From Pastor’s Desk:

by Pastor Joe VandenAkker

What are some characteristic traits of the Christian Reformed portion of Christ’s church in North America?

      For the benefit of new ethnic groups coming into the CRC, new church plants, and many lifelong CRC members who find it hard to describe what makes us who we are, an identity statement has been included in the latest Denomination Ministries Plan.  I would compare it to using a little bit of family history and key family character traits to describe what makes a VandenAkker a VandenAkker, a Vis a Vis, or a Sas a Sas.  These traits are not unique to us.  Yet this combination of specific traits and their strong presence makes us who we are.

      Several key movements and strong core values from our Dutch Reformed heritage have served to shape and define our Reformed identity.  Observers of the Reformed tradition identify three emphases or approaches that historically and presently define what it means to be Reformed: one focus is on doctrine, one is on personal piety, and a third is on transforming culture.  Historically there have been those in the CRC who have enthusiastically defined their Reformed identity especially in terms of one of the three.  The blending together of these three in the Christian Reformed denomination as a whole provides for a well balanced Christian life and Reformed worldview.

      The “Identity Statement” makes use of five or six key words or phrases for each of the three emphases mentioned above.  In this and the next two articles, I will review one or two of these terms for each Reformed emphasis.

      Doctrine: What we believe.  Here Reformed refers to a strong adherence to certain Christian doctrines taught in the Bible and referred to in the doctrinal statements of the church.  Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology – a thorough summary of Reformed doctrine – clearly reflects and contributes to this Reformed doctrinal emphasis.

      Doctrine – 1. Scripture   Reformed Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired, infallible and authoritative Word of God (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21).  Inspired speaks of the source of Scripture: God himself speaking by his Holy Spirit through human authors.  Infallible means that the Scriptures are true and absolutely unfailing in matters of faith and practice.   Authoritative means that we look to the Bible as the final authority on what we are to believe and how we are to live.

      In our day, there are two main threats to this high view of Scripture.  First, there are those who pull down Scripture by denying it is the Word of God, that it is from God, that it is historically accurate, that resurrections and other miracles really happen, and that it remains authoritative for our lives today.  Second, there is the God-told-me-this view of revelation.  Many Christians today seek their own personal, private Spirit- given revelations.  Reformed Christians insist that the Spirit works through the Word, which God has given to the church as a whole.

      Doctrine – 2. Creation-fall-redemption (Colossians 1:15-20) is the basic Reformed way of organizing and understanding the Bible, its message, and history.  God created the world; the world fell into sin; God has redeemed and is redeeming the world through the work of Christ, a redemption that will one day be complete when God creates a new heaven and new earth.  The teaching that human beings are image bearers of God has profound implications for our self-understanding and for numerous ethical issues.

      Piety: How we experience God in our daily walk of faith.  Here Reformed refers to the Christian life and to one’s personal relationship to God.  In our past, a strong value on one’s personal walk with God motivated pastor Hendrik de Cock in 1834 to lead the Afscheiding, a breaking off from the Dutch state church which had lost its theological and spiritual vitality.

      Piety – 1. Personal relationship to Christ (Romans 8:38-39).  The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism is a much-loved statement of the heart of our faith.  The believer’s “only comfort” is that “I am not my own…but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”  Our emphasis on knowing correct doctrine (head knowledge) is balanced by the deeply pastoral and personal emphasis in the catechism on the believer’s personal relationship with Christ (heart).

      Reformed Christians caution, though, that the Christian life encompasses more than my inner feelings toward the Lord, and my personal relationship with him.  In our therapeutic age, dominated by the quest for inner happiness and self-fulfillment”, Reformed Christians rightly point out that God’s work reaches beyond us individually and that our calling in Christ involves much more than nurturing our spiritual affection for Christ.

      Piety – 2. Gratitude (Colossians 3:15-17).  What motivates the believer?  What drives all we do as Christians?  The Bible’s answers and a Reformed emphasis is gratitude – not guilt, not fear, not a grim sense of obligation to obey the law, but gratitude.  The whole Christian life is our heartfelt “thank-you” to God for our salvation in Christ.

      Ironically, our emphasis on gratitude has not always prevented us from being seduced by legalism – external conformity to all sorts of do’s and don’ts. Legalism is characterized by a preoccupation with how our actions look to others, rather than to God.  Legalism is often driven by guilt or fear.  All Christian obedience ultimately must flow from a thankful heart.

      Transforming culture: How we relate the gospel to the world.  Here, Reformed refers to a world-and-life view in which we strive to bring every square inch of creation under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Abraham Kuyper (pastor, scholar, and prime minister of the Netherlands in the 1880s) strongly influenced this Reformed approach.

      Transforming culture – 1. Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11).  The Lordship of Christ over all areas of life stands in sharp opposition to the widespread practice today of splitting the world in two, separating the sacred and the secular.  The secular worldview allows Christians to have their little Jesus in their little sacred world of church and in-home devotions, but insists that our claims about Christ are to be kept separate from the public spheres of work, politics, education, and leisure activities.

      Reformed Christians reject this attempt to wall God off from huge portions of life.  We proclaim, “Our world belongs to God.”  While the U.S. constitution forbids the government from “establishing” any one denomination or religion as the official state religion, this should not lead to the exclusion of religion from public life or from national debate on important issues.

      Transforming culture – 2. Kingdom (Matthew 6:10).  Closely related to Christ’s Lordship over all is the Biblical and Reformed emphasis on the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is the rule of God over all things.  Kingdom is a big category.  It is a bigger area of God’s work than the church, God’s redeemed people.

      In contrast to Christian groups whose perspective of the kingdom is almost completely future-oriented, Reformed Christians understand from the Bible that the kingdom is both a present and future reality.  It is “already now” and “not yet.”

      Because Reformed Christians believe that the risen and ascended Christ has begun his reign already now, they seek to advance his reign over all of life by establishing Christian colleges and schools, founding Christian mental health ministries (such as Pine Rest), forming community development associations (like Cary Christian Center in Mississippi), establishing school and work programs for those with mental and physical disabilities (Elim and Hope Haven), founding Christian counseling and adoption services (Bethesda and Bethany), forming Christian public justice organizations, and far more besides.  Our kingdom perspective motivates us to go out from our churches into the world in Christ’s name.

      In a broken world, we live with hope knowing that the kingdom of God is also “not yet.”  We look forward to Christ’s glorious return, the defeat and banishment of Satan, the cleansing away of all sin, and God’s creation of a new heaven and new earth where he will live among us and reign over us.

      While eagerly awaiting his return, we seek to do what we can in his service.  Following Christ’s lead, we seek to right what is wrong, heal those who are broken, feed those who are hungry, set free those enslaved to addiction, and set straight what is crooked and perverse.