Protestant Reformed Synod 2025: “No Longer My Mother”

A Terrible Milestone

The annual synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) convened in June 2025 at Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. In spite of the fanfare around the centennial of the Protestant Reformed denomination highlighted on the synodical agenda, this synod did not have anything to celebrate. Apart from faithfulness to the word of God, one hundred years of existence of the PRC is nothing to celebrate. It is merely a carnal measuring of time. A more significant milestone for the denomination occurred five years earlier, in 2020.

For ninety-five years prior to Anno Domini 2020, the PRC was a denomination with little to recommend her in the world. She was small; through controversy, discipline, and the sword of the gospel, she was getting smaller. She was despised because of her witness in the world regarding the unconditional covenant, sovereign grace, and how those doctrines apply themselves to the lives of the church members. Her witness against the denominations around her made her odious to them and kept her in a lonely place. Her members were few, and they were corrupt in their sins—oh, how corrupt!

Yet in this small, despised, and sin-filled denomination, the risen Christ was still pleased to bring his gospel on some of her pulpits—until the year of reckoning. In the year 2020 God visited the PRC and judged her by finally removing his candlestick and witness from her pulpits. His call henceforth has been: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).

Five years after this most infamous milestone of the PRC, her synod put on display how it is leading the denomination deeper into apostasy. Synod 2025 was not a celebration of one hundred years of faithfulness; rather, the synod was a celebration of the PRC’s five-year anniversary of casting out Christ and enthroning man in the denomination. Four topics that were treated at the synod highlighted the continuing apostasy of the PRC. These topics included the synod’s treatment of Rev. Ken Koole’s theology and those who espouse it, the Protestant Reformed mission committee’s focus on church planting, the PRC’s close participation in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC), and the PRC’s dealing with the epidemic of abuse within the denomination.

Wrangling over Koole’s Doctrine

Ten years ago, preachers in Protestant Reformed churches renewed their efforts to proclaim boldly from their pulpits the false doctrine of assurance of justification by works. Five years ago, the Protestant Reformed Churches threw out those who damned this doctrine in their preaching and writing. Now, the PRC is still wrangling within her ranks about this doctrine, specifically as it has been taught by Reverend Koole.

Present at Synod 2025 were three camps that are wrangling over this theology. The camps are made up of those who emphatically agree with Reverend Koole’s doctrine, those who oppose Reverend Koole’s doctrine, and those who could not care less about doctrine.

Two protests came to Synod 2025 that represented the camp of those who emphatically agree with Reverend Koole’s doctrine. These protests objected against the decision of Synod 2024, which rejected the teachings of Reverend Koole that

scripture teaches that something must be done that we may be saved [and that] we must accurately distinguish between a right to life and the possession of life. The former must be assigned to the obedience of Christ, that all the values of our holiness may be entirely excluded. But certainly, our works, or rather these which the Spirit of Christ worketh in us, and by us, contribute something to the latter.¹

According to one protestant, Synod 2024 erred because

neither the statements which Synod cited nor the instruction given in the articles give the wrong place to good works, make good works instruments of grace, or make good works conditions which must be added to the complete work of Jesus Christ.²

The two protests demonstrated that the doctrine of Reverend Koole is alive and well in the Protestant Reformed Churches, regardless of a synodical judgment to the contrary or his apology.

A third protest came from Rev. Jonathan Mahtani, which represented the camp of those who claim to oppose Reverend Koole’s doctrine. Reverend Mahtani protested Synod 2024’s decision that judged to be orthodox the following teaching of Reverend Koole: “Hence, I conclude, that sanctification and its effects, are by no means to be slighted, when we treat of assuring the soul as to its justification.”³

Reverend Mahtani wrote,

By this judgment of Synod, I am aggrieved…for I believe that this decision compromises the heart of the gospel, namely the truth of justification by faith alone—a doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.⁴

It is a wonder to me that such an endangered species still exists within the PRC. Of course, Reverend Mahtani has the sense to understand that the issue of his protest is the doctrine upon which the Reformed Protestant Churches were formed. Perhaps late, but nevertheless having come to this realization, Reverend Mahtani has put his finger on the heart of the issue—and he is about to be judged by it. God (whose name is Truth) will now hold in his balance Reverend Mahtani and judge whether he will lose everything for the sake of the truth.

There was a third camp represented at synod on this issue: The camp that is indifferent to doctrine but insists upon peace at all costs. This camp was not a protesting camp. Rather, this camp represented the majority of the PRC and sat in the judgment seat. The fact that the majority of the PRC is concerned with earthly peace over the truth was demonstrated by the fact that the synod rejected all three protests but did not recommend discipline for any of the protestants.

If the doctrine of justification were important to the PRC, then those who disagree with the official, settled, and binding position of the PRC regarding that doctrine would be pursued by church discipline. The fact that neither protesting camp, which hold such opposing views regarding the doctrine of justification, is being put under discipline proves that doctrine is not important in the PRC. If the Protestant Reformed assemblies would not judge according to the political wranglings of man’s judgment, then she would judge according to the truth, and she would also discipline those who oppose that truth. Any other path will serve to prove that the decisions at Synod 2025 and other Protestant Reformed assemblies have not been based on the truth but have been constructed with the enthroned wisdom of man in order to hold together these different doctrinal factions within the PRC.

When churches hold the truth cheap, it is easy to compromise the truth to obtain the peace that those churches seek.

Church Planting

In the synodical material on missions, I found a report from the domestic mission committee highly informative. The report provided guidelines on how to “plant” a church, which laid out a helpful three-step plan. Step one is to “recruit established members of PRCA congregations to form a group of assistants to form a church plant.” Step two is to “determine an area for a church plant.” Step three is to “move…to the new area and begin meeting as a mission fellowship.”⁵ Instead of asking, “Does Christ have his church here?” the PRC laid out a business plan to put a church where the denomination wants to have one.

Two quotes from step two of these guidelines should be sufficient to show the direction that this church-plant plan is heading. When considering an area for mission work, the guidelines advise that “it would be helpful, but is not determinative, if there is already a known contact(s).” Further, it is important to look for “an area where there is little to no confessionally Reformed presence to establish the need for a Reformed witness.”⁶

When Paul went on his missionary journeys, he knew exactly where he was going to go when he entered a city. He went to the Jews who had been dispersed by persecution and into the synagogues to teach Christ over against the Judaizers, who followed him everywhere he went. The corollary today would be to go to areas where there is a nominally Reformed presence and to teach the truth in opposition to what nominally Reformed Christianity teaches today.

Rather than that, what is proposed in the synodical agenda looks suspiciously aligned with the collusion against Christ that NAPARC calls its Comity Agreement. In accord with this agreement, member churches of NAPARC agree to “be sensitive to the presence of existing churches and missions ministries of other NAPARC churches and will refrain from enlisting members of these existing ministries.”⁷ The instruction of Synod 2025 to avoid areas where a “confessionally Reformed presence” exists aligns precisely with NAPARC’s Comity Agreement.

The Protestant Reformed domestic mission committee is adrift, and it has no idea where it is going. It only knows that the PRC does not need to have contacts in an area and that she should not compete against churches that are members of NAPARC.

Fellowship with NAPARC

Speaking of NAPARC, a brief part of the synodical agenda included a report from the Protestant Reformed contact committee on its interaction with NAPARC in November 2024. While the report seems routine at the surface, by digging deeper it can be demonstrated with crystal clarity that the PRC behaves and is treated as a full participating member of NAPARC. It does not matter that membership has not been sealed with a Protestant Reformed synodical decision. The minutes of the 2024 NAPARC meeting show that there is little that formal membership would give that the PRC does not already have.

Rev. Martyn McGeown participated in the meeting by being a “questioner who also prays,” which means that he both asked questions of the reporter from the Presbyterian Reformed Church and led the council in prayer before a noon meal. Rev. Erik Guichelaar provided a report on behalf of the PRC, after which he was questioned by a delegate from the Korean American Presbyterian Church. It is clear from the minutes that the delegates from the PRC were full participants, listening and contributing to the discussions. There is no need to wait for an official decision from synod for the PRC to become a member of NAPARC.⁸

From NAPARC’s invitation to the PRC to observe at NAPARC’s meeting to be held November 11–13, 2025, it can be reasonably deduced that Reverend Guichelaar and Reverend McGeown did not damn the false doctrines that are espoused by the member churches of NAPARC—common grace, the conditional covenant, and the covenant of works—nor did these ministers call to repentance those who love those false doctrines. The men of the PRC who want NAPARC membership already have it. Through the PRC’s participation at these meetings and by the PRC’s policies in her mission committees (not to mention the pro-NAPARC policies of the Standard Bearer and the PRC’s frequent local events with NAPARC churches), the PRC is acting as and being treated as an organic member of NAPARC.

Unrepentant

There is something about the treatment of the material on the epidemic of abuse in the PRC that reveals that the denomination remains unrepentant in the matter of abuse. The work that the PRC began in consultation with Guidepost Solutions to investigate abuse was abruptly concluded by a decision of Synod 2024. Instead of continuing to work with Guidepost Solutions, a new committee—the Guidepost Report Evaluation Committee (GREC)—was appointed to evaluate the material from Guidepost Solutions and to determine the path forward for the PRC. This committee brought to Synod 2025 a recommendation to appoint a new committee to compile and analyze the data from Guidepost Solutions and to contract with a new third-party organization, which would continue the investigation of sexual abuse in the PRC.⁹ In other words, after a year of investigation, the committee concluded that there is much more work to be done.

However, Synod 2025 took a much different route. Instead of appointing a new committee to dig deeper into the matter of sexual abuse, synod mandated that the GREC wrap up the project with the following actions: “Provide a statistical summary” of the report from Guidepost, bring advice to Synod 2026 regarding which Guidepost recommendations should be implemented, and “draft a concise letter of response conveying self-reflection” on what had been learned.¹⁰

The abuse guidelines themselves that were proposed to Synod 2025 condemn this action of synod, which, knowing the sin of the denomination, ought to have put vigorous work into uncovering and rooting out this sin wherever it is found. As the synodical agenda said:

Heartfelt confession stands in marked contrast to reluctant concession that may occur when one has been exposed. Abusers commonly admit to only what can be proved…¹¹

It is notable that Synod 2025 did not want to dig deeper into the matter of abuse to expose the sin within the denomination. Rather, synod’s priority was to wrap up the matter and tie it with a bow in a “concise letter of…self-reflection.” In wanting to close up and seal this book of her sins, the PRC shows herself to be unrepentant.

No Longer My Mother

What is to be done when the mother church is no longer faithful and her synod demonstrates this through the church’s false ecumenism, unbelief, and false doctrine? A contributor to the Standard Bearer, ironically, gave the correct (if only hypothetical) advice in the issue celebrating the PRC’s centennial:

When a Reformed denomination contradicts and corrupts the truth of these creeds, that denomination becomes whorish, unfaithful to her Husband, and no longer the good, spiritual mother of believers and their children. Then the attitude of the sound members of the church is expressed in this change of the Dutch proverb: “my mother is a whore, she is no longer my mother.” Then, in the remnant, Christ forms the church anew.¹²

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).