Other examples of pluriformity within the CanRC
In addition to Orthodox Presbyterian Churches (OPC), the CanRC also has EF (ecclesiastical fellowship) relationships with an increasing number of other churches, such as:
- Reformed Churches of the United States (RCUS): These churches have a pronounced pluriform church vision (see their ‘Principles of Church Unity 1999, Special Committee Report of the RCUS [1999]).
- United Churches of North America (URCNA): Despite intensive efforts, real unity with these churches has not been achieved since 2001. Nevertheless, the sister church relationship is maintained. From the CanRC side, there was not even any objection to the statement of the URCNA synod of Schererville 2007 regarding an internal and external covenant (point 6), as known in the synodal Reformed churches. Two CanRC professors had no issue with it: “It is theoretically possible that some ministers may preach an internal and external distinction within the covenant, and that this would be tolerated within the CanRC denomination. But that is rare, and if it happens, it is not because the training of the CanRC has taught them that.” (Christian Renewal, March 10, 2010).
- l’Église Réformée du Québec (ERQ), a Presbyterian church with the same admission policy as OPC. Furthermore, they have female deacons and no adherence to the confession.
- In Clarion, the CanRC magazine, Rev. Bill de Jong can refer to Baptists as brothers without any problem.
ICRC (International Conference of Reformed Churches)
The CanRC is a member of the international interchurch ICRC. Other member churches include Christian Reformed Churches (CGK), OPC, Presbyterian Churches of Eastern Australia (PCEA), and recently, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN).
DGK (Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands) rejected the ICRC at the GS Emmen 2009-2010 (article 109) as a council of churches in which denominations participate that are not faithful to their confessions. These churches include CGK, OPC, PCEA.
NAPARC (North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council)
The CanRC has also become a member of NAPARC, an interchurch council for North America with 13 denominations. According to the membership criterion, all these NAPARC member churches are considered as a ‘true church.’ With NAPARC membership, all other members are implicitly recognized as true churches, while testing according to Article 29 of the Belgic Confession is absent.
Within this pluriform group of churches, theistic evolution is taught, which is in conflict with Genesis 1 (Tim Keller, Presbyterian Church of America). There are “Reformed” churches with the doctrine of passivity and experientialism (Free Reformed Churches, Netherlands Reformed Churches, Heritage Reformed Churches). Others have female deacons (Reformed Presbyterian Churches of North America, LRQ). According to NAPARC itself, all six Westminster churches do not require catechism for their own members and do not require adherence to a confession.
The basis for ICRC and NAPARC consists of the Three Forms of Unity together with the Westminster Standards. The CanRC has accepted this common foundation, while the Reformed Churches in 1948 at the GS Amersfoort considered such a combination “mutually contradictory” and therefore excluded it as a basis for membership in a council of churches (Acta art. 75 sub 3A).
In the report of the committee (with Prof. Dr. K. Schilder as a member) that proposed its decision (Acta Amersfoort 1948, appendix 19), it is stated:
The Westminster Confession speaks differently about the covenant and the government of the church than our Dutch confessional writings. Even that government of the church is a part of our confession grounded on God’s Word. Due to this deviation from each other in the confessional writings, having a common foundation becomes illusory (Acta p. 120).
Members of the CanRC who depart to a non-sister church like the PCA, which is a member of NAPARC, receive a blessing upon their withdrawal from the CanRC. This happens in several congregations, even though it is in conflict with Article 28 of the Belgic Confession.
Origin of Pluriformity
The Three Forms of Unity themselves do not allow for thoughts of pluriformity and the practices related to them. On the contrary, they emphasize that it is a ordinance of God to join the true church, which is spread throughout the world but joined and united in heart and will in the same Spirit, through the power of faith, as the one catholic Christian church.
Prof. Dr. A. Kuyper developed his own theory of pluriformity but could not base it on the confession of faith. It is a matter of self-will that contradicts God’s command and opposes the church-gathering work of Christ. This theory has been vehemently opposed by, among others, Prof. Dr. K. Schilder.
But what does the Westminster Confession (WC), used in Presbyterian churches, teach? For clarity: Presbyterian churches have three interconnected confessional documents: the Westminster Confession (WC), the Larger Catechism (LC), and the Shorter Catechism (SC) (together known as the Westminster Standards, WS).
In Article 25 of the WC regarding the church, there are two aspects that may allow for the unscriptural idea and practice of pluriformity, namely the concept of the church being ‘more or less pure’ (WC, art. 25.4) and the concept of the ‘invisible catholic church’ (WC, art. 25.1).
Additionally, there is a covenant doctrine that strongly emphasizes election (LC, Question and Answer 31: “The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in Him with all the elect of his seed”). This doctrine also promotes the idea of pluriformity.
The commentary below is taken from the study report (majority report) of the deputies BBK, Acta Groningen 2014 (p. 285-287, 290).
The Westminster Confession of Faith substantiates its distinction of individual member churches of the catholic church as being ‘more or less pure’ with the following Scripture proofs: 1 Corinthians. 5: 6, 7 and Revelation 2 and 3. These Scripture references actually contain serious admonitions against abuses in a number of New Testament congregations: Corinth and several of the seven congregations to which the letters in the book of Revelation were sent. Over against this, the congregation of Philadelphia was praised and comforted by the Lord (Rev. 3: 10).
These churches were instituted by the apostles and their co-workers, and are as such churches of Christ. In the aforementioned texts the norm to be and remain church of Christ and the doing away of sinful practices, is placed before them. We therefore read of the threat that the candle stick will be removed if there is hardening in sin (Rev. 2: 5).
The summarizing mark of the church as formulated in the Belgic Confession, Article 29 was at issue in these churches: “In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it, and regarding Jesus Christ as the only Head”.
When the Westminster Confession of Faith calls these churches ‘less pure’ but still, without further comment will acknowledge them as ‘true churches’ of Christ. When the Westminster Confession (WC) designates these churches as “less pure” but still wants to unquestionably recognize them as the “true church” of Christ, it bypasses the aforementioned necessity of earnest admonition and the urgent appeal inherent in the cited Scriptural evidence.
Even in faithful true Churches errors can arise at a given moment. Then it comes down to doing away with error and to break with unrighteousness (2 Timothy 2:19).
Within Chapter 25 of the Westminster Confession there is no room for the sharp distinction between true and false church as is professed in Article 29 of the Belgic Confession. Nor does it distinguish between all kinds of sects, which falsely call themselves church, and the body of the communion of the true church as it is presented in Article 29 of the Belgic Confession.
We are also not called on “to discern diligently and very carefully from the Word of God what is the true church” Belgic Confession, Article 29.
In its place a whole spectrum of purity is presented of the ‘visible church’, a sliding scale is given, from ‘the purist churches under heaven which are subject to mixture and error’ on the one hand, to, the other end of the spectrum, churches which are so ‘degenerated’ that ‘they are no longer churches of Christ but have become synagogues of Satan‘.
At the ICRC (International Conference of Reformed Churches) in 1993 it was advocated that the Westminster Confession of Faith accepts the concept of more or less pure churches, but that it refers to the variations between congregations within one federation (see C. Trimp: Meer of Minder Zuivere Kerk, De Reformatie Volume 70/6 1994, page 108-110).
However, a well-known presbyterian commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism (J. G. Vos – edited by G. I. Williamson: The Larger Catechism; a commentary, P.R. Publishing, 2002, page 136) points clearly in the direction of pluriformity of church ‘denominations’ and not particularly to congregations within one church in its comments on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Article 62.
“What denomination is the true visible church? Not one denomination can rightly claim to be the true visible church. Each denomination (and congregation) which is loyal to the truth of the gospel according to God’s Word is a branch (or part) of the visible church. When any one denomination claims to be the true visible church, this necessarily implies that the others are false. Such a claim is presumptuous and sinful.
We must realize that the true visible church is greater than any one denomination. While we believe that our own denomination holds a broader and more consistent testimony of the truth than others (which is our proper reason for being members of it), we should freely recognize that the visible church includes many branches which hold the gospel with a greater or lesser degree of consistency”.
It is not possible to bring the doctrine of more or less pure churches, into conformity with the reformed church doctrine as is confessed in Article 29 Belgic Confession of Faith.
The command that the church should preserve the truth (1 Timothy 3: 15) is thus greatly relativized in the Westminster Standards. The call to reject what is contrary to God’s Word in order to remain church of Christ is absent. People describe a situation without norms or constraints.
The toleration of error by a church will not be an impediment to keep seeing such a church as also a “denomination (member)” of the universal church of Jesus Christ.
Along with the invisible church concept, the spectrum of the members of the visible catholic church being ‘more or less pure’, clears the way for pluriformity of the church.
This pluriformity is an intrinsic proposition of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) in North America. By seeing the affiliated churches as branches of the same tree (church) this council accepts this ‘denominationalism’ or pluriformity .
This leads to church indifference and the undermining of the need to fight against all error. This fighting is clearly underwritten in the Reformed form of subscription, the form for the Installation of office bearers and ministers and the Reformed Church Order (article 18) dealing with the training for the ministry by the church. (SdM: that professors should defend the pure doctrine against heresies and errors is missing from the Canadian Book of Praise, Article 19, but exists in the dutch (also Gkh) church order!)
This also leads the way to an open table and even pulpits to members of other churches (lack of fencing the Lord’s Supper). People will also be less concerned about being bound to the accepted confessions of the church (lack of confessional membership). (…)
It appears from the Westminster Standards that the covenant is made primarily with the elect. This covenant membership is again irrevocably tied to the membership in the invisible church in which God in Christ has placed the elect from all time. With such a point of departure from election, the appeal of God’s Word to take part in the fellowship with Christ, under Christ’s banner, to live in fellowship with Him and to gather with Him in His church gathering work, is quickly lost into the back ground.
We see the effect of it in presbyterian churches with the toleration of heresy (in baptism), in slack adherence to church confessions (‘lack of confessional membership’), in the recognition of all kinds of church federations (pluriformity, denominationalism, membership in NAPARC), and in opening the Lord’s Supper to non-members (’lack of fencing the Lord’s Table).
We deem that the way the Westminster Standards deal with matters of faith, such as covenant and church is irreconcilable with the way that the Three Forms of Unity speak of these things.
Consequently, these doctrines form a danger for the church that should not be underestimated.
That concludes the study report (majority report) of the General Synod (GS) Groningen 2014 concerning the Westminster confessional documents.
Finally, regarding pluriformity: if a church observes tolerance of false doctrine, neglect of discipline, or an unscriptural practice of the Lord’s Supper in a sister church, it is obligated to bring this to the attention of the sister church. If this church fails to do so, it is also complicit in teachings or practices that go against the Word of God in the sister church.
(to be continued)