Wasteland

I distinctly remember, as a child in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), being warned about the theology of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). My ministers, teachers, and parents were insistent that I understood the false doctrines of the Christian Reformed Church and that I also saw the fruit borne of those doctrines. One aspect of the lie that developed in the Christian Reformed Church was the partisanship constantly present in the denomination. This partisanship could be seen in the response of some Christian Reformed members to the charge of false doctrine in their denomination that “we go to a conservative Christian Reformed church” and “our minister is a good one. He does not preach false doctrine.”

Partisanship is a spirit and behavior that separates a body into parties, in which people align themselves with one party or another, so that strife exists between the parties. This strife usually remains under the surface, so that an outward form of peace exists. Partisanship in the human body looks like cancer. Partisanship in the church looks like pitting one church against another, one classis against another, as conservative or liberal. And this partisanship in the church is the denial of the rule of Christ in his church by his Spirit. It does not matter how loudly a church may cite a creed or Bible passage about the rule of Christ in his church. When the character of a denomination is that her congregations are set against one another, that exhibits the partisanship of the denomination and that the Spirit has left.

With this teaching impressed on my memory, it strikes me how quickly the Protestant Reformed denomination has taken the same path as the Christian Reformed denomination. While partisan undercurrents existed for decades in the PRC, now her members and even her elders use partisan arguments to defend themselves against the charges of false doctrine in the PRC. As one example, just before I was delivered from the PRC, an elder came to me acknowledging the false doctrine that had been taught in Hope Protestant Reformed Church and defended in Classis East. He expressed that our calling was to put up walls to make sure that those errors would not creep into Classis West. Sure, the errors may be elsewhere in the denomination, but they were not in Classis West!

This partisanship thrives among the members of the denomination. Recently, I brought to a member of my former church a specific, deadly error under which he was sitting. At Peace Protestant Reformed Church, Reverend Marcus preached that “the Father brings us to glory, not because of our obedience but in the way of our obedience.”¹ The member would not deny my charge. Instead, he pointed me away from the error at Peace church toward the preaching of Rev. Daniel Kleyn in Doon Protestant Reformed Church: “But you should listen to Reverend Kleyn in Doon; he preaches the gospel.”

It would be enough for me to point to the raw partisanship demonstrated above to show that the PRC no longer has the truth and that the Holy Spirit has left the denomination. And I do not need to go church by church and sermon by sermon to show that the Holy Spirit has left every corner of the Protestant Reformed denomination because the Spirit is the Spirit of unity and truth. When error is pointed out in one church or one article that touches the denomination in any way, the Holy Spirit would work. His work would look like an overwhelming hatred of that sin, and a tidal wave of spiritual men and women would attack that error to put it out of the body. When the love of the truth does not exist to discipline error, the error instead works as a leaven and quickly works through the whole body—synod, classes, individual churches, and families—until every corner of the denomination is corrupted by that error. This is the PRC today.

The burden of this article is to demonstrate this fact, even if the article is for an audience of only one, with an application to Doon Protestant Reformed Church. Doon church is a wasteland in which no spiritual growth is possible. Those who point to the preaching at Doon as an example of orthodoxy must be ashamed, and they will be. Those who are under the shadow of that preaching must flee.

I followed the suggestion from the member at Peace church and have been listening to the preaching of Doon church for months. The preaching seems to follow the same pattern as the preaching from other Protestant Reformed pulpits. The preaching takes great pains to show the appearance of the truth. You will not frequently hear from Doon’s pulpit the most edgy statements of Reverend Koole to seek the grace that is available to you and that there is that which man must do to be saved. You will not be clobbered with the blunt force of Reverend Cammenga’s heresy that it is not enough for salvation that Christ died. In fact the preaching at Doon church avoids all direct controversy. The only thing that hints of controversy are vague references to those who have left the PRC and some halfhearted straw-man arguments about antinomians who are out there even today. Perhaps you might also hear about those who think they can have a perfect church here on this earth, as I suppose a Spiritless counter-offensive against the Reformed Protestant Churches’ insistence that false teachers be disciplined. Besides alluding to controversy, the preaching at Doon does no battle except the battle of the parade ground. Reverend Kleyn makes a show of weapons, but he does not identify, much less confront, the enemy. Instead of doing battle, his preaching safely allows the hearers to draw their own conclusions regarding who the enemy is and what they will do with him.

The preaching of Doon church does not battle with error outside the PRC and does not battle with error within Doon herself and the Protestant Reformed denomination. The minister uses scripture in attempts to defend his failure. In his February 2, 2024, sermon on the letter to the church in Philadelphia, Reverend Kleyn states,

What the letter indicates on account of the fact that there were no rebukes…is that there were no serious errors and sins that threatened the existence of the church in Philadelphia. By God’s grace she was a faithful congregation.²

Reverend Kleyn is dead wrong. If he purports to speak to or about a true church of Christ, he should recognize that a true church stands in jeopardy every hour because the devil as a roaring lion seeks to devour her. The lack of rebuke in the letter to Philadelphia was not an indication that there were no serious errors in the congregation, not even if the cause of her standing was “by God’s grace.” The letter to Philadelphia was to the minister and elders, and the message was regarding the preaching. This is made clear by the reference in Revelation 3:7 to opening and shutting the door of the kingdom; the preaching is the primary key that works this. The reason that a rebuke was not brought to the church was that the Spirit was already working through the minister and elders, who faithfully brought and applied the word within the church, calling the members to repent of their sins. If the minister and elders had not been faithful in that, then you can be certain that the Spirit in his letter to the church would have brought a sharp rebuke to her.

When the Spirit of Christ has a word to the churches, he comes to them with actual rebukes, not hypothetical ones. When Reverend Kleyn brings a word to Doon church, he waters it down to a hypothetical rebuke. “If you are superficial”³; “if you are not living a godly life so that you do not experience persecution”⁴; “if you are lacking spirituality”⁵; if, if, if…then you had better repent. Such hypothetical rebukes are no rebukes at all.

There is no excuse for this lack of urgent rebukes. The Holy Spirit did not leave a word hanging for the churches in Asia Minor to take or disregard at their whim. Rather, the Spirit said, “Repent, or I will take away your candlestick! Repent, or I will fight against you with the sword of my mouth! Repent, or I will come against you as a thief! Repent, because I am no longer in the church but stand outside, calling you out of it!” The reason it is so important for a minister to live among and know the members of the congregation is that he must be able to know what word they need to hear, especially what word of rebuke, instruction, and correction to bring out of the scripture he has studied throughout the week. For all Reverend Kleyn’s speaking of those who think they can have a perfect church, his refusal to bring a sharp rebuke to his congregation makes me wonder if he thinks that Doon Protestant Reformed Church is a perfect church. If not, why does he not bring a rebuke to the church?

There is an evident answer to that question. When the preaching does not bring an urgent rebuke to a church that needs it, the explanation is that the Spirit of Christ has left, and he no longer speaks to that church.

The Spirit did speak in the churches of the Protestant Reformed denomination. Up until 2020 the Spirit spoke on some pulpits and called all and sundry to see the sin that had spread as leaven throughout the pulpits, churches, publications, and families of the denomination. The denomination was called to repent, as Hezekiah called Israel and Judah to repent when he reinstituted the passover. And as was done to the messengers of Hezekiah, most mocked the messengers to scorn, and some—very few—were humbled and returned to the Lord. The rest were a great falling away.

Yet Reverend Kleyn sees no error in the PRC. In fact, according to his sermon on the letter to Ephesus, there is reason for the church at Doon to be concerned about the risk of dead orthodoxy because the PRC has had the truth for so long.⁶ Because the PRC has had the truth for so long? He says this less than ten years after the Protestant Reformed synod acknowledged that false doctrines that displaced Christ had been taught from the pulpit. And the PRC did not discipline the heretic but politically ushered him off the pulpit and out of the denomination! Because the PRC has had the truth for so long? When a Protestant Reformed minister, who later became the dogmatics professor at the Protestant Reformed seminary, openly proclaimed from the pulpit that it is not enough for salvation that Christ died. Because the PRC has had the truth for so long? When leading preachers redefined faith as an activity of man and not a bond with Christ! Because the PRC has had the truth for so long? When one of her oldest and most esteemed ministers invented a new type of grace, one that is available—perhaps not common but certainly not irresistible, regenerating, and sovereign.

Reverend Kleyn and the elders of Doon church see no error in the denomination because they believe and teach the same fundamental errors. The errors of the PRC bring man into salvation by teaching that something of man gives him a part in receiving or applying salvation. Most often these errors replace the work of the Spirit of Christ in assuring God’s people of their salvation and give that work instead to man and his faithfulness. That stench of man cannot be removed from the denomination, and it has reached every corner and church. Reverend Kleyn and Doon church cannot be free of this error, and they are not. In his March 2, 2025, sermon on Lord’s Day 35, Reverend Kleyn states,

When the church faithfully obeys the second commandment…then the Spirit will cause the people of God…to know and experience the mercy of God…We will experience, we will know and rejoice in, the mercy of God in the way of worshiping as God commands in his word.⁷

When the church faithfully obeys, then the Spirit will work! In this Reverend Kleyn wickedly attempts to bring the Spirit of Christ under the dependence of man’s faithful obedience to the second commandment. The Holy Spirit will not be brought under the dependence of man for his work, and the Holy Spirit quietly leaves the church that teaches that false doctrine.

Ironically, while teaching the members of his congregation that their assurance is dependent upon their faithfulness, Reverend Kleyn simultaneously makes their assurance impossible by reminding them that they cannot obey perfectly. He states earlier in this same sermon not only that “we can be guilty of having strange fire in our worship” but even that “we must admit that we worship God imperfectly…We’re often guilty of the sin of honoring God with our lips, but our hearts are far from him.”⁸ So in the way of keeping a commandment—which according to Reverend Kleyn the people must understand that they cannot keep—they will know and rejoice in the mercy of God. This is the only assurance you can get from man. Keep trying! Perhaps God will regard your imperfect obedience of faith as worthy (Canons of Dordt 2, error 4, in Confessions and Church Order, 165).

But, you say, does Reverend Kleyn not give a nod to Christ and his work in connection with the experience of this assurance? Indeed, for he states, “We will experience mercy in Christ, who kept this commandment perfectly for us.”⁹ But here is the problem: Man is already in Reverend Kleyn’s theology as a key part in the application of salvation. When man is included as a party in salvation, adding the work of God to the work of man does not make a theology more holy; indeed, adding God in makes the theology many times more wicked. I do not care if Reverend Kleyn spoke a true statement such as the above or if he read an entire sermon of Herman Hoeksema from the pulpit. The preaching at Doon remains wicked because the elders will not acknowledge, much less militate against, the wicked synergism between God and man that has become the theology within the PRC.

The true statement above and other true statements in sermons do serve a purpose, however. They serve the purpose of the devil to lull back to sleep anyone who is concerned that the preaching in the PRC has been corrupted. And those statements serve the sovereign purpose of God to make the hearts of the people fat, their ears heavy, and their eyes closed, so that they will not be converted (Isa. 6:10).

You must not suppose that the grossest representations of the wickedness of Protestant Reformed doctrines have not reached Doon church, either. I know, for example, that the teaching of Reverend Koole, that there are proper motivations to do good works besides the love of God, is both taught and learned in Doon church. I know this because long before the mockery that was the trial of Reverend Koole’s doctrine at Classis East and synod, Rev. Joshua Engelsma (then the pastor at Doon church) defended this false doctrine of Reverend Koole to a person who had made a great effort to defend Koole’s theology to me. This doctrine lives at Doon Protestant Reformed Church. When Reverend Kleyn preaches positively that the love of God is the only appropriate motivation to do good works, he does not rebuke those in his church who follow Reverend Koole in believing other motivations.¹⁰ Not only that, Reverend Kleyn curiously contradicted himself only two weeks later by teaching that “our place in glory is an incentive, motivation, to persevere in our Christian life.”¹¹ If he teaches any truth, it is not by the Spirit of truth because the Spirit of truth will not stand with a contradiction of the truth. The Spirit of truth in the believer will vehemently oppose lies and liars. However, Reverend Kleyn shows no hatred of the lie in his denomination or in his congregation.

There is another curious thing about the preaching at Doon that escaped me at first. When you string together the sermons at Doon, many of which at first seem innocuous, you notice the direction to which the preaching points. The child of God comes to church on Sunday seeking one thing and one thing only. “Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21). This is the calling of the preacher: Show to the people Jesus, the embodiment of their salvation. Show to the people the work of God to accomplish the ultimate goal, which is the greatest glory of God. Show to the people the sovereign salvation of God, accomplished also in the Spirit’s work of sanctifying God’s people, not in the way of their obedience but in spite of all the disobedience that clings to their very natures.

In contrast to this, the preaching at Doon shows the people another spectacle: Man. Man in how one lives by grace. Man in his motivation to do good works. Man in whether he would be commended like the Ephesians. Man in whether his manner of life draws persecution. Man in what he is now capable of doing by grace. Reverend Kleyn is constantly calling the people to look at themselves. In his sermon on Lord’s Day 33, he states in the context of sanctification:

The reason God commands us to do good works is because God has made us capable of doing them. He commands us to do something that we are able to do because he has worked in us. That is how we must understand all of God’s commands and all of God’s admonitions in scripture…God is not commanding his people to do something that is impossible, but he is commanding us to do something we are able to do.¹²

This is in contrast to the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism that no man in this life can keep the law, but the law must be preached, so that we know our natures (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 44, in Confessions and Church Order, 133–134). The gospel calls us to look away from ourselves, so that we seek the righteousness of Christ and the grace of his Spirit. The elders of Doon ring the church bell to call the people to take a good, long look in the mirror and to seek out an ability that they think God put in them.

Man is sickening. He is sickening in his very nature, which is entirely corrupt and which has nothing good in it. Then, when man opens his mouth and talks about himself and what he is able to do, it gets even worse. It is bad enough when you meet a person so full of himself that he makes himself the subject of every conversation. If he brings that same man-centeredness into the pulpit and claims that it is gospel, it becomes insufferable. And that man-centeredness is wicked because when man is brought into view in connection with the gospel, Christ and his Spirit are displaced.

When a man is regenerated, the Spirit of Christ takes up his abode in that man. That living connection with Christ gives that man a new heart, so that while his nature remains unchanged, his heart is no longer hard. With that new heart that man now desires God rather than the things of this world. That new heart, and the Spirit of Christ who lives there, is the source of any good that man does. The source of his good works is not a new ability that he has by grace. But the source is the Spirit of Christ who lives in the heart. By encouraging, and even urging, the members of the church that they can do good works, that they are enabled to do good works, and that God would not command his people to do something they could not perform, Reverend Kleyn and the elders at Doon church replace the Spirit. You do not need to tell a person in whom the Spirit dwells to do good works. And when they do good works, they frankly do not want to look at those works because all they can see is the corruption that clings to them. Leave man and his works out of the gospel. Show the congregation Christ and his work by his Spirit!

The Dutch Reformed settled into Northwest Iowa more than a century ago for the fertility of the farmland. For a long time those settlers had abundant spiritual harvests. Now all that remains is carnal because the Holy Spirit has left the churches of Northwest Iowa. When the work of the Spirit is shared with man, the Holy Spirit withdraws.

“Thy Spirit, O Lord, makes life to abound.”¹³

No Spirit, no life.

Wasteland.