed believers’ antennae not only quiver but also go into seizures.
Then there is this consideration: if we do not listen critically to sermons so that we can form a judgment and say “Amen” at the end of them, there never will be any of Professor Cammenga’s vaunted protests, about which he chastises the officebearers of Wingham for failing to bring. He is a Janus. He says, “Protest,” but he bellyaches and complains about what is precisely necessary in order to protest, namely listening critically to sermons to determine if the things preached in the name of Christ and on the authority of Christ are actually the gospel of Christ. This he writes off as petty faultfinding. Judging by the examples that Wingham gave—a grace that is available (Koole) is not the gospel; Christ not enough (Cammenga) is not the gospel; works confirming faith (Cammenga) is not the gospel; believers no longer being totally depraved (Bruinsma) is not the gospel—there should be a lot more critical listening—“scrutinizing”—not less. What Professor Cammenga is in fact pleading for is silence from the pew and from officebearers in the face of massive ministerial malfeasance, of which he has been a leading player for years, both as a minister and as a professor.
Thus his charge that Wingham “disdained” the way of protest and appeal is a false charge.
When a denomination has had many, many, many protests, and in answer to the issues has shown where she stands and what it means to be a part of her federation, the people of God may judge that she has departed and that further protests and appeals are not only futile but also injurious to themselves and to the gospel by further exposing it to ridicule. In such circumstances officebearers may withdraw without exhausting the process of protest and appeal, in obedience to Christ, not only as watchmen who warn but also as shepherds who lead the sheep of Christ out of such dangerous circumstances. Such is their obligation. By remaining they expose themselves and the flock to incorrigible false teachers and the terrible judgments of God that come on the apostatizing and bloody church. Coming out of an apostatizing church without exhausting the process—and that is what protesting has become in the PRC these days, an exhausting, destructive, and useless process—of protest and appeal is exactly what Professor Cammenga’s forefathers did. He now unceremoniously tramples on their memory, all the while building their tombs in defense of his own doctrine.
These all are church political observations about his email. The doctrinal lies are worse.
In his panegyric to his own prophetic abilities and faithful labors as a watchman to warn about the antinomians that were swarming in the PRC like a plague of locusts—and ignoring the biblical dictum to let another man praise thee—Professor Cammenga assaults recently departed members of the PRC, one in particular. In fact, one gets the sense that this diatribe of Professor Cammenga is not so much about Wingham as himself and Neil Meyer, indeed, to exonerate himself and to beat Elder Neil Meyer again. The professor outdoes himself in mercilessly thumping this dead horse, as though to make sure there really is no life in him. As I said before, no one can ever say that Professor Cammenga does not make the split about doctrine.
I will also say that in light of all the vicious slander both publicly and privately against Neil Meyer, I want a front-row seat in the final judgment when the Lord declares that the cause of Neil Meyer, now condemned as heretical and impious by many judges—Protestant Reformed professors, ministers, consistories, classes, synods, and members—is the cause of the Son of God. The chagrin of these pompous and unrighteous judges will be a sight to behold!
Prior to issuing his graceless broadside, Professor Cammenga had been going around the Protestant Reformed churches shouting at the top of his lungs, “Settled and binding!” He has become Professor Settled and Binding. He was not so interested in the truth of article 31 of the Church Order as he was in crafting a club from article 31 to silence opposition to false doctrine. But he does himself what he does not allow in others, and he is not the only one. He feels compelled to lecture everyone else that they must regard synodical decisions as settled and binding, but he gives himself wide latitude—lawlessness—to disregard synodical decisions and even to rewrite them. He also lets the cat out of the bag that he and his colleagues never agreed with Synod 2018 and its release of Neil Meyer from the false charge of antinomianism and thus that they would never have let the issue rest until they had their way. They were going to crucify Neil Meyer by hook or by crook; and if it was not Neil Meyer, it was going to be somebody else because there was definitely a horde of antinomians that had to be handled. The very fact that anyone would criticize the preaching of Professor Cammenga and his colleagues as a denial of the gospel had to mean that the critic was antinomian in doctrine.
Antinomianism has been the bogeyman of Professor Cammenga for some time. For him antinomianism is virtually the only enemy of the Reformed faith. Sometimes he identifies the enemies as hyper-Calvinists and radicals, from time to time he hammers on rebels and schismatics, but mainly he calls them antinomians. These are all the same for him.
No one, ever, for any reason, could possibly charge Professor Cammenga with anything remotely approximating antinomianism. Paul drew the charge. Luther did. Calvin did. The Reformed ministers of the Synod of Dordt did. De Cock and Van Velzen did. Abraham Kuyper did. Hoeksema and Ophoff did. Professor Cammenga never did, nor will he ever. He will never be accused of being one-sided, or of being an antinomian, or of emphasizing the grace and sovereignty of God too much. In his relentless assault on antinomians, he shows himself a vigorous opponent of the gospel that always draws this charge and that can be revealed to be the gospel by drawing this charge. For salvation is not of the godly but of the wicked. God justifies the ungodly. This is the gospel. Professor Cammenga, terrified of antinomians, is likewise petrified of the gospel.
I will take up his lawless militancy against his synod and his charges about antinomianism next time.
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I have been torn whether or not to respond to Wingham consistory’s document. It is a document in which four former officebearers level serious charges, never having pursued but disdained the biblical and church orderly way of bringing such charges prior to leaving our denomination. And it is a document that they have circulated widely, as is evidently their intent. Once again, this group and its supporters make themselves guilty of schism, which is public, gross sin. What aggravates their sin of schism is the mischaracterization, misrepresentation, and slander that have become a hallmark of this group and its leaders in their magazine, blogs, and other forms of propaganda.
Not so much for the sake of these men, but for the sake of our own Protestant Reformed people, I have chosen to respond. I do not intend to respond to everything that they raise, but to the matters that I deem most important.
Charge of Antinomianism against Mr. Neil Meyer
I am troubled by the mischaracterization of the charge of antinomianism against one of the leaders of the schismatic group, Mr. Neil Meyer. The contention has been made repeatedly that Mr. Meyer was vindicated of the charge of antinomianism and that once having been vindicated, apparently, he is henceforth free of that charge. It is alleged that the charge of antinomianism is a “red herring.”
First, even if it were true that synod vindicated Mr. Meyer against this charge, this does not mean that from henceforth and forever he and the group with which he is associated are free of the error of antinomianism. I maintain and have maintained for some time that antinomianism is very much at the root of the errors of this group. Even those who did not see this earlier, have to see that recent developments in the schismatic group make it very plain that they are antinomian in their theology. From the time that it was publicly defended that God and not Noah built the ark, disparaging the good work that Noah performed by the grace of God over the course of 120 years, the issue has been the injection of antinomian error on the part of those who belong to the schismatic group.
Second, Synod 2017 judged that a number of Mr. Meyer’s statements were contrary to Scripture and our Reformed confessions (Art. 88, B., 1., p. 88). Synod 2018, it is true, judged that it should not have entered into a protest that had not been upheld. On purely technical and legal grounds, therefore, the decision of 2017 was set aside. In reality, however, it does not change the fact that a number of Mr. Meyer’s statements are indeed contrary to Scripture and the Reformed confessions. One example is his charge that to say that after Adam and Eve fell the way to the tree of life was barred is to make the covenant conditional, conditioned on their obedience.
Third, Synod 2017 did not sustain the charge of antinomianism because it was not demonstrated that Mr. Meyer “embraces some coherent and consistent form of the heresy.” That was 2017. I seriously doubt that given developments since then, synod would make the same judgment today. Soon afterwards, in the agenda for Synod 2018, Mr. Meyer made the statement: “A command necessitates conditions to be kept in obedience” (Acts 2018, bottom of p. 349). That statement is blatant antinomianism. The antinomian contends that commands necessitate conditions that we must fulfill in our own strength and that therefore there may not be commands in the preaching of the gospel. That is antinomian theology, pure and simple.
Mr. Meyer and the group in which Mr. Meyer is a leader are antinomian. I will not list all the evidence now to substantiate this charge. But there ought to be no doubt that this is the case given what they are presently writing and preaching.
Sermon entitled “Saving Faith as Assurance”
Wingham’s consistory takes issue with a Heidelberg Catechism sermon that I preached on Lord’s Day 7, “Saving Faith as Assurance.” Although in the last part of the sermon, which is the section to which they object, I repeatedly spoke of good works as “confirming” faith, election, and salvation, never as the ground, reason, or basis for our assurance of faith, election, and salvation, they contend that I make man’s work the basis for assurance. Wingham’s consistory alleges that what I taught “threatens to replace the true ground of our assurance (God’s work) with a false one (our Christian walk).” (p. 30 of their unnumbered document.) I note the tentativeness of their charge: “threatens.” Further, “Prof. Cammenga implies that the assurance of the Christian is in his observance of outward fruits, such as ‘a life lived in obedience to God’s ten commandments’ and the activity of the Christian life.” I note again their tentativeness: “implies.”
In the sermon, I demonstrated clearly from II Peter 1:10 that our good works, as the fruits of faith, are used by God to confirm our assurance. This is the only possible and honest interpretation of II Peter 1:10. In many ways, it is in their objection to this sermon and their interpretation of II Peter 1:10, that the schismatics show that NOT the Protestant Reformed Churches, but THEY have departed and embraced teaching that is not historically PR, nor historically Reformed. I will attach to this response what the Reformed and Protestant Reformed have always said about II Peter 1:10, as well as the confirmatory role of good works. Please read that attachment to see that what I said is also what Calvin said, Rev. Herman Hoeksema said, Rev. Marinus Schipper said, Rev. John Heys said, what Prof. D. Engelsma said. What I said is historically and confessionally Reformed. It is Reformed and it is Protestant Reformed. If indeed it is the case that what I said is heretical, the Protestant Reformed Churches have embraced this error for a very long time, really from the beginning of their existence. When will the schismatics be honest and acknowledge this? Their selective quotations of the confessions and of PR ministers and professors is dishonest. We have not changed; they have changed. That is simply the historical fact. The objections raised against the sermon also serve as further indication of the schismatics’ antinomianism.
Sermon Entitled “His Name ‘Jesus’”
What I taught in this sermon is that L.D. 11 does not mean that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity in our flesh, accomplishes every aspect of our salvation. I maintained that the contrast in L.D. 11 is between the work of Christ and the work(s) of man. Jesus does everything that is necessary for our redemption, so that we cannot and may not attempt to add to His work. That is the gospel. The contrast is between what Jesus has done and those “who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else,” 30th Q. This is the point of the quotations from the creeds that the consistory of Wingham cites. Lord’s Day 11 is not teaching that Jesus (the Son of God incarnate) accomplishes every aspect of our salvation. The Heidelberg Catechism has itself recently attributed our sanctification in a special sense (not to the absolute exclusion of the other Persons) to the Holy Spirit: “God the Son and our redemption…God the Holy Ghost and our sanctification.” That is the only point that was being made. It’s simply dishonest to twist what was said and to contend that I was introducing another savior than the only Savior, Jesus Christ. And giving the Holy Spirit His due was also the point of the quotation from Calvin that I made in the sermon, which the Wingham consistory conveniently does not include in their document—another indication that they do not stand in agreement with Calvin (just as they do not agree with him on Il Peter 1:10). Calvin says at the very beginning of Book Three of his Institutes: “We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.” (3.1.1; 1:537) Calvin is right.
Conclusion
The aggressive attempt to find widespread error in the PRCA is clearly an exercise in self-justification on the part of those who are sympathetic with the schismatics. It is clear that they are scrutinizing sermon after sermon in order to find fault—not for edification but to find fault. That is wrong. We may not listen to sermons that way, sermons of fellow officebearers, which was the case when this was done by the members of the Wingham consistory. And that, too, indicates their avowed purpose to “prove” that the PRCA are on the road of apostasy, and have actually become false churches, from which the members must flee as Lot did from Sodom. At all costs this is what they are determined to prove.
There are so many troubling things about this schismatic group as a whole that by themselves ought to convince church members that they ought not be a part of such a group. Besides the doctrinal errors, there are a number of unsettling factors.
First, their schismatic behavior and their ongoing attempts to sow the seeds of discord. One of the seven things that the Lord hates is “a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren,” Proverb 6:19.
Second, the glaring dishonesty, twisting of facts and truth, half-truths, misrepresentation, and slander that characterize so much of what they put into print. It pervades nearly everything that they write or speak. The prophet Jeremiah condemned the children of Judah because “they are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders,” Jeremiah 6:28.
Third, the vitriol and venom, the malicious, personal attacks that are also the nature of many of their writings. I have never seen anything like it in over forty years in the ministry. Something is wrong, seriously wrong, when this is the way in which a group promotes itself. This is true even of younger men and women in this group, who ought to have respect for age and office. It makes me wonder what kinds of homes in which they were brought up. “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man,” Colossians 4:6.
And fourth, I have been troubled from the very beginning of this movement on account of the dominance of strong-willed and outspoken women. That ought to be another indication that something is seriously amiss. The apostle counsels the women concerning their true adornment, “Let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price,” I Peter 3:4.
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