The Parting Shot of Matthew and Christina Overway

On May 3, 2025, Matthew Overway, his wife, Christina, and their four children left the Reformed Protestant Churches. In doing so Matt and Christina disobeyed the command of God in Belgic Confession article 28:

We believe, since this holy congregation is an assembly of those who are saved, and that out of it there is no salvation, that no person, of whatsoever state or condition he may be, ought to withdraw himself to live in a separate state from it; but that all men are in duty bound to join and unite themselves with it, maintaining the unity of the church; submitting themselves to the doctrine and discipline thereof; bowing their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ; and as mutual members of the same body, serving to the edification of the brethren, according to the talents God has given them. (Confessions and Church Order, 60)

By Matt and Christina’s leaving they placed the seal upon the excommunication that the consistory of First Reformed Protestant Church had begun by placing them under silent censure. When First’s consistory placed Matt and Christina under silent censure, the church, as they point out, declared to them that according to answer 85 of Lord’s Day 31 they were “forbidden the use of the sacraments; whereby they are excluded from the Christian church, and by God Himself from the kingdom of Christ” (Confessions and Church Order, 119). In a very real sense, when the consistory took the decision to place Matt and Christina under silent censure, Matt and Christina heard, probably more clearly than most individuals upon whom this sentence is read, that they are excluded from the Christian church and by God himself from the kingdom of Christ. The final step of excommunication proved to be unnecessary in Matt and Christina’s case. In a case in which the church reads the Form for Excommunication over an impenitent sinner, she seals the sentence that was read over the impenitent sinner all the way back when he was first censured by the consistory’s decision. In Matt and Christina’s case the ecclesiastical action of reading the form was unnecessary. Matt and Christina, as it were, took the pen in their own hands and signed their own sentences. However, this sobering historical event in the Reformed Protestant Churches is not the main point of this article. These events simply set the stage for the material that I intend to cover.

Matt and Christina sent an email to the entire congregation of First Reformed Protestant Church. Possibly believing themselves to be at an airport, they felt the need to announce their departure. Their email contains a somewhat lengthy body, as well as four attachments, in which they attempt to justify their actions.¹ The body of the email reveals their intentions. One really does not have to read the attachments to the email to get a sense of what is found in them; although, if an individual has unsatiated gluttony for punishment, he could wade through the attachments. One thing is for sure though, Matt does have a way with words. He is a master chef of word salads, and his writing reflects a common belief that when words are used to persuade, that their strength is found in numbers. With this in mind, let us first examine the body of the email.

Matt and Christina start by informing the congregation that they observe that their departure from the congregation, their children’s departures from the Christian school, and Christina’s departure from teaching in the Christian school are both sudden and shocking for the congregation. While these departures may have been consummated at an earlier date than Matt and Christina expected, my impression from individual members of that congregation was that they were not shocked, nor did they find these departures sudden. There had been an uneasy quiet in the congregation for a while and hope among the members that Matt and Christina would come around, but their departures were not unexpected. It was widely known throughout the congregation that Matt and Christina were not in agreement with the work of the consistories of First and Second in the Oostra case. It was no secret that Matt and Christina did not agree with the doctrine of the antithesis, as taught by scripture and the creeds and preached in the Reformed Protestant Churches.

By the second paragraph of their email, Matt and Christina already betray their motives when they write, “It has been insinuated that the real reason we were protesting was to find an excuse to leave the RPC because we do not love the doctrine of the antithesis.”

Although they claim to love the doctrine of the antithesis, as we will see when we delve into the attachments to their email, Matt and Christina do not love that doctrine. They reject the antithesis and charge the preaching of the antithesis as teaching legalism and adding a man-made law to the regenerated believer’s life in this world. Scripture is full of passages that teach the antithesis, such as 1 Corinthians 5, which Matt and Christina wrest, as they do the other scriptures.

Having seen the tipped hand of Matt and Christina, we can now proceed through the rest of their email. We have seen their cards, but it is still fascinating to watch how they play this losing hand. Matt and Christina acknowledge the sentence placed upon them by the consistory of First and acknowledge that they understand its effects. They are not concerned, though, that they have been forbidden the use of the sacraments and excluded not only from the church but also from the kingdom of Christ. Their main concern is that their censure means that their protest would not be heard by the September meeting of the Reformed Protestant classis.

It is a correct observation that a classis will not hear a protest from an individual who is under discipline, unless the protest is against that individual’s discipline. This is not some arbitrary rule of the classis, but this is due to the gravity of the situation in which a member under discipline stands. Out of love for the disciplined member, nothing could be more pressing and urgent than the resolution of his discipline.

But in their email Matt and Christina claim that their justification protest is “paramount and primary in our minds.”

Before I address their justification protest, let us examine what they say about their protest and about Rev. Nathan Langerak in private text messages. One message concerns Matt and Christina’s rejection of the gospel preached in First Reformed Protestant Church by Reverend Langerak in a sermon titled “The Judgment of Ministers” based on 1 Corinthians 4:1–4. In a text message sent to an elder at First, Matt and Christina state,

As you know, we are in the process of protesting Seconds consistory (of which Rev Langerak is no small part) about the doctrine taught regarding forgiveness with God (the mark of a standing or falling church). Just as serious, we believe Second also made it clear in their response to us that they are stealing the key of excommunication from Christ and giving the authority to themselves to say people are excommunicated as they please…

The minister (as a member of Seconds consistory) whom we are charging with a subverting of justification by faith alone, lying about previous members of our congregation, and stealing the keys of Christ preached to us that he cares very little for what we have to say.*

First, realize that in the protest, they acknowledge that these other charges against Reverend Langerak (“lying about previous members of our congregation, and stealing the keys of Christ”) are “just as serious” as their point regarding justification. I would like to make clear that if these are the charges that they have against Reverend Langerak, it would not be hard from a completely worldly viewpoint to understand why he would care very little for what they have to say. When Reverend Langerak preached a sermon on the same text in Crete Protestant Reformed Church, people had a lot to say about it. The problem for both Matt and Christina and the unbelieving members of the congregation at Crete is that Reverend Langerak based his sermon upon scripture. The fact is, no one has ever come with an argument that Reverend Langerak does not preach the text. The text stands as clear as the sun in the sky in its teaching that the minister should view it as a very light thing to be judged by men in the church. It is apparent that Matt and Christina’s disagreement with the way that the Oostra case was handled is just as important for them as their charge that Second “subverted the doctrine of justification by faith alone.”**

This becomes even more apparent when the reader wades through the attachment titled “appeal to classis (2).” This attachment contains a letter of Second’s consistory to Brandon and Alana Oostra, a protest of Matt and Christina to Second regarding the letter to Brandon and Alana (justification protest), the answer of Second’s consistory, a second protest of Matt and Christina to Second, the answer of Second, and Matt and Christina’s appeal to classis.

In the first protest Matt and Christina keep to their original point and contend,

A. We believe the Second RPC Consistory subverted the doctrine of justification by faith alone when they wrote: “Be assured that there is forgiveness with God…when we confess our sins and turn from those sins.” The gospel message of the Reformed Protestant Churches since the beginning of our existence has been that there is forgiveness with God without one’s confession and turning from their sins.

B. We believe Second RPC Consistory subverted the truth of the unconditional covenant as it relates to the preservation of the saints when they taught that one has the possibility of being “restored to fellowship with God.”**

After rejecting the answer of Second’s consistory, which includes information about the context in which the statement was written and to whom it was written, the bone of contention shows itself in Matt and Christina’s response to the consistory. Matt and Christina are upset about the Oostra case. They do not believe that Brandon and Alana have done anything wrong by remaining in Iowa for over six months while Alana taught the child of a deposed officebearer. The Overway’s protest states,

Likewise, the issue that the Oostra’s “separated themselves from membership with the church” is a very uncharitable and unmerciful way to see things. The church closed around them. They requested membership at First RPC within weeks of Sovereign RPC disbanding but were only declined membership due to the inability of First to have proper spiritual oversight of them while they were still in Iowa…

Then after six or seven months they relocated to Michigan and again requested membership. We fail to see how they separated themselves from the church by “neglect and carelessness.” They sought in every instance possible to join themselves to the body of Christ by membership as well as in the preaching and the sacraments.**

Second’s consistory then points out that Brandon and Alana are living in unrepentant sin. The consistory’s response to Matt and Christina states,

At present, Brandon and Alana are manifesting themselves by the marks of unbelief by their continued walk in sin, even after having been admonished. Refusing to acknowledge one’s sin does not manifest someone as a believer but rather as impenitent and unbelieving in need of repentance.**

Matt and Christina respond,

At the time that the consistory originally wrote their letter, Brandon and Alana were in fact evidencing the marks of a believer. They had moved and made a request for membership in the RP churches. When that membership had been revoked and they were told to go to Second to resolve charges of sin, they went to Second and sought to resolve those issues. Seeking membership in the church and seeking to resolve charges of sin are the marks of a believer.**

By their letter Matt and Christina indicate that they do not believe that Brandon and Alana are wrong, and therefore Brandon and Alana have nothing for which to repent. While Matt and Christina do not explicitly state it in their letter, it becomes evident that their issue is not that Second teaches that believers must, can, and do repent of their sins. Rather, the problem that Matt and Christina have is that Second demands that Brandon and Alana must repent of their sins, as their refusal to do so reveals that they stand outside the church. This is evident from this paragraph in Matt and Christina’s conclusion:

Worst of all in your answer to us you demonstrated that you have stolen the keys of the kingdom from Christ and tried to lock someone out of the kingdom apart from the King’s authority and power. We have called you to repentance for this sin of lording as well as the sin of lying about your neighbor.**

The heart and motive of the Overway’s protest about justification are clear to the reader when in its response Second’s consistory deftly placed its finger upon the sore spot for Matt and Christina. The protest was not about justification by faith alone. The protest was about the Oostra case.

The fact that the Oostra case comes up again here is no surprise. Taken by itself, the Oostra case would have been of little consequence to the churches. The Oostra case is important for one reason, and that is because God has used it to expose the deep-seated rot in the Reformed Protestant Churches regarding the truth of the antithesis. The whole issue in the Overway’s justification protest points back to the antithesis, and God used the Oostra case as a sort of litmus test for the antithesis, to publicly reveal those who do not believe. If you do not believe in the antithesis, then you do not believe that Brandon and Alana did anything wrong by remaining in Iowa. The protest of Matt and Christina shows that they despise the gospel not only in its calling to repent but also in its calling to be separate from those who are called Christians but maintain doctrines and/or practices inconsistent with the name. The calling of Second’s consistory to Brandon and Alana to repent hit home for Matt and Christina, not because it is a call only to Brandon and Alana but because it also is a call to Matt and Christina to repent of the same thing.

Matt also has a protest against Reverend Langerak’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 5:9–13 titled “The Calling toward the Impenitent,” which he preached in First Reformed Protestant Church.*** In his protest Matt argues that 1 Corinthians 5:9–13, and really all of 1 Corinthians 5, cannot apply to the antithesis in the life of the child of God but refers only to church discipline. He contends that the admonitions “not to keep company” and “with such an one no not to eat” refer only to eating of the Lord’s table, and he rejects the application of this text to the Christian life. He accuses Reverend Langerak of falsely exegeting the passage.

The consistory of First responds against each of Matt’s points with several grounds. Most of these grounds include other scriptural passages to prove Reverend Langerak’s exegesis, but in one instance the consistory includes an exegesis and a translation of the text by John Calvin to show that the text can be exegeted exactly as Reverend Langerak preached the text.

Matt begins his letter to First’s consistory with a charge against the doctrine of the antithesis, calling it “the teaching of legalism.”*** Matt then continues in his letter and rejects the entire answer of the consistory, maintains that his exegesis is the only correct exegesis of the passage, and maintains that “the use of the writings of John Calvin in the decisions of an ecclesiastical assembly are illegitimate.”***

The other attachments to the email are of little value, but they do contribute some insights. Mostly, Matt and Christina charge the officebearers of First, and especially the elders who worked with them, of doing their work deceitfully and failing to admonish them. Matt takes the phrase “after being often brotherly admonished” from answer 85 of the Heidelberg Catechism (Confessions and Church Order, 119) and makes that brotherly admonishment a requirement of the elders before he can be placed under censure.

A reading of the phrase in its context shows that this is not the meaning or intent of the Catechism. Rather, the Lord’s Day is dealing with the process for a sin to come before the church. In the case of a private sin, one may not bring the charge of sin before the church until he has brotherly admonished the sinner in accordance with Matthew 5:23–24. Only after this can the church, through her consistory, step in. The consistory then works with the sinner and places him under discipline. “Often brotherly admonished” is not a requirement for censure. In fact a consistory could learn of a sin, meet with the sinner, and at that meeting, seeing that he is unrepentant, put him under censure. It is conceivable that a man could come to the consistory with a protest against the preaching, the consistory could judge that he holds to false doctrine, and he could leave the meeting under censure. There is no requirement that a consistory tolerates a sin and admonishes a sinner repeatedly before placing him under censure. The consistory must protect the table of the Lord.

It is especially telling that Matt denies being admonished, yet documents reveal several instances when he and the elders met via phone, texts, or in person.

Matt and Christina both add more complaints to the pile, such as that Christina was judged unfairly because her husband answered questions for both of them, or that when Matt thought that he was talking to one elder on the phone, there were two elders on the line. Nothing that he brought up is particularly groundbreaking; in the interest of space, it is not worth entering too much into each of these individual complaints.

Matt has a well-documented history of dislike for Reverend Ophoff’s preaching. While Matt would not formally charge Reverend Ophoff with abuse or sin, Matt complains that the preaching was angry, harsh, abusive, divisive, and any other number of negative epithets that he can think of. Matt says it best in his own words when he declares, “I may have my evaluation of the preaching that it was full of anger, yelling and threats and yet not charge the man with abuse.”* I am not sure what Matt’s purpose is in making public his grievances against Reverend Ophoff’s preaching, while documenting publicly his refusal to charge him with sin. It is not a wonder, then, that when Reverend Langerak preached that we may not have such a wicked evaluation of the preaching that it touched a nerve with Matt.

Matt, Christina, and their children ended up at Remnant Reformed Church. Matt, more than most, understands the heresy taught there regarding the legalism of exclusive psalmody. In his protest against the antithesis, he writes,

In the controversy regarding exclusive psalmody, Rev. Lanning used Colossians 3:16 in order to try to prove that we may only sing the Psalms in our worship services. It was pointed out by Rev. Langerak that the context of this passage is not regarding public worship but has to do with the everyday life and walk of the believer and therefore the exegesis of Rev. Lanning was wrongly forced upon the passage. It was in part because of this erroneous exegesis of this passage that Rev. Lanning has led many into the legalism of exclusive psalmody in public worship services as a demand of the regulative principle.***

Matt and Christina are now attending a church about which Matt expressed disagreement with the doctrine that is taught there. In a way they are in a familiar place. Matt and Christina disagree with many of the doctrines of the Reformed Protestant Churches, but they would not leave until God, in love for his church, exposed Matt and Christina and forced them out. Since God does not love Remnant Reformed Church, Matt and Christina will probably settle into their new congregation just fine, unless God turns them. And if God turns them, Matt and Christina will repent. If Matt and Christina repent, they will find that when they repent God has already forgiven their sins and that God works in them to hate those who hate the Lord.

In the face of such a fall, this gospel gives us our only comfort. God has reminded his church once again that trust in men is vain.

May God preserve us from our own foolishness, lest we also lose the doctrine of the antithesis and trade it for the bondage of exclusive psalmody.