I provide a link here to the sermon preached on Sunday, May 16, 2021 to the Reformed Protestant Church Fellowship of Hull, Iowa.
In this sermon, which in truth was the word of God (1 Thess. 2:13), the saints were instructed from the word of God that the church is built not upon man, but upon Christ, and the truth of Christ.
It is Christ, and Christ alone, that builds his church.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
This truth was driven home to the saints who heard this word in a very real way at the conclusion of the service. There it was announced that the Council of the Protestant Reformed Church in Bulacan, Philippines, together with the entire congregation, made the “inevitable and painful decision to withdraw membership from the Protestant Reformed churches in the Philippines.” It is their intention to seek a sister-church relationship with the Reformed Protestant Church denomination, according to the will of God.
Because I cannot improve upon what he wrote, I include, with Elder John Reuben D. Catalan’s permission, part of an email sent to the First RPC Council, along with the pictures he included:
May God bless our work together in the service of His truth, though there is a great distance between us, nevertheless, our fellowship in the sovereign grace of Jehovah conquers that distance and in likemindedness, we consecrate ourselves to the ministry of the gospel.
God bless you and the whole church of the FRPC.
I attached here the snapshot of the assembly of the saints in Leyte during our congregational meeting in Bulacan. The other picture is of the newly instituted First Reformed Church in Bulacan. May those photographs encourage the saints there. Blessings!
“Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly” (Hebrews 13:18)
Brother Catalan, and fellow saints in the Philippines, your photographs and your letter have encouraged us greatly. We give thanks to God for you and your faithful witness to His truth.
We consider ourselves blessed to stand side by side with you all in the defense and proclamation of the glorious gospel truths of God’s word.
“Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto God for every and ever. Amen” (Rev. 7:12).
On Friday, May 14, 2021 the Evangelism Committee of First Reformed Protestant Church hosted a lecture at Western Christian High School in Hull, Iowa, on the topic, “The Act of Separation in the Light of Church History.”
Rev. Lanning also led worship services in Hull on Sunday, May 16. All were cordially invited to attend both the lecture and the worship services.
Three faithful office bearers—pastor, elder, and deacon—along with several families, have separated themselves from Crete Protestant Reformed Church with the signing of an Act of Separation and Reformation. This came in response to the unrighteous suspension of Rev. Langerak.
A letter was read yesterday in PR churches explaining this separation.
Announcements of this nature are becoming commonplace in the Protestant Reformed Churches.
There were two items of note in the letter.
First, Crete PRC added the charge of perjury against Rev. Langerak. It is striking that as consistories in the PRC continue to study Article 80 of the Church Order, they can only come up with new charges to lay against the righteous and have yet to find a charge that would apply to the minister who teaches heresy or the elders who defend it.
Second, the consistory has forgotten that they are doing their work before the face of Jehovah God.
That is the only explanation for their plea to the Lord that he “especially uphold and sustain us in the truths He has entrusted to our care.”
What a strange addition to the letter, when it was exactly on behalf of those truths that Rev. Langerak was contending on the pages of Sword & Shield.
And the consistory told him to stop.
So Rev. Langerak did what a faithful minister does and obeyed God rather than man. “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).
And Crete’s consistory responded the way an apostatizing church does and suspended him.
Where does that leave the PRC today?
It leaves them with a repeat of history.
This is from the Reformed Free Publishing Association website about the founding of the PRC. It is remarkable how the apostatizing church throughout history relies on the same charges against the faithful.
When it became clear that these ministers (Hoeksema, Ophoff, Danhof) would never give up their fight for the truth, the CRC closed its church publications to them in an effort to stifle their opposition to the error of common grace. In response, Danhof, Hoeksema, and Ophoff, together with fifteen laymen who stood strong with them throughout the controversy, organized the Reformed Free Publishing Association in April, 1924. Their sole purpose in organizing the RFPA was the publishing of the Standard Bearer, a monthly magazine dedicated to defending the doctrine of particular grace and the whole truth of God’s word. The first issue was published on October 1, 1924…Herman Hoeksema was deposed in 1924 for refusing to keep silent about the truth of God’s sovereign particular grace. Revs. Danhof and Ophoff were subsequently deposed from the CRC after they were charged with insubordination and initiating public schism by defending the truth via the Standard Bearer (https://rfpa.org/pages/history).
This suspension also leaves the PRC with Witsius, the conditional covenant, and continued compromise of justification by faith alone. It leaves them scouring the bushes for the elusive antinomian. But it also leaves them without two of the very few voices that were willing to enter the trenches and do the work of a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ and contend—actually contend—for the faith once delivered to the Protestant Reformed Churches.
So the blessed, although painful work, of church reformation continues.
“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God” (Zechariah 13:8–9).
Classis East has consistently been wrong on the doctrinal issue plaguing the PRC.
This is evidenced by how many times they have had to declare they “erred.”
But the real question is not whether they have admitted error. The question is, are they sorry for those errors?
Have they repented?
Repentance is far more than just stating the obvious fact that one has erred.
What consistory, having evidence that a man was guilty of abusing his wife, would accept, “I have erred,” as proof of his repentance? “Yes, clearly you have erred. The condition of your wife’s battered soul and spirit attests to that. But are you repentant?”
Trinity PRC would have us believe that Classis has repented.
Rev. Lanning also violated Art. 31 when he expressed grievances against Classis East which contradict the decisions of the September 12, 2018 Classis East (Articles 15-17).
a. In Articles 15-17, Classis East September 2018 formally declared three times “that Classis East erred in its decision(s) of February 28, 2018,” which decision (s) are then quoted, and the decision(s) of Synod 2018 are quoted and used as the ground.
1) By these decisions, Classis East repented of its former error of February 2018, for not only did Classis confess their sin, but also did not merely and begrudgingly “submit” or “acquiesce” to the decisions of Synod 2018. Classis East formally adopted the position of Synod 2018 as its own regarding the doctrinal error.
2) To charge Classis East with failing to deal with or condemn the doctrinal error, or of maintaining or walking in that error, is to militate against the decisions of Classis East September 2018 (Articles 15-17), whereby the erroneous decisions of Classis East February 2018 were confessed, overturned, made null and void, and therefore graciously covered by the merciful blood of Christ (Trinity PRC document, Classis East Deposition Case, 56).
For Trinity PRC, when Classis East formally declared that they “erred,” such a declaration was confession and was “therefore graciously covered by the merciful blood of Christ.”
Is that what repentance looks like? Just declare that you erred?
The answer, of course, is no. No consistory, or parent for that matter, would accept such as repentance. Repentance, at the very least, would include an apology.
So, has Classis East done that? Have they apologized?
They have never apologized for defending false doctrine. They have never apologized for not defending the unconditional covenant or justification by faith alone. Trinity has pointed us to the only evidence anyone can put forth regarding Classis East’s response to their own errors.
To try and pass off what Classis East said as confession and repentance is so patently false, it is hard to believe that anyone could in good conscience put those words on paper and try to pass them off as truth.
Nowhere in that material can you find an apology.
They did have an opportunity to apologize for another matter.
That opportunity came to them at their September 2018 meeting. The motion was straightforward.
That Classis East apologize to Mrs. Connie Meyer for misrepresenting her position in its February 2018 decision. Ground: The decision of Synod 2018, Article 62 B.1.c.2), 3), and 6, which declared that Classis misrepresented Mrs. Meyer in her protest.
Not only did Classis East get the theology wrong over the last five years, but they also misrepresented a protestant. Synod pointed that out.
“In trying to demonstrate its point, Classis misquotes Mrs. Meyer” (2018 Acts of Synod, 77).
“Classis omits the most critical words of Mrs. Meyer’s statement, namely…” (77).
“Classis goes on to misquote Mrs. Meyer” (79).
That was probably something for which an apology should be made.
The motion which came to the floor of the 2018 September Classis would provide a way to do so. Just pass the motion. Apologize. Lead by example.
Let us consult page three of the minutes to see what the outcome was.
Recommendations:
That Classis East apologize to Mrs. Connie Meyer for misrepresenting her position in its February 2018 decision.
Ground: The decision of Synod 2018, Article 62 B.1.c.2), 3), and 6, which declared that Classis misrepresented Mrs. Meyer in her protest.
Motion is made and supported to approve Recommendation #1. Failed
The motion failed.
Classis refused to apologize.
Why?
The information section of the motion helps to shed some light on it.
In general, apology to an appellant by any broader assembly is rare, if not without precedent. We could find no examples in our own history, or commentary on it by any of the usual church polity authorities (Rutgers, Bouwman, Jansen, M & VD, Hanko).
We can only conjecture as to the explanation for lack of precedent or commentary. Certainly, it is not because broader assemblies rarely err. The likely explanation is that the process of protest and appeal itself is the normal ecclesiastical manner to rectify offense of any “aggrieved” by ecclesiastical decisions (Arts. 30-31). If so, we conclude that apology by a broader assembly for decisions that are subsequently overturned is generally unnecessary, and ought to remain rare, if not unprecedented.
The Classical Committee, which brought the motion, “could find no examples” in their own history.
Let us consult some other Classis East minutes, this time from early 2010.
Minutes of Classis East, January 13-14, 2010, Arts. 18, 51, 52
Article 18: Grace PRC requests that Classis East issue an apology to Rev. M. Dick for having “caused unnecessary offense” by making public its decision of questioning Rev. Dick’s effectiveness as the pastor of the Grace congregation. (Supplement 9). The chairman appoints Revs. C. Haak, A. denHartog and Elders J. Holstege, T. VerBeek to serve as a committee of pre-advice regarding this matter.
Article 51: The committee of pre-advice regarding Grace Church’s request that classis issue an apology to Rev. Dick reads its report. (Supplement 12) The committee of pre-advice recommends “that Classis grant Grace Consistory’s request, namely: that Classis East issue an apology to Rev. Dick for its action of including in bulletin announcements (March 2, 2008) and in reporting in the SB (April 1, 2008) the fact that Classis had advised Grace Consistory to question the effectiveness of Rev. Dick in leading the Grace congregation out of their unrest. Ground: The decision of synod 2009: ‘Classis East, while not in error in raising the question with Grace’s council concerning the effectiveness of Rev. Dick in the congregation, was in error to make this question public. Classis’ action in making their evaluation public caused unnecessary offense.’” Motion to adopt this recommendation. Carries.
Article 52: The committee of pre-advice recommends “that the Stated Clerk send a letter to Rev. Dick informing him of this apology.” Motion to adopt this recommendation. Carries.
Perhaps when they said they could find no examples in their own history, they misspoke, and actually meant to say they couldn’t find any examples in the last eight years.
The information section also stated that apologies “by a broader assembly for decisions that are subsequently overturned is generally unnecessary, and ought to remain rare, if not unprecedented.”
Remember that. Apologies “ought to remain rare, if not unprecedented.”
Let us now consult the minutes from the most recent meeting of classis.
That classis inform both Classis West and Edmonton PRC of our decision that we erred in signing the credentials of Rev. M. VanderWal, and apologize for the error, and the fact that they may have to deal with unresolved issues now under their jurisdiction due to our error. Carried (January 13, 2021 Classis East minutes, 35-36).
Less than three years after declaring that apologies by a broader assembly for decisions that are subsequently overturned ought to remain “rare, if not unprecedented,” Classis East apologized for a decision that they overturned.
Perhaps by “rare and unprecedented,” they meant three years.
The men of Classis East know the history of their churches. These things are not done by accident.
This proves that Classis East was not at all sorry that they misrepresented Mrs. Meyer’s words.
Neither are they sorry that they tolerated and defended false doctrine, and neither are they sorry that they did not defend the doctrine of the unconditional covenant and justification by faith alone.
If they were, it would be unmistakable.
The Bible tells us what true repentance looks like.
“For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:11).
Classis East has not even come close.
In fact, it has not even attempted to show itself sorrowful and repentant.
The ministers and delegates of Classis East were not sorry, in part, because they detested Mrs. Meyer.
And that all started at Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, MI.
The Protestant Reformed Churches have a discipline problem.
They discipline the righteous.
The announcement on Sunday morning regarding the suspension of Rev. Nathan Langerak brings up a few questions.
Ask yourself, why is it, that of all the ministers who have been forced out of the PRC in the last four years, the teacher of false doctrine was the only one who received a charitable judgment and an honorable release from the ministry, while the defenders of orthodoxy were given a so-called dishonorable discharge from the ministry?
(For those men who have been deposed, they ought to consider Jesus’ assessment of their persecution and see that there was nothing dishonorable about their deposition. “Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets” (Luke 6:23).
Ask yourself, how many ministers in the PRC knew it to be their calling to suffer loss for the sake of Christ’s truth and, unlike the ivory-tower theologians, were willing to suffer the loss of their positions, names, and reputations for the sake of that truth? And where are those faithful men now?
Ask yourself, who has it been that the PRC have disciplined? Those who taught and defended error or those who rebuked us for those errors?
Ask yourself, why is it that those who teach and defend false doctrine are those who serve as church visitors, delegates to synod, and editors of The Standard Bearer, while those who have fought to defend the truth of God’s sovereignty in salvation are vilified and abused, and finally deposed?
Ask yourself, why is it that the man who demeaned and criticized Herman Hoeksema’s theology is a leader and member in good standing in the PRC, while those who defended Hoeksema’s name, honor, and theology are now suspended and deposed from their offices?
Ask yourself, why is it that the man who declared that “it is not enough for salvation that God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world” and “it is not enough that there is a Jesus” serves as the Chair of Dogmatics at the seminary, while those who defended the sufficiency, glory, and honor of Jesus Christ are now suspended and deposed?
The members of the PRC will defend the latest prophet-murder.
There is always a trumped-up charge that accompanies the deposition that allows the membership to carry on life as normal.
Antinomian. Schismatic. Insubordinate.
(The men deposed ought to consider the fact that “if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Matt. 10:25).
This begs for a paraphrase of the famous quotation of Martin Niemöller:
First, they came for Neil Meyer, and I did not speak out—because they said he was an antinomian.
Then they came for Rev. Lanning, and I did not speak out—because they said he was schismatic.
Then they came for Rev. Langerak, and I did not speak out—because they said he was insubordinate.
Then they will stop coming for anyone—because “one of a city, and two of a family” (Jer. 3:14) will come out, and there will be no faithful defenders of the truth left to attack.
“Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city.” Matthew 23:31,34
Pressure from the rest of the denomination started months before the deposition.
It started with Byron’s response to COVID.
Although some in the church world are now giving good, godly advice in articles and books about the proper response to COVID, early on that was not the case.
As churches, the PRC floundered.
It wasn’t that the Bible is unclear about the command to gather for worship.
What made things difficult was our fear of man.
And I stumbled because of it.
When we would vote to keep church open, or to continue worshipping, or to not obey the governor’s orders, those votes were taken with a sense of dread. “What would men say about this?”
For me, there was one vote that I took during that entire period about which I felt a sense of relief, and that was when I voted to cancel church for three consecutive Sundays.
Looking back, the reason was absurd, although it did not seem so at the time. We canceled because a member of Byron had an employee who possibly had COVID.
The reason I felt relief with this decision was because it would put us back in line with the other churches in our denomination, after we had worshipped the previous week, while they had not. The unwanted and critical attention directed toward our consistory and church would stop, if not altogether, then at least for a while.
Imagine that. An elder feeling relief, not because he knew he was doing the will of God, but because he was not going to face the anger and scorn of man. I have repented privately of that sin, and I confess and repent of that sin here publicly. It was shameful and cowardly and unbecoming of an elder in Christ’s church.
When Byron decided to worship, the response from the PRC was swift and severe. That response came from letters, emails, and phone calls, from within and without our congregation, all exerting pressure on our consistory to fall into line with the rest of the denomination.
Prof. Cammenga sent an email to all the ministers of the denomination excoriating Byron Center for its decision, found here and here, calling that decision extreme and inconsistent.
(It is interesting to note that Prof. Cammenga did not first come to Byron’s consistory with his concern or correspond with Byron’s consistory at all before sending this email to every minister in the denomination.)
However wrong and misguided Prof. Cammenga’s email was, to have a professor in our seminary sending out an email of this nature to all the other ministers brings a tremendous amount of pressure on a consistory. Who wants that kind of attention?
It would continue.
In a letter to its congregation, the council of Redlands PRC called out Byron’s consistory as “the only one exception” who was continuing to worship, not only in our denomination but also in the “broader church world.”
Another correspondent, who carried weight in the denomination, said our decision was “foolish” and a “bad witness” to our community. In fact, he went so far as to say our decision was a “blot” on God’s name and the church’s reputation. And then, in an ironic and prescient twist, he asked if we had consulted with other consistories or “even sought the help of the church visitors for such a weighty and influential decision.”
A letter from Zion PRC only intensified the pressure on our consistory.
Which letter was abysmal.
It gave more credence to “the consistent message coming from qualified medical professionals” and the example of other churches than it did to the word of God. It made the argument that public worship should not continue until a vaccine was developed and that the final authority on this matter was the civil rulers (“that decision has been taken out of our hands by the civil rulers”).
When the time came to make a decision about worship, almost all of the churches in the PRC looked to the latest government mandate, or to the health professionals, or to the “example of Christianity worldwide,” instead of looking to the explicit instruction in the word of God, “and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:25).
We obeyed man rather than God, and we did so unapologetically.
What wickedness.
The “example of Christianity worldwide” is increasing apostasy. It is the great falling away spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
And we used those churches as our example.
We did give a witness to the world. That witness was that while Ace Hardware was essential and could stay open, the worship of Jehovah God was not, and it must stop.
Looking back at our response, it is just as clear what our response today should be to the decisions made in early 2020.
We should repent.
When the pressure was on, where would the church look? Where did they look?
They relied more upon man, than upon Christ.
Looking back, who could defend such a thing?
Well, the pastor of Zion PRC, for one.
In a letter of response to an article in Beacon Lights magazine that rebuked the PRC for her sin of following the governors’ mandates over the word of God, Rev. Joe Holstege defended the “thought and careful consideration of biblical principles that went into that decision.”
He wrote in his letter, “As a consistory, we were always prepared to disobey government orders if we judged those orders became an infringement on the right and calling of the church to worship God publicly.”
If you cannot see that a government that forbids the public gathering of the church is “an infringement on the right and calling of the church to worship God publicly,” then I am not sure where even to begin. One thing is for certain: with smooth words like these, no one will ever repent.
Instead of defending the indefensible, Rev. Holstege should follow the example of the man he voted to depose, Rev. Andrew Lanning. In a sermon preached on November 8, 2020, Rev. Lanning apologized for and repented of his role in the closure of church earlier in the year. (If the recording sounds different than others, it’s because Rev. Lanning had COVID at the time and was preaching from his study.)
Other churches and pastors are facing persecution and the threat of arrest for faithfulness to the command of God not to forsake their gathering together. Meanwhile, the PRC is congratulating itself on its response that kept them safely from danger and mirrored the response of almost every other church in the world.
Reading the email from Prof. Cammenga and the letter from Zion, it becomes clear that the PRC must again look elsewhere for leadership.
At the very least, having erred so grievously in their response to COVID, going so far as to send a letter rebuking those who were acting faithfully to the clear command of God, the consistory of Zion PRC and Rev. Holstege should not now hold themselves out as our instructors on these things.
All of this makes one thing clear.
The Protestant Reformed Churches do not do repentance well.
Or do it at all.
The PRC have not repented for their decisions regarding worship.
Neither have they repented of their sins committed during the doctrinal controversy.
Rev. Lanning was deposed, we are told, because he did not follow the church-orderly way of protest and appeal. It was not doctrine! It was behavior!
What exactly did he do that warranted the charge of schism?
Rev. Lanning was deposed because he was said to have charged men with sin from the pulpit rather than taking those charges to the assemblies.
This is what we were told by the church visitors, Trinity PRC, and Classis East.
“It is our contention as church visitors that Rev. Andrew Lanning’s sermon on Jeremiah 23:4&14 is in violation of Articles 31, 74 and 75 of the Church Order and the Formula of Subscription and as such is schismatic. Rev. Lanning deliberately makes serious charges of sin in his sermon against officebearers of the PRC and indeed the entire denomination” (Church visitors’ advice, Classis East Deposition Case, 28).
“We as church visitors judge that in his Jeremiah 23:4&14 sermon Rev Lanning committed the sin of public schism in the Byron Center PRC and in the entire denomination in violation of Articles 31, 74 and 75 of the Church Order and in violation of the vows taken by signing the Formula of Subscription. Rev. Lanning committed the sin of public schism when in violation of Articles 74 and 75 of the Church Order he publicly charged consistories and ministers of the PRCA with failing to repent of the devil’s theology that he claimed they embraced in the January-February 2018 meeting of Classis East and instead have minimized their great sin” (31).
Reading through the letter that Rev. William Langerak and Trinity’s consistory drafted, their entire case was built on the fact that Rev. Lanning made charges of sin from the pulpit.
“In a sermon on Jeremiah 23:4, 14, Shepherds to Feed You, preached in Byron Center PRC on 11/15/20, Rev. Lanning made serious public charges of unrepentant sin against ministers and office-bearers of the Protestant Reformed Churches, and against the entire denomination” (Trinity document, Deposition Case, 48).
“Rev. Lanning committed the sin of public schism by making the aforementioned charges in violation of Articles 31, 74, and 75 of the Church Order, and contrary to his vows of ordination and Formula of Subscription. This is schism because the Church Order is the way of order and decency appointed by Christ to maintain, nourish, and preserve concord and unity in His body. This judgment of public schism has nothing to do with the truth or falsity or even the seriousness of his charges. The issue is that Rev. Lanning publicly made these charges in a manner that violates the Church Order, which is schism within the body of churches (denomination) that is regulated by that Church Order” (52).
Classis East agreed.
“Rev. Lanning’s schismatic actions of publicly charging office bearers with sin are contrary to the teaching of the Church Order in Article 74, which is built on the foundation of the Scriptures and Confessions quoted above” (Deposition Case, 5).
“If an accusation is to be leveled against an elder, pastor or deacon, it must not be published to everyone in the church but must be carefully proven to the elders of the church.”
“This is true even when dealing with an accusation of heresy. If an accusation of heresy is preached from the pulpit rather than following the way of protest and appeal through the ecclesiastical assemblies it is a failure to follow the word of God in Titus 3:10, “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject” (5).
“All charges of sin are to be brought to the consistory as the sole court Christ appointed to judge and treat such sins. There are no other options” (5, 6).
But something remarkable happened only a few months after the deposition.
A minister charged an officebearer with sin.
From the pulpit.
In a sermon preached at Southwest PRC the evening of Sunday, March 28, 2021, Prof. Cammenga publicly charged Rev. Martin VanderWal with the sin of antinomianism.
Antinomianism takes the form of supposing that as long as my cause is right, I’m standing for truth and right, I can promote that cause in absolutely any way I please. Whether in speaking or on social media. On a blog post, for example. Recently this was defended as freedom. This is freedom, that I may say whatever I want on a blog post, no matter that it’s half-truth, no matter even that it’s completely even filled with untruth. That’s freedom! That I may say absolutely anything I want in public.
Prof. Cammenga was referring to a recent blog post by Rev. VanderWal.
Antinomianism is heresy.
For a minister, the charge of heresy is especially serious. It is listed as the first ground for which a man can be suspended and deposed from office according to Articles 79/80 of the Church Order.
Prof. Cammenga made that charge from the pulpit. He did not make that charge by following “the way of protest and appeal through the ecclesiastical assemblies.” He did not bring that charge to Rev. VanderWal’s consistory, which, according to Classis East, is “the sole court Christ appointed to judge and treat such sins.”
This is shocking.
Prof. Cammenga just did exactly that for which Rev. Lanning was deposed.
Except Prof. Cammenga did what Rev. Lanning did not do.
Rev. Lanning did not charge any man, consistory, or assembly with sin. Rev. Lanning warned the PRC that they were guilty of minimizing the error into which the PRC had fallen.
What comes next?
According to the schedule that was used for Rev. Lanning, by now Southwest PRC should have already called in the church visitors, and by this week Saturday, April 10, they will pass a motion to suspend Prof. Cammenga.
But that won’t happen.
There will be no uproar. There will be no outcry.
All of those who clamored so loudly for Rev. Lanning’s deposition will remain silent, painfully and shamefully silent.
This shows where things really stand.
It has been about the respect of persons.
That explains why a popular preacher can preach conditional fellowship and only after a year and a half make a public apology. But when an unpopular man brings a rebuke from the pulpit, he is suspended within two weeks.
That explains why nothing will happen to Prof. Cammenga.
As a leader in the denomination, he is untouchable.
The rules apply to some and not others. What is freedom for Prof. Cammenga meant deposition for Rev. Lanning.
Had Rev. Lanning simply sprinkled some heresy into sermons here and there, he would still be a minister in good standing in the PRC today.
All he had to do was point out the error of other denominations and ignore the errors in the PRC.
But he could not do that. He condemned the errors. He refused to allow his position, or his name, or his reputation, or any other earthly consideration get in the way of his defense of the truth of God’s word. He had made a vow before God to exert himself to keep the PRC free from doctrinal error, and with God strengthening him, he was faithful to that vow. He wasn’t successful, but he was faithful.
Very few people in the PRC will be concerned about Prof. Cammenga’s sermon.
They will find a reason to excuse it. They always do. Prof. Cammenga is on the right “side,” after all.
This sermon does serve a purpose, however—a vitally important purpose.
What is now exposed for all to see is the utter hypocrisy of the last few months in the deposition of Rev. Lanning.
The deposition of Rev. Lanning was never about behavior. It was never about manner. It was never about Article 31. It was never about the church orderly way of protest and appeal.
It was about ridding the PRC of a man who would not stop rebuking her for her errors.
You sit down for a meeting, and you find there is just one motion on the agenda: “The committee recommends that we swindle the elderly members of our congregation out of their life savings.”
You protest. You plead. You warn. You argue as strenuously as you know how.
To no avail.
The vote is taken, and the motion passes.
The diaconate by majority vote has just decided to break the 8th commandment of God’s law.
Such a scenario would never take place.
But it did take place regarding the 6th commandment.
Byron’s consistory, by a vote of 6–2, voted to break the 6th commandment by killing the faithful prophet God had given to our congregation.
Saturday, November 28, 2020.
The day when the Protestant Reformed Churches was rent.
The day when the consistory took upon Byron Center PRC the unmistakable mark of the false church according to the Belgic Confession, Article 29.
A few months later, the denomination would take that mark upon itself officially.
Elders Harlow Kuiper, Ed Hekstra, Jim Hauck, Tim Block, Terry Kaptein, and Josh Lubbers voted in favor of the motion to suspend with a view to deposition.
Elders Bryan Van Baren and Dewey Engelsma voted against the motion.
Depose is such a clean word. Clinical. What the consistory voted for was ecclesiastical murder. Reading through church history, it used to be a lot messier killing a prophet.
This vote came after many months of the corruption that I described in the previous blog posts.
And now the time came to pray. The vice president asked a church visitor to close this portion of our meeting in prayer.
I raised my hand. “Mr. Chairman, I know there will be ramifications for what I am about to say, but I am going to excuse myself; this consistory has the blood of a prophet on its hands, and I cannot lift my hands in prayer with them.”
So I stood up, gathered my things, and left the meeting.
Although I didn’t realize it until a few minutes later, Elder Van Baren also stood up and left the meeting.
I would not fault a man if he had opposed the motion but had stayed in the meeting. These things are up to a man’s conscience.
For me, it was not a question. How could I stay and ask God’s blessing on the great wickedness that had come to a head in the suspension of a righteous pastor?
In the parking lot Elder Van Baren and I prayed together and left.
After Bryan and I left the meeting, the church visitors recommended to the consistory that we be relieved of our duties. The consistory, which had already abdicated their office, dutifully took the advice and passed the motion.
That evening, both Bryan and I received phone calls informing us that we were relieved of our duties.
We sat with our families in church the next day.
Cue more deceit.
This time though, they put the lie upon the lips of Prof. Huizinga, who had been called in to preach in the place of the now-suspended Rev. Lanning.
“The consistory informs the congregation that we have relieved Rev. Lanning of his ministerial duties to have sufficient time to consider the material and recommendations from the church visitors.”
That was not true.
They did not need more time to consider the recommendation. The recommendation had come to the floor. The vote had been taken. The motion had passed.
You consider the material before you vote on it. Once you vote on it, you are no longer considering it. The action has been taken.
As you can imagine, this announcement caused great confusion. Many of those questions had to do with why two of the elders were sitting with their families.
(An announcement regarding our de facto discipline was not made until a week later.)
That question was asked by an officebearer in the consistory room before church as to why Bryan and Dewey were not present.
The response? “Those men relieved themselves of their duties.”
The members of the congregation asked this question of the elders after church in the parking lot. “Why were Bryan and Dewey sitting with their families?”
“Go ask them.”
“Go home and read Article 31 of the Church Order.”
“They relieved themselves.”
That was more deceit. Read the motion that was passed. We were relieved of our duties by a majority vote of the consistory. Yet the people were told the opposite.
The relief of duties would continue for over five weeks.
During this suspension, as the work between Byron and Trinity proceeded, Elder Van Baren asked Trinity PRC if they would be willing to give us an audience. The response to Byron’s Consistory regarding Bryan’s request was cold. “We are of the mind that we don’t need to speak to them. We heard from your consistory last night as represented by you 6 men. They could have been present if they hadn’t forfeited that right.”
“They could have been present if they hadn’t forfeited that right.”
Did it not occur to Trinity’s consistory to examine the fact that the only two men who had registered their negative votes and were opposed to the motion to suspend had been removed from their office?
(Speaking of those negative votes, they have been on quite a journey. They were not included in the material that was sent to classis due to an “oversight.” They were distributed at classis during the deliberations, yet they never made it into the official documents that were distributed publicly. Strange.)
It is one thing to be in favor of deposition, as Trinity’s consistory clearly was. It’s another thing altogether to connive at the act that removed elders from their office without any basis in the word of God, the creeds, or even in the One Document To Rule Them All, the Church Order.
All of the deliberations that took place and the decisions that were made over that five–six week period were taken in the absence of two elders who had been unjustly relieved of their duties.
Just prior to the meeting of classis, the consistory apologized to us for relieving us of our duties and reinstated us to our positions. They also gave us a letter of explanation defending their actions.
We accepted their apology.
(A church visitor, Rev. Slopsema, also apologized to me at the meeting of Classis East, confessing that the advice to relieve us of our duties was not good advice.)
Although the objections I had laid out in a letter and protest were not answered by the consistory, this allowed us to take up our work once again as elders.
Being reinstated would allow us to see how a classis that had consistently been wrong over the last five years would exhibit its sorrow for its past decisions. Having the one man before them who had stood on the right side of the issue from the beginning and who had rebuked us for our errors would provide a sterling opportunity for all to see just how “sorry” Classis East was.
Because as we have heard from so many, Classis East was really, really sorry for its errors over the last five years.
Take J. Gresham Machen’s suspension, for example. “Was Dr. Machen’s trial a fair one? Ecclesiastical lawyers maintain that no question of doctrine is involved. In the more adequate view there are doctrinal differences which run into the heart of the entire problem”.1
Instead of listening to today’s “ecclesiastical lawyers,” we must examine the evidence.
That evidence is clear. There are “doctrinal differences which run into the heart of the entire problem.”
The PRC, by official decision, made a conscious choice as to which doctrine would be its own.
It did not do that by adopting a “three points” of false doctrine.
That day will come, but not soon. Shrewd behavior will keep that at bay for many years.
That was driven home at the recent meeting of Classis East.
A matter was brought to the floor that had to do with a protest against the sermon by Rev. VanOverloop that taught conditional fellowship that is not all of grace.
A motion was made to condemn as heretical the statement that explicitly taught conditional fellowship.
It was apparent that the classis was opposed to the motion. There was no appetite to label the statement heresy, not because it wasn’t heretical but because it would reflect poorly on the man who had originally preached it.
One delegate expressed outright that the classis must guard Rev. VanOverloop’s reputation.
As it came closer to the time for the chairman to call for the vote, the clerk of Classis East pointed out that if they were to fail this motion it would look like they were unwilling to call the statement heresy. The motion would need to be withdrawn so there would be no evidence that it had existed or that the classis was unwilling to call it heresy.
So political maneuvering and wrangling ensued that had nothing whatsoever to do with the glory of God’s name and God’s truth but had everything to do with preserving the reputation and name of man.
It is this type of shrewd thinking that will keep false doctrine from being officially adopted by the broader assemblies of the PRC.
But the PRC did make a conscious choice as to which doctrine would be its own, and they did this by never disciplining the teacher or defender of the lie and by repeatedly disciplining those who exposed the lie and defended the truth.
The membership of the PRC has been making that choice consistently over the last five years as well by slandering the defenders of orthodoxy and defending the men who taught, tolerated, or defended error.
So is there a doctrinal difference between the new church and the PRC?
To use the words of Luke 16:26, there is a “great gulf fixed” between them.
The difference was put into stark relief on Sunday, March 14, 2021.
In the providence of God, two ministers preached on the same Lord’s Day. One minister is the Professor of Dogmatics in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. The other minister was recently deposed from the PRC for rebuking her for her errors. The transcripts are found here and here. You can watch each sermon here and here.
The sermons were on Lord’s Day 7 of the Heidelberg Catechism.
Q. 21 What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.”
The Lord’s Day deals with faith. True faith.
According to Ursinus, the Lord’s Day has to do with “justifying” faith.
How else do dead sinners receive “remission of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation” if not through justifying faith?
Where would each pastor lead his flock?
The Lord’s Day itself is not unclear.
How are you assured of your salvation? “Only for the sake of Christ’s merits.”
“Only” means to the exclusion of everything else.
It would take work to use this Lord’s Day to rob the flock of their assurance.
Which is exactly what Prof. Cammenga did.
Twenty minutes into a sermon on a Lord’s Day that never mentions works, Prof. Cammenga went there. “Scripture and the Reformed Confessions teach that though faith assures of salvation, that faith is confirmed by a life of good works.”
He took a Lord’s Day that teaches pure gospel, and he dragged his congregation to the law.
“What he’s [Peter, in 2 Peter 1:10] describing is a life lived in obedience to God’s 10 Commandments. God uses that in order to confirm in us the assurance of our election and salvation.”
Reader, I ask you, where in this Lord’s Day does it mention the law? Where does it introduce man’s works? Where does it mention man’s obedience?
It does not.
Why, then, would a minister go to man’s works in a Lord’s Day that never mentions them?
L.D. 7 is clear when it teaches us that salvation and the blessings of salvation (“assured confidence”) “are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.”
Prof. Cammenga corrupts this clear instruction on faith when he preaches, “Although God works the assurance of faith under the preaching of his word, we are active in this whole matter of the assurance of faith. God does not drop assurance out of the sky on us, and now we have it forever, can never be taken away from us, and we have nothing to worry about as regards this matter of the assurance of our faith, but God’s people are active, busy in this whole matter of the assurance of their faith.”
This type of corruption has taken place before.
“So it is for us. We see. We look at our good works in the same way. Never of any value to make me be declared righteous before God, but always of help in finding and maintaining assurance that God has justified me through Christ and Christ alone” (Overway, Justified by Faith, L.D. 23, 6/8/14).
Synod 2018 condemned that theology.
“If we are truly justified by faith in Christ alone, then true faith cannot look to its works to help find or maintain the assurance that is found in Christ alone…Good works have a proper place and function in the Christian life but they do not function as helps for finding and maintaining assurance of our justification” (2018 Acts of Synod, 69).
Prof. Cammenga’s theology in this sermon is the same as that condemned by Synod 2018.
This may help to explain why Hope Church could never extricate itself from this error. Prof. Cammenga was appointed in 2018 to a committee to help Hope “understand and implement the decisions of Synod 2018” (church visitors’ report to the March 17, 2020, meeting of Classis East).
Fourteen miles from where Cammenga preached his sermon, another sermon was preached on true faith.
This is what was taught there about the “assured confidence” of Lord’s Day 7:
“This confidence is the assurance that salvation is for me, that God’s grace is for me, though I am wholly unworthy of it, though I have forfeited every gift that God may give to me, and though I deserve to be cast into hell for my sin. God has revealed in his word his love in Jesus Christ, and God, by the Spirit of Christ in my heart, works that assurance that this salvation is mine.”
“There’s your assurance, and there’s mine—not that you’ve done enough but that the Holy Spirit, who is God, is sovereign and powerful to give you this assurance and work this assurance by the gospel in your hearts.”
“The second implication of the truth that faith is assurance is that your assurance and mine does not depend on how good you are and does not depend on your working. It has nothing to do with your working.”
One pastor faithfully taught the Lord’s Day and brought his flock to Christ and kept them there. The other took his flock to the law and kept them there.
One preached God, as revealed in Jesus Christ. The other preached man.
The doctrinal difference was stark and obvious.
In only one of those churches was the “pure doctrine of the gospel” preached (Belgic Confession, Article 29).
What I have laid out, to this point, is the corruption that took place in the deposition of Rev. Lanning.
But corruption is not a reason to separate from a denomination of churches.
Despising the word of God is such a reason.
It is the only reason.
What the church visitors said about the preaching, both in the consistory room and at Classis East, and what Trinity’s consistory wrote in its document, shows the estimation they have of the word of God today.
The church visitors were at pains, right from the beginning, to make clear that the Jeremiah sermon was sound doctrine.
A church visitor stated that the sermon was “good exegesis on the passages, but that isn’t the point” and, we are not contending that the sermon was not “exegetically correct.”
About the rebuke in that sermon a church visitor said, “We are not entering into the validity of his charge!”
So, an elder asked, if the sermon was faithful to the text, “Does that mean Jeremiah was schismatic?”
One church visitor refused to answer the question, saying it was a “misdirection” and “a bunny trail,” and he would not answer it at that meeting but would answer it “off-line.”
Another church visitor recognized the unsatisfactory nature of that answer and said that no, Jeremiah was not a schismatic because Jeremiah was in the Old Testament, and we are not. He went on to say that God had given Jeremiah a burden, but because we are in the New Testament, Christ has given us another way, and that is the Church Order way. Today, we were told, the proper way is consistories, and now Christ works through bodies of men. He said that if Rev. Lanning had a burden about other churches, he could speak about that—for example, the Christian Reformed Church. He gave as an example the years after 1924, when ministers would preach against the errors of the CRC. But such a minister may not preach against the errors of his own denomination.
When an elder pointed out that Ezekiel was sent not to “a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel” (Ezek. 3:5), a church visitor responded strongly, “Yes! To the house of Israel—to the assemblies!”
One church visitor made clear his view on where the churches must look for help: not to the pulpit, but to the assemblies. “Let elders and ministers, who represent biblical, apostolic wisdom, make a judgment.”
On the floor of classis, a church visitor declared that one of Rev. Lanning’s errors was for him to say that even his application was the word of God, and when Rev. Lanning said that, he was claiming something that only the Old Testament prophets could claim.
The message was clear: the rebuke issued by Rev. Lanning must not come from the pulpit. It must only come through the assemblies, by way of protest and appeal.
Examine where this leaves us. Part of a sermon is the word of God, part is the word of man, and in order to bring a rebuke, you must go to the assemblies.
This view leaves the preaching impotent. The application is not the word of God? If this is what preaching is, I would never step foot into a church building again. I do not care what a man thinks. I am sick to death of man’s opinion. It must be the word of God, in its entirety, or it must be nothing.
When the church visitors said that rebukes must come through the assemblies and not through the preaching, they denied the power of God in the preaching. That is to deny the power of God himself, for God has decreed that he will have his word preached through men. “For God wanted His word to be always received from the mouth of men no less than as if He had Himself openly appeared from heaven” (John Calvin on 1 John 4:1).
It is the word of God, the word that brings the rebukes and admonitions, the word that empties a man of man, that works faith in the heart of the child of God and works the fruit of faith which is repentance.
It is the word of God, not the minutes of Classis East, that brings salvation to the child of God.
The power of God unto salvation is the preaching of the gospel, which preaching works repentance (Rom. 1:16).
Most decisions of synod and classis end up sitting unread on a man’s shelf. Even if they are read, what can they do about the condition of that man’s heart? The answer is nothing, because they are not the power God has ordained to work repentance or sorrow for sin.
What does work such repentance and sorrow?
God’s word! The preaching of the word of God “as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).
God’s word is a power. God’s word is like a fire that burns within a man until he has nothing left of self, and God’s word is like a hammer that crushes the hard rock of that man’s heart and leaves him broken and contrite (Jer. 23:29). God’s word will break the hard heart of a man so the only thing he cando is to cry out, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).
In their advice, which was wholly devoid of the word of God, the church visitors declared that God’s word was powerless and must be muzzled, while the assemblies of the church were to speak in its place.
Trinity’s consistory, rather than providing the type of aid that could have helped Byron’s consistory and the denomination, also exalted the work of the assemblies over that of the word of God.
“By making charges of public sin and demanding repentance without bringing such charges to a consistory, Rev. Lanning also rejects the good way that Christ appointed in Article 74 to effectually work repentance and reconciliation, and thus to nourish, promote, and preserve the unity of the body of Christ, rather than to destroy, fracture, and harm it” (Trinity consistory, Agenda of Classis East, p. 166).
Is this the way that Christ has appointed to work repentance in the hearts of his people—the decisions of the ecclesiastical assemblies?
Let’s hear Christ in his own words: “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17).
Not: “From that time Jesus began to draft protests and appeals, and to write, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
John the Baptist likewise: “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:1–2).
Christ again: “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
Read the document that Rev. William Langerak and Trinity’s consistory drafted regarding the deposition of Rev. Lanning. For them, the power of God to work repentance is found in the assemblies of the PRC. This explains why you can search high and low in their document for a Bible verse and find…only one.
They did not need to use the Bible. They had the Church Order.
But what about the verses that teach that the faithful minister is commanded to preach repentance for sins (Isa. 58:1, 2 Tim. 4:2), which preaching will cause men to repent of those sins (2 Cor. 7:9)?
A church visitor had an answer.
“The church has developed. We have a Church Order now.”
