Professor Engelsma of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) recently wrote another letter to his family.¹ Ordinarily to interact with such a letter, it would be included in Sword and Shield for the readers, but in this case I am of the conviction that doing so would be a colossal waste of our resources of paper, ink, postage, and even internet bandwidth. This is not because paper, ink, postage, and bandwidth are such precious or expensive resources but because the value of the letter is so incredibly low.

We can see that God, as he did in the case of Saul, has removed his Spirit from Professor Engelsma. The main message of Engelsma’s letter is that people have left and are leaving the PRC for Orthodox Presbyterian churches and United Reformed churches, and it is the fault of Reverend Lanning and the “other schismatic leaders.” Engelsma says that because of this, Reverend Lanning will have to answer in the final judgment for the sins of those who left the PRC.

Engelsma’s fantasizing about the final judgment aside, let us consider the sins of which Engelsma accuses Lanning (and by implication some in the Reformed Protestant Churches) and for which he will have to answer. The sins are that those who leave the PRC will believe a false gospel, the well-meant offer heresy, and that those who join Orthodox Presbyterian churches and United Reformed churches will either commit divorce and remarriage or their children will.

In a previous letter, Engelsma claimed the following about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC):

Most, if not all, of their ministers teach a conditional covenant, that is, that the covenant depends upon men. So much did the heresy of a conditional covenant develop in the OPC that on the basis of this false doctrine a professor in its seminary denied the five points of Calvinism and justification by faith alone. And the general assembly (the equivalent of our synod) of the OPC defended the professor and his heretical theology. I exposed all this this in my book, The Federal Vision.²

Engelsma has shown that he is absolutely unwilling to accept the fact that the PRC now teaches the same theology as Norman Shepherd, as has been shown before in Sword and Shield.³

I do not intend to attempt to prove this again but to demonstrate its truth through the practical behavior and examples of Protestant Reformed ministers and consistories. It should come as no surprise to Engelsma that members would leave one denomination that teaches federal vision and join another denomination that teaches federal vision. The change of membership from the PRC to the OPC or to the United Reformed Churches (URC) represents such a small change in doctrine as to be insignificant. It is not, as Engelsma would like to believe, like passing over an impassable chasm, but it is like stepping over a crack in the sidewalk. Engelsma should be reminded that unlike sheep, goats are very agile and nomadic creatures, and it is natural to see them moving around between three nearly identical denominations.

Although Engelsma will not admit that the PRC teaches the same heresies that the OPC, the URC, and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) teach, it is very apparent that not only the members but also the ministers of the PRC hold the view that there is very little or no theological difference between these churches. This is apparent from the behavior of the members of the PRC who fellowship with those in the other denominations, who form friendships with them, who vacation together, and whose children intermarry with the children of their Orthodox Presbyterian, United Reformed, Baptist, and Christian Reformed friends. However, the most glaring examples of this theological ecumenism are the ministers. The two examples that come to the front of my mind are Rev. Clayton Spronk and Rev. Joshua Engelsma.

Reverend Spronk created a Facebook event, whereby he invited his Facebook friends to view or attend the colloquium doctum of Rodney Kleyn, who had accepted the call to Covenant United Reformed Church in Byron Center, Michigan. Some readers will remember that Kleyn had abandoned the office of the ministry in First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids and left the denomination, thus drawing a public rebuke from Professor Engelsma. As Kleyn now takes up the ministry in another denomination, one that teaches the false doctrine of a well-meant gospel offer, Spronk offered no rebuke to Kleyn. In fact, in his Facebook event Spronk referred to Rodney Kleyn as “a friend, a brother in Christ, a gifted pastor” and offered a prayer that “God will richly bless Rodney, Liz, and the congregation through their labor together for the Lord.”

This is a far cry from Engelsma’s statement that

it is irresponsible for an officebearer in the PRC, when dealing with a member of the PRC who is leaving, or about to leave for the OPC, to assure such a member that “the OPC is also a true church; be merrily on your way.” By “irresponsible,” I mean “indefensible in the judgment of God.”⁴

Engelsma appears to be the lone voice in the PRC speaking against this spirit that has taken hold in the PRC, but he fights against the federal vision and the well-meant offer only in name. He will fight for and defend the truth of God’s sovereign, particular grace and a Christ-centered theology one day; and the next day he will teach that certain actions of man must precede certain actions of God. Engelsma will fight against federal vision theology that only an active faith can save, meaning faith plus works; but then he will conflate the act of believing with faith and teach that we are saved by means of our act of believing.⁵

Is it any wonder that no one in the PRC believes Engelsma’s warning? Should it be any wonder that the ministers in the PRC are accepting of those outside the denomination who teach federal vision and the well-meant gospel offer? They already accept the theology of Engelsma, who teaches it inside the PRC, which makes accepting it from Rodney Kleyn a small thing.

Another example that I feel illustrates this spirit is that of Joshua Engelsma, who stepped into the pulpit of Crete Protestant Reformed Church as an imitation minister of the gospel and as a judgment of God against that congregation, which had driven out the minister whom God had given the congregation. In April of this year, Joshua Engelsma was invited to give a chapel speech at the nearby Mid-America Reformed Seminary. This seminary is located in Dyer, Indiana, just over the Illinois state line from Crete. The seminary is officially non-denominational. However, many of the graduates of Mid-America become ministers in the URC and the OPC, both denominations that teach the well-meant gospel offer. Mid-America also deliberately teaches the conditional covenant theology that led to the split of the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1953.

The following quotation from Banner of Truth demonstrates the intent of the seminary:

When the seminary board sent Nelson Kloosterman [professor at the seminary from 1984–95] to Kampen II [the seminary of the liberated churches in the Netherlands, where he earned his doctorate], it made a conscious choice—to reestablish contact with the (Liberated) Reformed Churches. Professor Henry Vander Kam underscored this when I visited Orange City in 1984. He proudly showed me every issue of the ‘Reformaatie’ in his library and talked about having heard Klaas Schilder preach when he visited Grand Rapids in 1948.⁶

Having been given the chance to speak at a seminary that promotes liberated theology to the future ministers of the URC and OPC, what did Joshua Engelsma speak about? Did he discuss the heresy of the well-meant offer? Perhaps did he provide instruction on the gospel of sovereign, particular grace? Did he speak against the conditional covenant theology espoused by Klaas Schilder and that caused a split in the PRC? Did Engelsma speak against divorce and remarriage? Of course, he did not. Instead, he began his speech by sheepishly apologizing that he was going to read out of the King James Version of the Bible, a version with which his audience might not be familiar. He then proceeded to speak on 1 Timothy 4:6–16, and he pointed out the minister’s calling to take heed both to doctrine and to his walk. He admitted that doctrine is important, but aside from some vague and nonspecific statements about doctrine, he spent the entire time talking about the walk of the minister. He said,

Take heed to the doctrine but then also, and this is the emphasis this morning, take heed to yourself. Pay close attention to yourself. And the idea there is with respect to the whole of your life as a minister of God’s word.⁷

Anyone can agree that a minister must maintain an outwardly unimpeachable life. Anyone who claims the name Reformed will happily agree with some vague statements about salvation by faith alone, as a quote often misattributed to Martin Luther states:

If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.

Joshua Engelsma knows where the theological battle is, or should be, between him and his audience at Mid-America. The fact that he addressed the men as brothers and brought no instruction and warning shows that he has flinched and turned back.

Sword and Shield has shown in a previous issue that the reaction of Protestant Reformed consistories to members who leave their false church to join another false church has shifted in the past few years.⁸ Instead of an announcement that a member’s dismissal papers have been sent to his home, with the understanding that such an action is taken only after the consistory has worked with the individual and rebuked him for his sin, consistories are now offering announcements to the congregation that wish the blessing of God upon the individual in his new church home. This contradicts any rebuke that the consistory did give to such an individual and acknowledges the fact that there is no significant doctrinal difference between the PRC and the United Reformed churches and Orthodox Presbyterian churches that former Protestant Reformed members join.

Recently, yet another case has come to our attention, that of the young man under the spiritual oversight of the Protestant Reformed consistory in Loveland, Colorado. In this case, a young man and a member of a United Reformed Church requested spiritual oversight from the consistory in Loveland. The bulletin announcement to the congregation read as follows:

…recently moved to Colorado from New Jersey, where he is a member of the Pompton Plains URC. The consistory granted the request of the Pompton Plains URC consistory, to provide spiritual oversight of…during his stay with us as attends [sic] he attends WyoTech. The consistory interviewed…and found him sound in doctrine and expressed a godly walk of life. The consistory has granted his request to participate in the Lord’s Supper while he attends Loveland PRC.⁹

The table of the Lord, the sacrament in which believers are called to express their unity with one another, historically has been reserved for members of the congregation, other members of the denomination who receive permission from the consistory to partake of the supper, and others from outside the denomination only in extraordinary cases. To allow an individual to partake of the supper, when that individual remains a member of a United Reformed church and has no intention of leaving the URC for a true church, is yet another way that the PRC defiles the table of the Lord. The confession of the consistory at Loveland by this action is that there is no significant doctrinal difference between the URC and the PRC.

If Prof. David Engelsma is serious about his rejection of the OPC and the URC due to their false doctrines of the well-meant offer, federal vision, and allowance for divorce and remarriage, then he must get busy. He must protest to the consistory of Loveland, where he used to be the minister, that allowing such a person to the table profanes the table of the Lord. He must call this young man to renounce his membership in his United Reformed church and to join a true church where the gospel is preached, where divorce and remarriage is not tolerated, and where the false doctrines of common grace, the well-meant offer, and federal vision are rejected. But Engelsma will not do this because then he would have to call this man to leave not only the URC but also the Protestant Reformed church where he has requested oversight. Engelsma would have to heed his own warning, stop yelling into the spiritual void that is the PRC, and leave the PRC himself.

Someday, and I pray that the day comes soon, the PRC will be just another church in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC). It has been, after all, ten years since a new denomination has joined NAPARC, and the PRC would make a fine addition to the council. In NAPARC the PRC can keep her little distinctive. She can be the church where you cannot divorce and then remarry. And if a member does desire to divorce and remarry, that member can easily go to another NAPARC church where such a thing is allowed; and on his way out the door, his Protestant Reformed consistory can give him some well-wishes about God’s blessings in his new church home. Nothing really would have to change. Nothing should change, just as nothing really has to change for a member to leave a Protestant Reformed church and join an Orthodox Presbyterian church, a United Reformed church, or Ottawa Reformed Church in West Olive.¹⁰ The hardest part of the transition from the PRC to West Olive Reformed is that one would have to learn the words and the tune of the hymn “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus”¹¹ and maybe apologize sheepishly for reading and quoting the King James Version of the Bible. The URC, OPC, and PRC all can agree that doctrine is important, very important, especially the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. They all can overlook the conditions that each church has inserted into the covenant. They all are, as Joshua Engelsma addressed the audience at Mid-America, “brothers.” Rodney Kleyn is, after all, Spronk’s “friend” and “brother in Christ.” The URC, OPC, and PRC are sister denominations in doctrine, and the practices of the members, consistories, and ministers confirm this. The PRC should get busy establishing official ecclesiastical ties with these other churches.

As Engelsma furiously writes and tries to assign blame to Lanning and by implication to some members of the Reformed Protestant Churches for the exodus from the PRC, someone really ought to tell the professor that they have traced the call and found that it is coming from inside the house.