I thought that the question whether the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) should join the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) was settled at Synod 2017. Yet in the May 15 issue of the Standard Bearer, we read that representatives of the United Reformed Churches (URC) encouraged the PRC to become a member of the council in order to witness against the federal vision. What makes me wonder if joining NAPARC is still a goal of the PRC is that there is no indication in the editorial that the PRC representatives told the URC representatives that Synod 2017 decided that the PRC would not become a member of the council. Is the PRCs’ joining NAPARC still an open question?

The denomination does not need the forum of NAPARC to witness against the errors of the federal vision. Theologians in the PRC have written books and articles and given many speeches against the federal vision. That witness has focused on the need for Reformed churches to reckon with federal vision’s root of conditional covenant theology. Given the near total rejection of that witness by Reformed churches and theologians, there is no great hope that giving the same witness at NAPARC will suddenly change hearts and minds. Indeed, some member denominations of NAPARC, the URC in particular, boast that they have already dealt with the federal vision. Must the members of the PRC believe that now these churches want to hear what the PRC have to say?

There is also the matter of grounding a decision to join the council in the opportunity to witness against the federal vision. If the federal vision goes away, have the PRC then lost their reason for being a member of NAPARC? There must be a deeper reason than a passing theological controversy for joining an ecumenical organization.

To be clear, the issue is not sending observers to NAPARC, but joining the council. The two issues must be clearly separated. For years, the PRC have sent observers to the council’s annual meetings. The problem is that sending observers has always been intertwined with the issue of becoming a member denomination, and apparently, it still is intertwined. Sending observers to NAPARC’s annual meetings creates the impression among the member denominations that the PRC still may be interested in membership. Likely, as long as the PRC send observers, the denomination will face the matter of joining NAPARC from those who are not content with sending observers but want the PRC to become a member. The sad thing is that those within the denomination who are enthusiastic about joining the council have never written a reasoned or theological argument for why the PRC should join.

Such an argument is necessary. Joining NAPARC would necessarily entail official ties and official meetings with the member denominations. How would these meetings square with the PRC’s synodical decisions to reject these same denominations because of doctrinal differences? NAPARC would be the forum to cooperate with member denominations based on a supposed unity as laid out in NAPARC’s constitution. Joining would also commit the PRC to the principles and practices of the council. Prominent theologians of member denominations have made clear that among these principles is tolerating doctrinal differences in the name of unity and cooperation. The question, then, is very simple: on what basis should the PRC join NAPARC?

I appreciate a recent blog by Henry Hoekstra for its attempts to provide such a basis.¹ He criticizes the stance of Reverend Lanning and me in Sword and Shield concerning meetings between the PRC and the URC and the question of whether the PRC should join NAPARC.

My concern is not his position on meetings between the two denominations. He does not understand the position that Reverend Lanning espoused in his July editorial, which Henry summarizes this way: 

Rev. Lanning’s thesis is that there should be no meeting between the two denominations because meeting with the goal of denominational unity is a false unity interwoven with a compromise of the truth on the part of the PRC.

This is not true. It is the calling of the PRC’s contact committee to labor with other denominations to establish official ties by working through and resolving—not ignoring or stepping around—doctrinal differences. Regarding the URC, the position is that meetings between the two denominations must have the goal of official ties; the subject of discussions must be the doctrinal differences that separate them in order to resolve those differences. Such meetings have taken place in the past, and the conclusion has been that because of serious and irresolvable doctrinal differences between the denominations no ties are possible.

My focus is Henry’s criticism that Reverend Lanning and I have an “isolationist theology” because we insist that joining NAPARC would be an unholy alliance. Henry insists that this isolationist theology is rooted in denial of the perspicuity of scripture and of the catholicity of the church. His conclusion is that the PRC should join NAPARC because the denomination has so much in common with the member denominations. He represents a line of thinking that is present not only outside the PRC but also within these churches, that it is isolationist for the denomination to stand aloof from the alliance of NAPARC and that such isolationism is bad, indeed, contrary to scripture.

Henry writes that such isolationism is denial of the perspicuity of scripture. He defines the perspicuity of scripture in the words of Herman Bavinck: 

The truth, the knowledge of which is necessary to everyone for salvation…is nevertheless presented throughout all Scripture in such a simple and intelligible form that a person concerned about the salvation of his or her soul can easily, by personal reading and study, learn to know the truth from Scripture without the assistance and guidance of the church and the priest.

Henry’s conclusion is that 

each believer and therefore, each church denomination has the right to go with their consciences and what they believe to be true of God’s Word…Thus one man may say that scripture teaches this, and the other man says I believe scripture does not teach this, and they may still have unity in that they are baptized into one baptism, members of one body, and believe in the same Spirit of Christ.

For Henry, the perspicuity of scripture allows that “we are able to disagree on certain things, and quite frankly, this disagreement is good because it sharpens the church!”

The position he espouses is a form of postmodern philosophy that there is a truth for every individual and that my truth might differ from your truth, but we should not judge. His theology is the individualism and relativism of postmodernism applied to the church and ecumenical relationships. This kind of thinking—ignoring doctrinal differences, speaking only of sincerity of conviction, no matter how wrong the doctrine, all in the name of cooperation—is ecumenical postmodernism and it is widespread.

This ecumenical postmodernism has nothing to do with the perspicuity of scripture. He confuses the objective clarity of scripture and the certainty of the Spirit’s guidance into all truth with the claim of every man or church to understand scripture and to teach the truth. He confuses the perspicuity of scripture with an individual’s convictions. That the scriptures are clear does not mean that everyone clearly understands them. Because a man claims to preach the truth, does not mean that he preaches the truth. Because someone is convinced—and many are—that God offers salvation to everyone who hears the preaching of the gospel out of his sincere desire that all who hear be saved, does not make it so. The individual and his convictions are not the measure of truth.

The standard of truth according to which all men’s convictions and beliefs must be judged is the word of God. While Henry argues that the word of God alone must judge the individual, he, in fact, denies that an individual can be judged by the word of God. Rather, each individual has his own truth, which everyone else must respect as the work of the Spirit. Henry attempts to limit this by saying, “There are things that a believer must confess about God and must believe.” Such a limit is arbitrary and without any basis. Who decides what a believer must believe? What is the standard of such a decision? Taken to its logical conclusion, this thinking ends up in pure relativism, which in the end is denial of any objective truth.

Henry does not reckon with the reality of the spirit of the lie, a spirit that convinces men of lies, and about which scripture speaks in 1 John 4:1: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” Henry would forbid us from doing what the Spirit says we must do, which is to try every doctrine by the word of God and to determine whether that doctrine proceeds from the Spirit of God or from the spirit of the lie. Henry would have all the churches speaking different things about what the truth is, yet all agreeing to disagree in the name of toleration, cooperation, and coexistence. But the Spirit says constantly to the church, “Be of one mind, speak the same thing, and try the spirits.”

More seriously, Henry divides the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ is the one Spirit of one truth, and he does not lead one individual to believe one thing and another individual to believe an entirely different and contradictory thing about the truth of God’s word, as though the Spirit is a relativist.

His argument minimizes the seriousness of the errors that separate the PRC from other Reformed denominations, as though the errors are minor matters from a past theological age—mere trifles. He also minimizes the theological cost suffered by many of his forebears to maintain the truth. The issues that separate the PRC from other Reformed denominations involve the nature of divine grace and salvation and ultimately the very nature of God. These are the weightiest of matters, and there cannot be unity in disagreement on these things. Henry seems to have forgotten what the word of God says about unity: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). That is God’s rhetorical question. The answer is no, especially when disagreement involves the very truth of the gospel of saving grace.

The truth—objective, clear, and understandable—is the only basis for unity. Unity in the truth is the only true unity. Seeking and keeping unity in the truth is one of the church’s highest callings. She does that especially in her denominational unity, wherein all speak the same thing. Belonging to the calling to keep the unity of the Spirit (truth) is maintaining separation from the lie, which threatens that precious unity, and speaking the truth against the lie. Henry’s plea for unity based on respecting everyone’s different truth is exactly the kind of plea for toleration—an unrighteous toleration—that comes in one form or another with every plea for false unity.

He also contends that refusing to join NAPARC denies the catholicity of the church, which he defines in the terms of Herman Bavinck: “The true Catholic Church embraces all believers on earth at all times and places, and outside it, there is no salvation.” Henry gives his own understanding when he writes, “The multi-protestant denominational world is one together in the same baptism in Jesus Christ.”

Henry does not understand that the catholicity of the church is not synonymous with all baptized persons and all denominations—even if restricted to Reformed denominations—that exist in the world today, as though all denominations and people have a secret unity because they are all united to Christ by the mere ceremony of baptism.

His understanding of the catholicity of the church in reality is an argument for the false notion of the pluriformity of the church, which teaches that each denomination is part of Christ; and although each denomination has its faults and errors, each denomination expresses some beauty of the body of Christ. The pluriformity of the church always goes hand in hand with false unity as the justification for it. Pluriformity ignores that one of the reasons for all the denominations in the world today is the presence and work of the lie. Pluriformity also ignores the reality of apostasy and the falling away of denominations because of the lie. 

The catholicity of the church is an entirely different concept. It is a perfection of the elect body of Christ. Catholicity is believed now and will only be seen in its fullness in the day of Christ. Catholicity teaches that God draws his elect church from every tribe, tongue, nation, and class of people, from the beginning to the end of the world. 

Confession of the catholicity of the church does not allow us to overlook doctrinal differences in various denominations because we respect that they, whatever their faults, are one with us by baptism in Christ. I can recognize that I am one with every believer who believes the truth of the Reformed creeds and who is a member of another denomination and still criticize the doctrinal errors present in that denomination and maintain ecclesiastical distance from that denomination for the sake of the truth, without denying the catholicity of the church. Indeed, my love for the truth and desire that all come to the knowledge of the truth require that I do so.

I also address Henry’s contention that rejecting membership in NAPARC is “isolationist theology.” Regardless of how he grounds the charge of isolationism, he lays his finger on the main gripe of those who are enthusiastic for the PRC to join the council. In this connection, he speaks of those who have a “negative and low view [of the catholicity of the church] that cries out, ‘Israel dwells in safety alone.’” I remind him that if crying out that Israel shall dwell in safety alone manifests a low and negative view of the catholicity of the church, the Spirit has a low and negative view because those are his words in Deuteronomy 33:28. The word “alone” in that verse means in isolation. For instance, the leper in Leviticus 13:46 dwelt alone, or in isolation. An isolationist theology is the theology of the Holy Spirit. He instructs Israel that in isolation is her safety and security. Israel is not to entangle herself in the affairs of the world by unholy alliances and world conformity. She is to live antithetically in the world as God’s holy people. The same would hold true for the church. She dwells safely in isolation.

This is true for the PRC. Her safety is in refusing to entangle herself in the affairs of churches that have departed from the truth of the Reformed creeds and by virtue of their common-grace theology have entangled themselves with the world. Is she uninterested in what is going on in the Reformed church world? Does she remain silent in the Reformed church world? Certainly not!

If the PRC would join NAPARC to avoid being isolationists and with grand visions of testifying more effectively in the broader Reformed church world, I maintain that the very opposite would be the result. Joining NAPARC would turn the PRC into silent, belly button-gazing introverts, because for fear of offending an ostensible ally she would be quiet on the very truths that give her a right to separate existence, that are to be her consuming interest in the Reformed church world and beyond, and about which she must speak loudly and boldly.

That is exactly scripture’s warning in the history of Jehoshaphat’s ecclesiastically devastating false ecumenism. He foolishly ignored God’s word about isolation and for the sake of a common enemy boasted that his horses, chariots, and God were the same as Ahab’s and then supinely sat on his throne with Ahab in the gate—offering only the most tepid objection—while the wicked son of Omri savaged God’s prophet. Bad alliances lead to the silencing of the truth, even if the one engaging in the alliance is as godly a man as Jehoshaphat was. Bad alliances lead to the same kind of devastation in the church as Jehoshaphat’s alliance led to in Judah: bringing the seed royal to within a hair’s breadth of destruction. The churches must stand alone in the world and be convinced that their doctrine is the truth of the word of God and that their unity with any denomination must be on the basis of real unity in that truth.

At the close of his blog, Henry asks, “Is then…membership in NAPARC an unholy alliance?” My answer is yes. Joining NAPARC is a confession of unity with the other member denominations, as the council’s constitution makes clear. Joining would be an unholy alliance because two would be united who do not agree on the most serious of doctrinal issues.