I permit myself an observation about the 2021 Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). For a denomination that prides herself on following “the church orderly way”—that phrase has become something of an idol in the Protestant Reformed Churches—there were some highly irregular decisions taken by that synod. I suppose that the Lord who sits in heaven will not permit a denomination that perpetrates wickedness in the name of justice and tramples on order in the name of order to have an orderly life. Rather, he judges the denomination with disorder: urgent letters received after the deadline for the synodical agenda, a letter missing from the agenda, and an odd—queer—letter the synod adopted as a suggestion to Protestant Reformed consistories.
In one of those late letters, dated May 19, 2021, Prof. Herman Hanko and Prof. David Engelsma addressed an “urgent request” to the Protestant Reformed synod in light of the recent, deep, and growing division of the Reformed Protestant Churches from the Protestant Reformed Churches. Understanding that the letter was highly irregular—it did not come as an overture through the regular channels and was sent to the clerk of synod well after the deadline for materials to appear on the agenda—the professors cited the Latin dictum periculum in mora, meaning that there is danger in delay, a legal term used to plead with a court for immediate, even irregular, action, especially in giving orders of protection. The action that the professors called for was specific and was explicitly laid out in their letter of appeal. They asked for a special committee to be formed to hold meetings with the newly-formed Reformed Protestant Churches. The subject of the meetings was to be reconciliation between the Protestant Reformed Churches and the Reformed Protestant Churches. The committee was to report back to the Protestant Reformed synod, even having the power to call a special meeting of synod if reconciliation were possible. (The professors’ entire letter is printed following this article.)
The synod, of course, badly bungled the request, really dismissing it out of hand, all the while making it seem as though the synod was honoring the request and was really concerned for reconciliation. I take the professors at their word that they genuinely desired reconciliation, or at least desired a good-faith effort at reconciliation. The synod that treated the letter was full of men that did not. Reconciliation was the last thing on their minds. Many of these men did not want the members, ministers, and officebearers of the Reformed Protestant Churches and the truth for which they contended, and they do not want them now in the PRC. These delegates were not interested in reconciliation, and if they had been, they would have done what the professors had suggested. At the very least, such an action would have shown some sense of reality on the part of the synod regarding what reconciliation would involve and mean for the PRC. Instead, the synod adopted an evil piece of work in the form of an open letter. (I will deal with that letter in a later issue.)
Regarding the professors’ suggestion about reconciliation, I am not in favor of reconciliation with the Protestant Reformed Churches. At this point I am not even in favor of talks with the Protestant Reformed Churches over reconciliation. This is not because I am in principle opposed to reconciliation. Rather, I do not believe that the Protestant Reformed Churches have any idea what would be involved in actual reconciliation and what that would mean for the PRC. Further, such talks would distract the Reformed Protestant Churches from the important work that God has given the denomination to do in defense of the gospel, development of the truth, reformation of his church, and care for those who have been grievously injured in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Both the appeal of the professors and the queer letter adopted by the synod occasioned by the professors’ request give a clear indication that the PRC might talk of reconciliation, but she has no real grasp of what that actually involves.
The cause of the breach between the two denominations is a manifest spirit of toleration for false doctrine in the Protestant Reformed Churches. As proof I cite the fact that after a years-long struggle over an insidious teaching of conditions in fellowship with God, Rev. Ronald Van Overloop explicitly preached conditional fellowship on the pulpit of Faith Protestant Reformed Church, and everyone yawned. In this connection there is also a clearly discernible preference to protect the honor of men rather than the honor of God. The examples could be multiplied, but I choose only the shameless circus that became the defense of Reverend Van Overloop at Classis East. He himself throughout the deliberations at classis never stood up to repudiate his statement but allowed the circus to continue. When the circus finally concluded after the advice of the committee was recommitted multiple times, the PRC ended up with the laughable decision that he is not persistent in his error because “in the past year and a half since the sermon was preached at Faith, Rev. Van Overloop has not maintained nor defended the statement, nor has he preached any doctrine promoting a conditional covenant,” and nonsensical phrases like “the error of the heresy,” and the conclusion that “the error was a case of misspeaking” (minutes of Classis East January 13, 2021, article 41).
I say “laughable” not because I think the decision is laughable but because men become fools when they make it their business to protect the names of men instead of the honor of God. I sat through the deliberations and watched the defense of men’s honor. The deliberations could have been over in less than five minutes, yet it took hours upon hours of deliberations and multiple recommittals. Throughout the deliberations I watched delegates twist themselves into pretzels trying to make the condemnation of the statement as soft as possible, while others made it seem as though Protestant Reformed ministers preach heresy in their sermons on a regular basis and that such things are to be expected and not raised to the level of protest and appeal. One delegate was so engrossed in the deliberations, he fell asleep and nodded unknowingly to all that his colleagues said. I am not sure how classis could make the statement that Reverend Van Overloop has not preached any doctrine promoting a conditional covenant since the sermon at Faith. Did they listen to all his sermons? Had they not heard of his “two rails” to heaven?*
Misspoke? A Protestant Reformed minister misspeaks the word condition? After setting up the conditional statement for several sentences, he misspoke? Then this: he did not maintain or defend his statement. Against whom? Who in the whole PRC rose up in defense of God’s truth and against the statement? Did the elders of Faith? Did his own consistory at Grace? Did his colleagues in Classis East? It was crickets from all of them. Reverend De Wolf would never be condemned in the PRC today.
Further, there has been a complete failure to discipline false teachers in the doctrinal controversy in the PRC, a controversy over the fundamentals of the gospel. However, there has not been a failure to discipline, since the denomination has shown herself very willing, quick, and able to discipline officebearers whom she perceives as a nuisance. All of this exposes a massive corruption in the assemblies, in which the churches reveal themselves to be devoid of the sense of truth and justice. I know it is difficult to attend Protestant Reformed broader assemblies these days with their great concern for secrecy—COVID—but a righteous man sitting there will vex his soul. These assemblies that handle with kid gloves the explicit teaching of conditions ride out on a rail a minister who combatted that false doctrine.
However, the main aspect of the breach is doctrinal, and the doctrine involves nothing less than the perfect and only mediatorship of Christ, justification by faith alone, and the unconditionality of the covenant, including the experience of fellowship in the covenant. In other words, the breach is fundamental, deep, and broad, and it will continue to grow. The Protestant Reformed denomination has set herself on the track of God and man together, side by side, as parties together in the covenant. She wants two rails running to heaven: one of Christ’s merits and the other of man’s obedience, God’s grace and man’s activity cooperating together to bring man God’s blessings and fellowship. It is a Protestant Reformed manifestation of federal vision theology of a man’s being saved by his living, active, obedient faith—all by God’s grace, of course. It is the teaching that the activity of man, bolstered by the grace of God, becomes the decisive thing in man’s covenant fellowship and in salvation. All of this has been and can be demonstrated by numerous examples. All of these have been shown to the Protestant Reformed Churches, and when she showed herself immune to such instruction and furthermore hostile to those who pointed out error, the Lord Jesus Christ brought about a reformation in his church.
Over against that departure from the pure Reformed faith, the Reformed Protestant Churches stand for the truth of the absolutely unconditional character of the salvation of the elect people of God, a salvation in which God is absolutely everything and man is absolutely nothing, a salvation that includes man’s fellowship consciously with his God that is likewise absolutely unconditional. If many would finally stop ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth, then it is neither time-consuming nor difficult to discern the difference. One only need listen to a few sermons and read a few articles, and the difference becomes clear, stark, and compelling.
Besides, the Protestant Reformed Churches have made perfectly clear by her damnation of the magazine Sword and Shield and her discipline of faithful ministers of the gospel that she wants nothing of this truth, especially the truth’s absolute intolerance for the lie that has found and continues to find shelter and a platform within the denomination. This goes back to Synod 2018. Synod 2018 was a dead letter in the Protestant Reformed Churches already shortly after synod concluded, beginning with Professor Dykstra’s infamous Standard Bearer articles and continuing with Reverend Koole’s obnoxious mockery of Herman Hoeksema’s exegesis of Acts 16:30–31 and Koole’s gospel-denying teaching that if a man would be saved there is that which he must do. This all-out assault on the synodical decision and desperate attempt to redefine the enemy that the Protestant Reformed Churches were facing—antinomians, radicals, and hyper-Calvinists—then continued in so many Standard Bearer articles and sermons one could employ a small army of people to protest all the theological garbage that was, and is, being written and preached.
Mind you, the decision of Synod 2018 was the weakest that could possibly have been taken and was shot through with holes, and even that was not acceptable to many delegates to synod and members of the PRC. When the decision was taken, many delegates looked as if someone had shot their dog, and the opposition was immediate at synod itself not only in public comments and prayers but also in the advice of another committee that would have taken back with the left hand what synod had given with the right. Men who were opposed to that decision when it was taken now only support it after they have undermined it both publicly and privately for months and after they have put their own spin on it. It is a mark of the fatal weakness of the decision that it could be so spun that those who hated the truth of it could interpret it how they wished, and those who favored it could rest comfortably in a few select phrases of the decision, all the while consoling themselves that no false doctrine was decided and that a lie was condemned.
At present the synods of the PRC are busily undermining whatever shreds are left of Synod 2018 and declaring vigorously before the world the apparently very important Reformed truth that there are, in fact, things that man does before he receives God’s blessing—of course, all by grace and, of course, in a Reformed sense and, of course, not at all meaning or implying that there is merit or conditions, two very bad words! The Protestant Reformed explanation of salvation is beginning to read more and more like the small-print legalese of a contract. Indeed, that is where the denomination is headed: the covenant as an arrangement in which man does his part—by grace of course—and God responds by giving his blessings. Sick!
All of this indicates that in the Protestant Reformed Churches there is a serious departure from the gospel and very little understanding of what the gospel actually is. The Protestant Reformed classes and synods have set themselves for the defense of this departure and for creating an environment where it can flourish. This is the fruit of and God’s judgment on the failure to preach the gospel for years, the failure to condemn false doctrine and false teachers, and the failure to rid themselves of those who excused, supported, or defended such false doctrine and false teachers. And this departure will continue to grow and develop. So the division between the two denominations is deep and broad indeed and will continue to grow. The Protestant Reformed Churches may speak of reconciliation, but she has no idea what that would look like for the PRC. Therefore, it is undesirable for the Reformed Protestant Churches to engage in such an obviously fruitless endeavor.
The appeal, though, of the professors to the Protestant Reformed synod is significant and worthy of some comment, especially in light of the subsequent action of the synod in response to the appeal, in which synod adopted an open letter to all those who left the PRC over the doctrinal controversy.
First, of note is that the professors in their appeal recognized a newly-formed denomination of churches, the Reformed Protestant Churches. I draw attention to this because the professors must know that this puts them at odds with the official position of the Protestant Reformed consistories, classes, and synod, the vast majority of Protestant Reformed officebearers and church members, as well as the school boards run by these members that are working overtime to make it as offensive as possible—in some cases impossible—for members of the Reformed Protestant Churches to use those schools. To these all the Reformed Protestant churches are not churches; the officebearers are not officebearers called of Christ himself; and the members are not members of churches formed by Jesus Christ, but they all are a rabble, a schismatic and rebellious rabble that holds to false doctrine. They have been unchurched by the Protestant Reformed Churches and cast out of the kingdom of heaven. The Protestant Reformed Churches cannot have it both ways. It is either-or. This is not a matter of adiaphora but of decision and principle, and it involves the salvation and eternal destiny of souls. Many of the officebearers of the Reformed Protestant Churches have been cast out as wicked, impenitent violators of the law of God. The Protestant Reformed Churches do not tire of reminding anyone who will listen that the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches are following lawfully suspended and deposed ministers.
It is surprising to me, then, that for churches that pride themselves on observing the settled and binding character of the decisions of their broader assemblies, such recognition of the newly-formed denomination would be allowed among the Protestant Reformed membership, especially among the retired professorship. One would think that the synod would have issued an official rebuke of such a view and admonished those who hold to it to abide by the settled and binding character of the synodical decisions. One would think that the elders of these two retired professors would as vigorously hound and pursue them as the elders did their members who expressed such things. But the Protestant Reformed synod and Protestant Reformed consistories are not going to do that to Professor Engelsma and Professor Hanko because there would be uproar, no matter how many delegates of synod or elders might want to do it.
Second, of note is the professors’ calling the recent division “calamitous.” This is not the view of the Reformed Protestant Churches. While the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches were members of the PRC, they labored night and day to show their mother church her errors. This surely will be established in the day of judgment: there was no group of people that wrote more and that more earnestly and fervently contended against the doctrinal error that was threatening the PRC. In anger their mother viciously drove them out of her house. Where are those who saw and spoke against the doctrinal error in the PRC that was a denial of justification by faith alone, a denial of the perfect mediatorship of Jesus Christ, and a denial of the unconditional covenant, and that made man in part his own mediator? They are all gone or shortly will be. The Protestant Reformed Churches’ dismissal of a remnant of those who love the gospel is not “calamitous,” except for the PRC. While the PRC at present is expending her energies vigorously tilting at the windmills of antinomianism, radicals, and hyper-Calvinists, she is being swallowed by the false theology of conditional fellowship with God. The calamity for the Protestant Reformed Churches is not that there is now a division where there was none before. There was a great deal of division in the PRC prior to the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches. The division was that the members were not one doctrinally. The calamity for the PRC is that she left Christ begging, and he is judging her. Professor Engelsma and Professor Hanko perhaps can console themselves that they will soon be in glory, and so they will not see all of the effects of God’s judgment; but they must know the calamity there will be for the Protestant Reformed Churches, except she repent. Instead of an urgent appeal to reconciliation, there should have been at long last recognition of the doctrinal error that is threatening the PRC, an urgent appeal to repentance, and an urgent warning periculum in mora!
For the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches, the division has been an astounding salvation wrought by their God. It is not calamitous for them, but the division will be for the preservation of the gospel and the salvation of the members and their children in their generations. Their urgent calling is not to decry the division to the members of the PRC, wringing their hands and wishing that they could all still be united in the superficial way that they had been and winking all of them at evil. Their calling is not to seek a superficial and worthless external reconciliation without repentance, reconciliation merely in the name of external unity, which is no reconciliation at all. Their calling is not to make themselves look good by seeking such a worthless reconciliation. The division is of the Lord and is his work for salvation and reformation. Their urgent call to the Protestant Reformed Churches is, “Repent of your sins, which repentance would include disciplining ministers and whole consistories.” Their urgent call to the members of the PRC is, “Come out from among her and be separate.” Their urgent warning to the members of the PRC is, “By remaining in her you are partaker of her sins and of her judgments.”
Besides, the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches have been delivered from the captivity that was their existence in the PRC. The captivity involved their being subject to the mind-boggling incompetence of PRC ministers and elders charged by Christ to uphold the truth but who repeatedly and calamitously bungled easy cases of false doctrine. The captivity was their being subject to the relentless brutality of these incompetent ecclesiastical lords who enforced wicked decisions by discipline, withholding information, threats, intimidation, and maligning any opposition. The captivity was their being damned before the world for writing and speaking God’s truth in the face of that incompetence and lack of love for the truth at the assemblies. The captivity was their being subject to vicious slanders and false charges of sin from fellow church members and officebearers, who impugned motives and characters for nothing other than loving and writing the pure truth. The captivity was their hearing lies preached and taught to them that would have destroyed them and their children except the Lord made a hole in the net of their captors, and then watching unfold before their eyes a massive cover-up of the wickedness. Truly, they have been delivered from captivity, and they are like those who dream. They have absolutely no desire whatsoever to return to Babylon and its oppression in doctrine and life. The Lord delivered them, and it would be suicide to return. It would also be unthankfulness to Christ to seek to overthrow that deliverance by a calamitous return to the PRC.
Third, of note is the reality that this suggestion for reconciliation is really that: only a suggestion. The professors themselves indicated that such was their urgency for reconciliation that if the Protestant Reformed Churches dismissed the letter—which, of course, she was going to do—the professors would not pursue the matter. They themselves did not hold out much hope for reconciliation, but wrote regarding the glowing testimony to the name and reputation of the PRC in the broader church world for making such an effort. What kind of reconciliation has the name and reputation of the PRC as part of the effort for reconciliation? It is concern for the names of men that has the PRC in the calamitous position in which she finds herself.
The letter really appears to me to be a kind of window dressing. The letter gave no indication at all of knowledge of what would, in fact, be necessary for such a reconciliation to occur and indeed gave evidence of a continuing ignorance of the depth of the doctrinal error and terrible corruption that has come into and is developing in the Protestant Reformed Churches and which doctrinal error and corruption are at total fault for the division the professors now decry. The letter ignored what the officebearers and members of the Reformed Protestant denomination have said about these things. Is what they have said not to be taken seriously, or is it to be dismissed? In the end the letter simply suggested a way for the PRC to be able to say to the world—and especially to the Reformed church world—“We made an effort, but unfortunately the Reformed Protestant Churches would not play ball. The Protestant Reformed Churches are for peace, but they are for war.”
I for one would have no interest in participating in such a worthless series of talks. The very same men who have perpetuated, developed, and defended the doctrinal error the Reformed Protestant Churches oppose would be involved in discussions of reconciliation. And if these men were not directly involved, then, as is their mode of operation, they would be hovering in the background pulling levers, and that without a lick of repentance on their part. The very same men who are responsible for the total corruption of decency and order that the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches have witnessed, let alone of truth and right, and who have lied repeatedly to the membership of the PRC would be having discussions for reconciliation—again without a shred of repentance. Such meetings would be a farce, indeed, an affront to the cause of truth and unity that the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches have stood for, for which they have suffered and for which they have labored in the PRC. Such meetings, rather than being in harmony with the gospel of reconciliation, would be an insult to the Christ whom the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches serve and the Christ who has been so brutally treated by the PRC.
Echoing the professors themselves but for opposite reasons, for these and other reasons, I am not in favor of their proposal. The PRC would have to do a massive about-face and give evidence of repentance of her sins before such meetings could take place. Apart from that our tracks will continue to diverge.
I would say the professors’ letter is quixotic.
But if the letter of the professors is quixotic, how the Protestant Reformed synod responded to the letter was an evil business. Instead of forming a committee, the synod drafted a letter; instead of addressing the newly-formed denomination, the synod opened up a conversation with several hundred individuals; instead of confessing wrongdoing, the synod declared its righteousness. The action of the synod demonstrates its continuing impenitence and pride in the face of the Lord’s judgment on the Protestant Reformed Churches.
To that I will turn in my next article in Understanding the Times.
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May 19, 2021
2021 Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches
c/o Rev. Ronald Van Overloop, Stated Clerk
11243–8th Ave. NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49534
Dear Brothers:
This is an “appeal” (as in an urgent request for action in an important matter) to you for extraordinary action in view of the ongoing, calamitous division in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). We acknowledge that the appeal is highly irregular. We have been at the assemblies often enough in our ministries and have sufficient knowledge of the church order to be aware of this. If the synod dismisses this appeal out of hand, it will be the end of the matter as far as we are concerned. But before this is done, we ask synod to consider the grievous nature of the division that is now troubling the PRC and the great worth of doing all we can, even though the effort is irregular, to achieve reconciliation, or at the very least, to demonstrate that the PRC are desirous of reconciliation.
To the obvious response to this appeal, that the orderly way would be to bring this document to the synod of 2022 via the proper channels, our response is that there is “periculum in mora.” The divide between the PRC and the new denomination forming out of the PRC is already deep and wide. It is expanding continually. If there can be reconciliation in the gracious providence of God, the sooner we take the initiative to be reconciled the better.
Our appeal for extraordinary action is that synod appoint a carefully appointed committee of five men, consisting of three ministers and two elders with the mandate to address the Reformed Protestant Churches with a request for meetings that have as their purpose the reconciliation of the presently divided churches and that, if they are willing, the synodical committee of the PRC enter into discussion as to how and on what grounds this reconciliation might be effected with the blessing of God. If there is some promising result of these meetings, in the judgment of the special committee, a special meeting of synod be called, prior to the regularly scheduled synod of 2022, to consider and decide the possibility of reconciliation, or further actions, on the basis of the information and recommendations of the special committee. If the efforts at reconciliation obviously fail, the committee is to report to the synod of 2022.
The grounds for this extraordinary proposal are the following: First, reconciliation of divided brothers and sisters is a precious reality and a solemn calling in the sphere of the body of Christ (II Cor. 5:18-21), as is the unity of the manifestation of the body of Christ (Eph. 4). Second, the members of the newly forming denomination are men and women (and children) with whom only recently the members of the PRC were one in the gospel of grace, and there is no ecclesiastical decision of the synod of the PRC charging, or confirming, any departure on their part from the truth of the gospel as confessed by the PRC. Third, the PRC have themselves acknowledged that they are not without fault in the occasion of the division, that is, in the matter of the charge of false doctrine against the minister of the Hope PRC (cf. the “Acts of Synod,” 2017 and 2018.) Fourth, the PRC spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold man-hours for the gathering of only a few converts, out of zeal for the gathering of the church as the one body of Christ—the same zeal should motivate us to restore the manifestation of the one body that is now divided, and dividing. Fifth, the ongoing division and strife of the PRC are the occasion of mockery of the PRC and of the disparagement of our witness by other Reformed churches. Reconciliation would be a glowing testimony to the will and effort of the PRC on behalf of the overcoming of division and on behalf of the unity of the church. Even the attempt at reconciliation, although a failure, would speak well of the PRC.
For these reasons and more, should we not make every effort to heal the breach?
Cordially in Christ,
Prof. Herman C. Hanko
Prof. David J. Engelsma
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