As I noted in my August 1 article, Prof. H. Hanko and Prof. D. Engelsma addressed an urgent “appeal” to the 2021 Protestant Reformed synod. In their appeal the professors called for a special committee to be formed to seek reconciliation with the newly formed Reformed Protestant Churches. The professors’ appeal was a dream at best for the reasons I stated in that article.
The synod shabbily dismissed the professors’ request for a special committee and instead adopted a letter addressed to those who had left the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), which letter was given to Protestant Reformed consistories. (The synod’s letter is printed following this article.)
My suggestion to the Protestant Reformed consistories is that they shred synod’s letter and protest it as an offense against everything Christian and decent. Better, add the letter to the evidence that increasingly shows the corruption of the denomination at every level, and leave.
I must confess that when I first read the letter I thought it was satire. It captures exactly the smug self-righteousness and corruption of the gospel within the denomination. I thought that the synodical delegates and professorial advisors who represented the denomination could not be that conceited, tone-deaf, and blind. They could not think that little of the intelligence and spirituality of the former members of the PRC so as to foist such a transparently hollow and insincere confession on them, confess themselves to be humble, say they have done no wrong regarding the deposition of Rev. A. Lanning, and then admonish those who have left to boot, and expect to be taken seriously.
Then I realized that the letter is not a joke. Twenty supposedly intelligent men, along with several professors of the Protestant Reformed seminary, actually assembled in a room and adopted this letter. Some minister, no doubt, or several of them, actually drafted such folly and presented it to his colleagues not only as a good idea but also as wisdom from God. Those ministers, elders, and professors had the audacity to grace the letter’s carnality with the word of God and with heavenly words such as reconciliation, humility, healing, and grace. Those men were so shameless that they handed the letter out to consistories and published it publicly in the Standard Bearer.
Though not a spoof, the letter is a shame. It is nothing more than an echo of the presentations held by many churches and of the lying Standard Bearer articles of Prof. B. Gritters supposedly lamenting the schism. Such laments are as fake as a three-dollar Rolex. The PRC obviously glories in her decision. Never has any decision by the PRC produced so many meetings, lectures, and articles as the deposition of Rev. A. Lanning. The letter touts synod’s careful adjudication of many protests regarding the deposition, but all of them were moot in light of the meetings that many churches had held trumpeting the righteousness of the decision to depose. In light of all those meetings, the decision to reject the protests and to affirm the decision to depose Reverend Lanning was a fait accompli. The PRC should glory in her decision if the charges against him be true.
The PRC has put out of the church and the kingdom of heaven men who by her judgment are schismatic, bearers of false witness, preachers of the dread plague of antinomianism and hyper-Calvinism, rebellious violators of the Church Order, oath-breakers of the Formula of Subscription, and violators of the fifth commandment. And she has put out those who agree with these ministers. Now the PRC should have the courage of her convictions to operate and to write from the viewpoint of those decisions and not make a sham lament and confession, while at the same time wiping her mouth and saying she has done no evil. If the synod wanted to write to those who left, synod should have reiterated its charges against those officebearers and members and called all of them to repent.
All the charges in these instances are laughable, and the synodical delegates and advisors know this. Simply reiterating the charges makes that clear. Consider what the PRC—not God—has declared and what she maintains. One is barred from the kingdom of heaven for preaching that Prof. R. Dykstra minimized the doctrinal error condemned by Synod 2018. It is mortal sin to preach that Classis East of the PRC by its atrocious and sophistical doctrinal decision committed a sin that is more heinous to the Lord than sodomy. It is gravest disobedience in the PRC to write for Sword and Shield magazine and to be a member of Reformed Believers Publishing. To leave the PRC is to be held in “the snare of the devil.” But it was not sin when we did these things, it is not sin now, and it will not be sin in the day of judgment. The men who were involved in the decisions to condemn us know this and seek to soothe their own troubled consciences by loud self-justification and vacuous letters.
The synodical letter is also a church political novelty. This calls for some commentary because the church orderly way is frequently cited by the churches of the Protestant Reformed denomination as that which governs all her decisions. Having zealously upheld the Church Order in rejecting all the protests against Reverend Lanning’s deposition, the synodical delegates and advisors promptly forgot the Church Order in the space of a few hours.
The letter purports to be a synodical admonition to those who are no longer members of the Protestant Reformed fellowship and have formed their own denomination! Imagine the Christian Reformed synod’s addressing several hundred individuals in 1939 instead of addressing the Protestant Reformed classis. The Protestant Reformed synod conceivably could have addressed the first classis of the Reformed Protestant Churches. But by addressing individuals whom it lumped together in a homogenous mass, the synod opened a conversation with several hundred individuals. May those several hundred individuals now address the Protestant Reformed synod? Very curious church polity is this.
The letter is also hierarchical. In the name of synod, the letter states lessons learned and weaknesses exposed but does not name them and foists all this on the consistories. Are consistories implicitly to subscribe to this letter? If I were a member of Trinity’s consistory or Byron’s consistory or a delegate of Classis East, I would be seriously offended by that statement. Those elders and ministers have spent the previous six months telling everyone who would listen that they had done God’s justice and judgment. And then through synod’s letter they find out that weaknesses have been exposed and there are lessons they should learn!
In this same vein, the letter treats the Protestant Reformed consistories as a mailing service. Synod did the work of admonishing, confessing weaknesses, acknowledging lessons learned, denying any sin, and calling for repentance. All the consistories have to do is mail the synodical letter. The elders do not even have to meet with those who left their churches. Just mail another form letter!
Still more, by the letter synod took to itself a great deal of power. Synod took to itself the power to form into a group several hundred individuals who have left the denomination. They are a denomination and churches, but the Protestant Reformed synod would not deign to state that. Worse, the synod took to itself the power of the keys. Recognizing the impropriety of this, the letter seeks to have it both ways. Having admonished in the name of synod, the letter pedantically instructs convinced individuals that they are supposed to go to the consistories of the churches they have left and repent. However, the letter is not from the consistories but from the synod. The letter is signed “Synod 2021 of the PRCA.” The letterhead is from the PRCA and includes the names of the synodical treasurer, the stated clerk, and the assistant stated clerk. But then again, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the denomination shows yet again that she is not above bending a few rules and ignoring some principles in the Church Order if it serves her purposes.
Then there is this church political curiosity: the synodical letter was sent to the consistories as a suggestion. They may use it, or they may not use it. Are we to suppose that the consistories may or may not also subscribe to the unnamed weaknesses and unstated lessons learned? Must we suppose that the consistories are implicitly to receive without proof or substantiation what the synod has said? Are the consistories to make up what they suppose the lessons and weaknesses are, or may they disagree and say that there are no weaknesses and lessons learned? What about settled and binding? Did not the synod adopt this letter? Is it not the synodical statement about those who have left the denomination? Must not the letter be mailed to those who have left as the settled and binding decision of synod? Curiouser and curiouser.
All the church political novelties and curiosities aside, this all shows that there is no conviction behind synod’s letter. The letter is transparently insincere. The letter admits that the PRC learned some lessons, but she will not go into these lessons for her own benefit or for the benefit of anyone else. The letter points out that the Lord “has graciously exposed weaknesses” in the denomination but quickly adds that those weaknesses are “more than we can get into by way of letter.” Surely, if the synod intended to confess weaknesses and lessons learned in the name of the denomination and if it felt that there was not enough room in the letter, synod would have included an explanation of those weaknesses and lessons learned somewhere. It seems a rather important matter for the synod to spell out, so that all the consistories of the denomination can subscribe to the settled and binding decision and instruct their members—perhaps by more lectures—concerning the weaknesses and lessons learned. This would seem to be extremely important if, as the letter says, it was the Lord who was doing the showing. Besides, if a denomination has had the Lord expose her weaknesses and confesses this before the world, would she not also honor the Lord’s work not only by naming the weaknesses but also by stating the steps that are being taken to remedy these weaknesses? Or have all these lessons learned and weaknesses secretly been communicated to only the delegates of synod, and the rest are just supposed to take synod’s word for it? Only those who do not mean what they say would cite lessons learned and weaknesses exposed and be unable or unwilling to elaborate on them.
Adding folly to hypocrisy is the entirely circular logic of the letter: the Protestant Reformed synod approved the evil business of deposition, and so the evil business must be right because the synod approved it. The letter does not pass Logic 101.
More serious, the letter does not pass the basic ethical test, something that would seem to be a very important concern for a denomination that is bent on driving out antinomians of every stripe. A judge cannot sit in trial of his own judgment, unless the judge is God. So, for instance, in the Old Testament the ruling of a local judge was able to be appealed to another court. The same judge did not sit in judgment of his own ruling on appeal. But at synod, trumpeting their own righteousness and holiness before the world, many of the men of Classis East, the synodical deputies of Classis West, and the professorial advisors—all of whom played a very large role in the destruction of Reverend Lanning—sat in judgment of their own judgment. They were the instigators, the judges, the jury, the appeals court, the supreme court, the executioners, and the media team all wrapped up into one. The world—the ungodly world—would blush at the corruption of justice in such a system. And such judgment is repugnant in the church of Christ, where justice and mercy are to be preserved with the greatest fidelity.
But really, all these are merely observations from one who went through this history.
Worse, the letter says what it does in the name of the gospel of reconciliation but corrupts that gospel. This corruption began already in the professors’ letter to synod, in which they argued that seeking meetings with the newly formed denomination would be in harmony with the gospel of reconciliation. I suppose that I could go along with that under the right circumstances, for instance, that the synod, which might have adopted the professors’ proposal, also gave concrete evidence that the churches have repented of their sin of brutally abusing the key power of discipline, sheltering false doctrine, and twisting the Church Order and Formula of Subscription. The synod could have done this especially by advising the discipline of the men who were responsible either directly because they were ringleaders of the evil or indirectly because they stood in the background and pulled levers. The professors did not mention the denomination’s repenting of sins or even any persons’ repenting of their sins. In fact, the professors did not mention sin at all.
In light of their letter, one could perhaps be forgiven for supposing that what has transpired in the PRC was a big misunderstanding. However, separation happens because of sin, not merely because of misunderstandings and weaknesses. Misunderstandings and weaknesses we endure with much love. But false doctrine, suppression of the truth, lording, abuse of power, manipulation of facts, manufactured charges of sin, corruption of the laws and courts of the church, and hypocritical proclamations to all and sundry of your righteousness when you did evil are sins. Either that or the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches are at fault and the PRC is right, has not sinned, and does not need to repent. It matters very little to me against whom the charges of sin are lodged. The point is that reconciliation involves charges of sin against someone for something because someone is responsible for the heinous crime of destroying in God’s church, and whoever destroys in God’s church, him will God destroy. To suggest reconciliation apart from these things is a denial of the gospel of reconciliation. For the gospel of reconciliation includes the calling to repent from sin, to turn to God, and to seek him—all of which point to the fact that reconciliation involves serious repentance and that an attempt at reconciliation without serious repentance is a denial of the gospel of reconciliation.
This corruption continued in the letter adopted by the Protestant Reformed synod. The synod wrote, “We earnestly seek reconciliation in the biblical way of confession and repentance.” So far so good. But then the wheels started to fall off: “The gospel of Christ demands that we try to reconcile.” The gospel of Christ does not demand of two warring parties—ostensibly brothers—that they try to reconcile. That is man’s corruption of the gospel of grace, his superficial efforts with the glorious name of reconciliation, all the while failing to do the hard work of self-examination and true repentance. The gospel demands that the two warring parties reconcile. There is no trying to reconcile. Both with God himself and with the neighbor whom you sinned against, the word of God is “be ye reconciled” (2 Cor. 5:20). That reconciliation demands the repentance of the sinner who has caused the breach. The sinner who will not repent of his sin and who thus stands in the way of reconciliation will be damned. That is the word of God.
Synod’s corruption of the gospel of reconciliation continued: “We attempt to begin a healing of the breach between us.” I have no idea what an attempted beginning is, but you can be sure it is not an all-out effort at reconciliation. It is rather a kind of dipping one’s toes into the water to see if the plunge into reconciliation will be worthwhile and to determine if the other party is going to require real and substantive change and a clear, specific, consistent confession of sin, or whether sins can be swept conveniently under the rug and those who committed them can be congratulated for their earnest efforts at reconciliation. This, synod said is all to be done “in submission and obedience to Christ.” However, Christ did not say, “Attempt to begin to heal the breach,” but Christ said, “Repent.” Christ said, “Go and tell your brother his fault” or “Go confess your fault to your brother.” If you tell your brother his fault and he does not repent, then you are to put him out of the church and the kingdom of heaven. If you do not confess your fault—sin—then you are to be put outside the kingdom.
But perhaps we can overlook these things for the moment. Perhaps the delegates and advisors were not very good theologians and were not very precise in their language, and what Christ said is really what the synod meant.
In the letter synod confessed, “We come to you in humility.” Notice that synod tells the world, “We come…in humility.” I was always taught that if someone has to tell you that he is doing something, he more than likely is not doing it. For instance, if someone begins his sentence with “I am not being proud,” then you can be pretty sure that what follows will be dripping with pride. If someone tells you that he is being honest, then he probably is being colossally dishonest. The word of God is “be humble,” not “tell everyone that you are humble,” which is pride. Let your actions speak, and let another man praise you, which means let the one whom you are approaching judge whether you are humble or not.
The letter makes plain that it indeed originated out of something other than humility. Just before proclaiming its humility, the synod wrote that it was seeking “reconciliation in the biblical way of confession and forgiveness,” so we might expect a confession of sin. Instead, we get this subterfuge: “We have humbly reflected on the lessons God is teaching us. He has graciously exposed weaknesses, which is more than we can get into by way of letter.” Then this rich line: “We would ask you to approach us with this same humility and desire to confess where you have been wrong.” Note that the synod did not confess any wrong and would not elaborate on the weaknesses. Synod confessed to having learned lessons but would not enumerate them. There was on the part of synod a deliberate avoidance of any confession whatsoever. Rather, the letter is a series of deceptively crafted phrases to create the appearance of repentance without actually repenting of anything. It is the technique known as distraction, and all of synod’s confessions about humility, forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation are persiflage.
In fact, synod told us as much: “We cannot confess that we have sinned in the suspension and deposition of Rev. Andy Lanning.” There are a number of things wrong with this line. First and foremost is the assumption, really a charge, that all who left the PRC left because of sin in the deposition of Reverend Lanning. What the PRC should recognize, if a miracle occurs and she becomes serious about reconciliation, is that the Reformed Protestant denomination was not formed because of sinful suspension and deposition. Those sins were the end result of a concerted effort to bring false doctrine into the church, undermine a synodical decision, and carry on slander against the truth of God.
What that line does make clear is that the PRC is not so earnest and humble as to confess sin. Of course, she could not, for that would mean the deposition of several professors, ministers, and consistories. What is clear is that the learned lessons did not involve any sin on their part—they are perfectly righteous in their works, and the synod said so—and none of their weaknesses that God so graciously exposed to synod involved any sin on their part either. Synod could have left out all condescending banter about its humility, having learned many lessons, and having been shown many weaknesses. In the interest of brevity and honesty, synod could have started with the statement, “We have done nothing wrong, and we are calling all those who left the denomination to repent.” Rather, synod wrote a letter that fools no one and sounds like a smarmy used car salesman who wants to butter up his customer right before he takes advantage of him. This letter is a disgrace, and it disgraces all who voted for it and all who do not condemn it. The letter formulizes by synodical decision a total corruption of the gospel of reconciliation as though that gospel may be prostituted to make men’s impudence look good.
The letter is eerily familiar. I have seen many such letters suggested, written, and approved by Protestant Reformed consistories long before this synodical letter. These letters appeared almost without fail in every abuse case that I am aware of in the Protestant Reformed churches. These letters have been penned sometimes by the elders themselves, sometimes by the abusive man, and sometimes by the abusive man’s friends or family. The letters are crafted to be sent to his abused wife to show his repentance but are in reality nothing more than image management by the abusive husband and the consistory. By writing or agreeing to such a letter, the abusive man is heartily congratulated by the members of the consistory, his friends, and other flying monkeys for his humble spirit and his willingness to seek reconciliation with his wife. In these letters the abusive husband will vaguely mention some lessons learned and some sorrow for grave weaknesses. But he never gets into specifics in his letter about what he has learned or what his weaknesses are. Almost invariably in the same letter, he will attack his wife more or less subtly for not being submissive and for violating her marriage vows and fluff his feathers by assurances to her of his great love for marriage. He will urge his wife to be humble like him and come back to him.
All his wife’s very serious accusations are swept away, and none of them are taken seriously at all. She is not consulted about what she thinks about his apology. The husband and the elders are not interested in what she thinks about the apology, for all know that it is as worthless as the paper it is written on. By means of pious-sounding platitudes in the letter, the husband whitewashes the history of the marriage and his own wicked actions in the marriage that drove his wife away from him through his repeated murder of her soul and body. When his wife rebuffs his evil letter—according to the apostle, the letter is “the sorrow of the world” that works death—she is smeared as vindictive and unforgiving. She is maligned as being blinded by hatred to the obvious change in her husband that everyone else sees and of which he has now given abundant testimony by his letter of reconciliation.
Ensnared in the falsehood that the husband is actually repentant because he wrote his letter, driven by the idea that reconciliation would be a wonderful testimony to enhance the image of the man and consistory and church, and desiring to protect the sanctity of the hollow image of a good marriage, the elders will meet repeatedly with the woman. Often they meet under the guise of helping her and comforting her in her distress. At these meetings the elders will pound on the table to intimidate her and demand that she receive her husband’s worthless letter of reconciliation and castigate her for being so unforgiving and vindictive. The elders will point out without mercy that she is a sinner too. They will threaten her that if she does not forgive, she will not be forgiven, thus using the word of God and God’s own promise of forgiveness as a threat and a club. They will rattle the keys in her face, telling her that failure to forgive her obviously repentant husband—have you read his letter of reconciliation?—will result in her own excommunication. The elders will grace their meetings with Bible texts to impress on the woman that what they are demanding is godly and biblical. They will tell her that they know! Oh, how they know what true repentance is! They will puff themselves up that they and not the woman can determine if her husband is repentant. They have, after all, carefully reviewed the whole case.
In the consistory room the elders will slander the woman to their fellow elders by indicating how easy it is to work with the man and how eager he is for reconciliation and how hardhearted and unforgiving the woman is. The elders are incredulous that she does not want to hear about reconciliation until there is true repentance. The evil of all of this passes by these incompetent, shallow, and unrighteous judges. The very best of them, while sympathetic and confessing that the man bears most of the blame, will say that the wife must take at least a sliver of the blame for being beaten mercilessly by her husband by words or fists or both and having to endure other forms of degrading and destructive behavior. She should take some of the blame because, after all, she is hard to deal with, and why did she make her husband angry? The man, then, comforted in his wickedness—both of abusing his wife and of his evil letter for reconciliation—is received into the bosom of the church, and his wife is driven away, often having been put under discipline herself.
I have seen many of these kinds of letters. Almost my entire pastoral ministry in the past four years has been devoted to dealing with the evil fruits of such evil letters. I have seen a sickening idolatry of a merely formal reconciliation and a merely outwardly together marriage, a monstrous sweeping of sin under the rug, and a corrupting of the gospel of reconciliation by means of worthless repentance. I have seen a smug ignoring of sin, especially if the man belongs to a prominent or well-connected family. I have been baffled by this. It does not bear any resemblance to the gospel, even though ministers and elders and members of the church who act this way have the words gospel, repentance, reconciliation, mercy, and grace readily on their lips. Now I see why. The churches themselves at their broadest assemblies behave the same way and are populated by men who either do that themselves or think that it is fine that other men do it. The synod really could not have acted any differently. Synod is led by men who have written or approved these kinds of letters in consistories and who are captive to this kind of carnal thinking. Reconciliation is only a word that sounds good when you mouth empty assurances that you are, after all, interested in it, only not in the way of true repentance at all.
By this letter and by all of its recent decisions dismissing protests against its evil actions, the broadest assembly of the Protestant Reformed Churches has now declared to be righteous its decisions to cast out faithful men and officebearers, as well as those members who cannot abide such wickedness. By synod’s letter the Protestant Reformed denomination has shown herself to be hardened in her departure from the truth, in her persecution of the faithful, and in her sheltering of the evil in her midst. The letter, then, is an evil business and stands in the service of an evil purpose.
It is an evil business because it is a sham. It is a sham because the majority of men who adopted this letter have zero interest in true reconciliation. If they did, the first decree of the Protestant Reformed Synod 2021 would have been to rebuke Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church, Trinity Protestant Reformed Church, Crete Protestant Reformed Church, and Peace Protestant Reformed Church for their evil discipline of and concurrence in the evil discipline of faithful ministers. I only write these names so that they may live in infamy, at least on these pages, until the cases are adjudicated in the final judgment before the awesome and righteous Judge who had experience with such courts that not only met in secret but also at night. If the denomination were interested in reconciliation, through her synodical delegates and advisors she would not have dealt with such an important subject as reconciliation by means of such a stupid and transparently insincere letter.
The letter is wicked because it lies against the truth. The letter speaks of humility, but the humility is the false humility of the unrepentant. It is the humility of the world’s sorrow that works death. The letter speaks of the Lord’s exposing weaknesses, but the Lord has exposed lies; hypocrisy; false doctrine; ignorance; lack of love for his truth and a great love for the names and reputations of men; a brutal use of discipline; and trampling on the law of God, righteousness, and truth. All the while those who do it scream, “The antinomians, antinomians, antinomians are coming!” In short, hypocrisy on a grand scale! The so-called weaknesses touch the very marks of the church and thus the very existence of the PRC as true churches of Christ. The gravity of the so-called weaknesses does not call for an empty claim to have learned some undefined lessons but for repentance.
The letter is evil because it is legerdemain to deceive the simple. It is a cunning sleight of hand. Having no real interest in reconciliation and desiring to make many simple in the PRC and outside the PRC suppose that the denomination desires reconciliation, this letter was adopted. It is a trick, simple as that—a clever trick but a trick nonetheless. All its language is deceptive. It mentions humility but shows none. It mentions reconciliation but gives no evidence of genuine interest in reconciliation. It uses the Bible but abuses the Bible for synod’s own purposes. Let no one be deceived; and if any do listen to the trick, they will be like the abused wife who is ensnared again by her abusive husband’s lying letter and sham repentance.
The letter is an evil business because it calls good evil and evil good. The good that it calls evil is the act of leaving the apostatizing denomination of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The evil that it calls good is the denomination’s sinful discipline of the godly, her rejection of the word of God, her departure from the truth, and her being ruled by the wisdom and counsel of men.
When the pope excommunicated Martin Luther, Luther held a public ceremony to burn the pope’s ban. I now publicly burn all the decrees of suspension and deposition and all the letters and admonitions delivered by the Protestant Reformed Churches against faithful ministers of the gospel, elders and deacons, and members who have departed from those apostatizing churches in obedience to the command of Christ, “Come out from among them and be separate.” As Luther’s act was not an act of showmanship, so mine is not an act of showmanship. Such an act is necessary to declare before God, Christ, his holy angels, and the world that what the Protestant Reformed denomination has bound on earth is not bound in heaven but is rejected by the Lord Jesus Christ as evil and contrary to his word and that what the Protestant Reformed denomination has loosed on earth—herself—is bound in heaven.
Since the synod by implication addressed me, I now address the synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches: “Repent, now also, of your evil letter.”
—NJL
——————
Dear brothers and sisters who have left the PRCA over the recent controversy,
We write to you out of the sincere love we have for you in our Lord Jesus Christ and the deep grief we have over the division between us. Knowing it to be our solemn duty before God, we earnestly seek reconciliation in the biblical way of confession and forgiveness because such reconciliation is a reflection of the very heart of the gospel of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:18-21). When reconciliation is sought and accomplished God is glorified, which is our shared goal in this life and the life to come. The very gospel of Christ demands that we try to reconcile. In submission and obedience to Christ we attempt to begin a healing of the breach between us.
We come to you in humility. In the events of the recent controversy and the departure of many families we have humbly reflected on the lessons God is teaching us. He has graciously exposed weaknesses, which is more than we can get into by way of letter. We would ask you to approach us with this same humility and desire to confess where you have been wrong.
At the same time, we cannot confess that we have sinned in the suspension and deposition of Rev. Andy Lanning. Synod 2021 carefully adjudicated many protests concerning the deposition and the approval of the Synodical Deputies from Classis West. The synod has determined that this deposition was just and right before God.
Your departure from true churches of Christ and your following of a lawfully deposed man concern us deeply, and lead us to issue an earnest call that you repent of your sin and return to our fellowship, even as Jesus prays this for His church in John 17:21. This plea is sent with the desire of II Timothy 2:25-26, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” We plead with you to reconsider what you have done and return to us. Be assured that we will humbly and mercifully receive you, as those who know the undeserved grace and mercy of our faithful covenant God.
The right way for this to happen is that you would return to the consistories from which you left and begin the process of reconciliation with them. Please prayerfully consider our plea for the glory of God and the witness of Christ’s church in the midst of this world. Reconciliation would be an amazing witness before a divided world and church world of the beauty of the gospel of reconciliation.
In Christ’s service,
Synod 2021 of the PRCA
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