Dutch Reformed in Canada, Part 3

The Dutch Reformed Churches
in the Netherlands

A Timeline of Dutch Reformed Churches is a helpful aid in understanding when separations and unions took place as well as how the various denominations are related. It is helpful to have some background in the issues which divided these churches before we discuss the postwar immigration.

Government Recognition

In 1816, King William I made the Gereformeerde Kerken the official state church, renaming it the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk and replaced its synod with a government-appointed ruling body. This was unacceptable to many, resulting in the Afscheiding of 1834. However, this was not without its own complications. The government actively oppressed the new churches and their members. Some decided to apply for state recognition to avoid this problem; this group became the Christelijke Afgescheiden Kerk.

However, there were those convinced that state recognition involved too many compromises. This group was called the Gereformeerde Kerk onder het Kruis. A union of most kruis kerken with the afgescheiden took place in 1869.

Outside of the early colonial period, state recognition has not been an issue for the North American churches.

Common Grace

Abraham Kuyper provided powerful leadership to Calvinists in the Netherlands from the 1860s to 1920. He was a pastor, newspaper editor, politician, and innovative thinker. Kuyper's most persistent early theme was the antithesis: there can be no compromise between darkness and light. This thinking helped lead the "faithful" out of the NHK in 1886 and unite the dolerenden with the Christelijke Gereformeerde in 1892.

Another of Kuyper's ideas was common grace. Common grace means that God's goodness in creation (e.g., rain on the crops of the righteous and unrighteous) is a form of grace, albeit not saving grace. Partially because of common grace, the Christian should be involved in government, business, education, etc. Not only that, Christians could cooperate with others toward the same goals despite the antithesis.

Those uneasy with the twin emphases of anithesis and common grace remained outside of the GKN. These thinkers may have influenced the thinking of Herman Hoeksema, who later founded the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).

The GKN established common grace as dogma with the Conclusions of Utrecht in 1905. The CRC adopted the conclusions in 1908 and further strengthened its stance on common grace with the "Three Points of Kalamazoo" adopted in 1924.

Church Polity

It has been an ongoing question throughout church history: How should the denomination be organized? The Roman Catholic model was hierarchy; the reformed model was synodical or presbyterian.

Still, the presbyterian model doesn't answer the question of congregational autonomy v. denominational authority. On one side of the issue we find those who maintain that only the local congregation is truly the church; all else constitutes federation. For these churches, classes and synods have little more than advisory power. The synod may be able to drop a congregation from its membership roster, but only the local congregation/council can discipline its members. This includes deposing office bearers.

On the other side is the hierarchical model. According to this model, a classis has more authority than a congregation and a synod more than a classis. Although discipline of individuals is left to their church council, the larger assembly may discipline office holders of smaller assemblies.

When the Schilder case came before the GKN synod in 1944, Article 31 of their church order read:

If anyone complains that he has been wronged by the decision of the minor assembly, he shall have the right to appeal to the major ecclesiastical assembly; and whatever may be agreed upon by a majority vote shall be considered settled and binding, unless it be proved to conflict with the Word of God or with the articles decided upon in the General Synod, as long as they are not changed by another General Synod.12

Although this was written church order, by this time the GKN had become more hierarchical in nature, which would be reflected in their next revision of church order. Schilder called the new structure "synodocratic" and saw it as a great threat to congregational autonomy. Abraham Kuyper was also a strong supporter of the rights of the local congregation.

Personal Piety and Presumptive Regeneration

Does communicant membership in the church require intellectual agreement, a personal encounter with God, a holy lifestyle? If we define the church as the people of God, who are the people of God?

As a state church, the NHK holds the extreme position that anyone can be a member of the church - even those who have never been baptized (they have such a membership category for the unbaptized children of members, who may themselves belong to this class). To my knowledge, all other Dutch reformed bodies require that members be baptized.

However, not all denominations require their members to be active - the RCA has a statistic for inactive members; this includes those away from the community (at school, on the mission field, etc.) and others. While it is perhaps courageous to maintain such a statistic, the RCA's inactive data reflect poorly on the spirituality of the "old RCA" in the East.13

In reformed churches we anticipate our children will affirm faith in God when they understand what is involved in belonging to God and his church. In most reformed congregations, this permits the believer to partake of communion and participate in congregational voting, although some churches give communion to pre-professing children and some require professing members to reach a particular age before voting. (Some deny the vote to female communicant members.)

However, not all baptized children grow to faith, as our believers' baptism friends will remind us. It is generally believed that the children of believers are holy and that, should they die in childhood, they will spend eternity with their loving Father in heaven. Abraham Kuyper extended this concept to presumptive regeneration - "the doctrine that 'the seed of the covenant [that is, the children of believers] by virtue of the promise of God is to be regarded as regenerated and as sanctified in Christ, until the contrary is shown in their confession and conduct when they are reaching years of discretion. . . ."14 This theory, upheld in the 1905 Conclusions of Utrecht, has been a point of contention between several denominations.

13. It is frightening to see the inactive statistics for some RCA congregations, classes, and even regional synods (especially in New York and New Jersey). In one classis (Columbia-Green) inactive members almost equal active members; in many areas one-third of the professing members are listed as inactive. Except for California, this phenomenon is generally limited to the New York/New Jersey area. The lowest inactive rate, roughly ten percent, is in the midwest (Regional Synods of Great Lakes, Heartlands, and Mid-America). <back>

Back to index or on to the next section.