Making a Dirty Splash in a Little Puddle: An Attempt to Amend BC 14 (1)

Introduction

On March 11, 2015, Classis Ontario West (COW) of the Canadian Reformed Churches (CanRCs) adopted a proposal from the Providence Canadian Reformed Church (PCRC) to amend Belgic Confession (BC), Article 14. This proposal will be discussed at the next Regional Synod East (RSE) meeting. It is now circulating publicly among the churches.

Here is the relevant opening sentence of the official version of BC 14 now in force among the CanRCs.

Article 14 – the Creation and Fall of Man and His Incapability of Doing What Is Truly Good

We believe that God created man of dust from the ground and He made and formed him after His own image . . . .

Here is the proposed amended BC 14 (all new material underlined):

We believe that God created the human race by making and forming Adam from dust (Gen. 2:7) and Eve from Adam’s side (Gen. 2:21-22). They were created as the first two humans and the biological ancestors of all other humans. There were no pre-Adamites, whether human or hominid. God made and formed Adam after his own image . . . [the rest of the text remains as currently adopted].

You can find the entire proposal here. Given the proposal’s introduction, its accompanying explanation, and the grounds thought to support this proposal, it seems evident that neither PCRC nor COW comprehend the far-reaching implications of the proposed amendment and its basis.

It is that apparent lack of comprehension that lies behind the admittedly provocative title of this blog series. Provocative, because the backstory and the current proposal constitute (1) an egregious violation of the Ninth Commandment, (2) a divisive twisting of the principles of Reformed church polity, and (3) a deeply sectarian action.

For the discerning reader

Unfortunately, given the short distance between the spacebar and the send button, one finds it necessary to issue caveats in order to protect one’s name and reputation from the digital firing squads standing in wait to do their duty. This and subsequent blog posts are not written to defend theistic evolution, or Adam and Eve evolving from some prehuman hominid, or a billion-years age of the earth, or any specific length of the creation days.

In other words, please keep your eye on the ball: this series of blog posts is written specifically to defend the names and reputations of fellow believer-scientists who are members in good standing in their respective churches; to alert people in Reformed churches to the capacity available for twisting and perverting the principles of Reformed church polity; and to warn against ongoing divisiveness and sectarianism in the world of Reformed and Presbyterian churches (as in: N-A-P-A-R-C).

* * *

An analogy from history?

The proposal’s problems begin already in its opening paragraph.

In an effort to show the legitimacy of amending the Belgic Confession, the claim is advanced that in contrast to Scripture, which possesses divine authority,

. . . the Confessions are human documents bearing ecclesiastical authority. They can be amended or edited to better conform to the Scriptures or to address new challenges. As an example, we can note changes that were made to Belgic Confession article 36 at General Synod 1905 of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. A number of words were deleted in an effort to better conform to biblical teaching on the role of civil government.

The question reserved for discussion in our concluding section is this: By whom should (one of) the Three Forms of Unity be amended or edited? As someone has already pointed out , the net effect of this proposal would be to create the “Canadian Reformed Belgic Confession,” which would no longer be the Belgic Confession shared by the majority of Reformed churches worldwide.

For now, however, our attention is directed to the analogy with 1905. Students of Dutch Reformed church history may recall that under the leadership of Abraham Kuyper and others, a number of words (phrases) were removed from BC 36. These words (phrases) pertained to the state’s duty with respect to non-Christians and their religion. The CanRCs, together with most (not all) Reformed churches, have accepted this revision of BC 36.

Subtraction versus addition

But here it is crucial to notice—as in: dwell upon, meditate upon—the functional difference between subtraction and addition when it comes to confessional revision.

One of the functions of a church’s confession is to define the boundaries of acceptable doctrine and practice, inside of which a person/institution may be deemed Reformed (in this case), and outside of which a person will be deemed unreformed.

Now, when confessional revision occurs by means of the subtraction of words, presumably the boundary of Reformed-ness is broadened. That is precisely what occurred at the 1905 synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. But when confessional revision occurs by means of the addition of words, the boundary is constricted and narrowed. In connection with the 1905 revision, the question never arose: Are those persons still “inside” the 1905 boundary who were “inside” the 1904 boundary? To my knowledge, never in the history of Reformed churches since the Synod of Dort has confessional revision occurred by way of substantive addition.

So then, the necessary, inevitable, and egregiously problematic result of this proposed confessional revision of BC 14 by the addition of words is that some persons who were “inside” at 12:00 CanRC time will suddenly find themselves “outside” at 12:01 CanRC time.

To be continued.