Part III - The 1950’s and 1960’s

by Cedric Parsels

This is a new series from Rev. Cedric Parsels covering the history of gravamina in the Christian Reformed Church.

In Part II of this series, we saw that Prof. Smith’s account of the history of confessional-difficulty gravamina in our church was inaccurate. Prof. Kromminga’s 1945 ‘gravamen’ was not what the denominational offices would like us to refer to as a ‘confessional-difficulty gravamen.’ Or, at least, if it was, both Synods 1945 and 1946 did not view it that way. Instead, they took it as a basic challenge to the Belgic Confession and set out to determine whether Prof. Kromminga’s views were correct or not. Unfortunately, this examination was halted by Prof. Kromminga’s death in 1947.

Throughout the 1950s and 60s the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) continued to face other confessional challenges. In 1952, Calvin CRC in Grand Rapids, MI sent an overture to Synod on behalf of Prof. Clarence Boersma of Calvin College. Their overture urged Synod to respond to six objections that Prof. Boersma had raised against the Belgic Confession. According to Calvin CRC, it was “very important” for Synod to address Prof. Boersma‘s objections, not only because the objections were beyond the consistory‘s “competence” to adjudicate, but, more importantly, because “…all ministers, elders, and deacons, professors of Calvin College and Seminary, as well as many Christian School teachers are required to express their unqualified agreement with [the Belgic] confession” (Agenda for Synod 1952, Overture 11, pp.276-277, emphasis original). In this, Synod 1952 agreed, citing Calvin CRC’s second reason as its ground for appointing a study committee (Acts of Synod 1952, Art. 137, p.68).

These statements are hard to reconcile with Prof. Smith’s claims about our denomination’s history of confessional subscription. As explained in the Introduction, Prof. Smith claims that officebearer, as early as the 1940s, could get an exemption from having to believe all the doctrines contained in our confessions provided that they submitted a ‘confessional-difficulty gravamen.’ Both Calvin CRC and Synod 1952, however, show us that this was not the case. These church assemblies expected all officebearers to express “unqualified agreement with [the confessions]” (Acts of Synod 1952, Art. 137, p.68). 

The controversy over Prof. Boersma’s objections carried on until Synod 1961 when Synod essentially said that it had had enough: it was not going to revise the Belgic Confession. It was not long, however, before a new confessional crisis arose. The very next year, in 1962, Harold Dekker, Professor of Missions at Calvin Theological Seminary from 1955 to1987, caused an uproar by writing an article in The Reformed Journal in which he gave the impression that he disagreed with the doctrine of limited atonement. This controversy – commonly known as the ‘Love of God controversy’ – continued until Synod 1967 ended debate. In that year, Synod reaffirmed the Reformed doctrine of God’s love and reprimanded Prof. Dekker for having caused so much confusion in the church by his “ambiguous and abstract way” of writing (Acts of Synod 1967, Art. 166, p.733).

 Both before and during the ‘Love of God’ controversy, there is strong evidence that the CRC’s official policy was still that of “unqualified” subscription. For example, in 1960, the editor for The Banner, the Rev. John Vander Ploeg, wrote an editorial for the February 19th edition, entitled, “Requirements for Signing the Form of Subscription.” Commenting on the Form of Subscription’s (FOS) statement that all the doctrines contained in the confessions “fully agree with the Word of God,” Vander Ploeg wrote: that “In signing the FOS in good faith, every officebearer in the [CRC] binds or commits himself wholeheartedly to the Reformed interpretation of Scripture as this is expressed in the [confessions].” By ‘wholeheartedly,’ Vander Ploeg went on to explain that he meant that “anyone who signs the Form of Subscription honestly and advisedly, does so without reservations…,” i.e., unconditionally or without qualification [The Banner, Vol. 95 (Feb.19, 1960), p.4].  

In 1966 (i.e., just as the 1962-1967 controversy was coming to its end), Vander Ploeg returned in The Banner to the topic of confessional subscription. In an article, entitled, “Form of subscription – to sign or not to sign?,” Vander Ploeg stated that, in the CRC, “by affixing their signatures to this [FOS], office-bearers in the [CRC] say… that they ‘heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine contained in the [confessions] do fully agree with the Word of God’” [The Banner, Vol. 101. (Jan. 14, 1966), pp. 8-9).  In neither his 1960 nor his 1966 article does Vander Ploeg suggest that those signing the FOS could ask their consistories for an exemption to the FOS’s requirements .

In addition to Vander Ploeg’s article, The Banner ran a two part “Special Article” by the Rev. Conrad Veenstra, in April 1966, entitled, “Our Form of Subscription.” In his second article, Veenstra reiterated Vander Ploeg’s statements, writing that, “The wording [of our FOS] precludes that the honest signer has mental reservations. The Form does not tolerate a formal or hypocritical signing. The expression ‘in conscience’ means a conscience bound by the Word of God; a conscience which does not, as the office-bearer signs, accuse, ‘You’re not entirely honest.’ The wording is equivalent to an oath: ‘We ‘declare before God,’’ and declares that these creeds in no way deviate from the Word of God” [The Banner, Vol. 101. (Apr. 22, 1966), p.4]. Again, Veenstra makes no mention of candidates or officebearers having the ability to ask for an exemption.  

All of this is very strange if Prof. Smith’s claim is correct that officebearer were allowed to take exception (i.e., submit ‘confessional difficulty gravamina’) as far back as the 1940s. If there was such a policy, we would expect that Vander Ploeg and Veenstra would have made some mention of it, given that such a policy would have had significant bearing on the controversy then raging in the church. But they don’t. This makes it very unlikely that such a policy existed.

Still, it could be argued that The Banner is written for a popular audience and that maybe Vander Ploeg and Veenstra were simply setting forth the ideal for officebearers. If so, then we should be able to find reference to some kind of exemption policy in a more ‘scholarly’ publication such as Van Dellen’s and Monsma’s 1967 Revised Church Order Commentary.

However, we don’t. According to Van Dellen and Monsma, “[An officebearer] who entertains serious doubts or who experiences a change of mind in regard to any points of doctrine [in the confessions] promises not to advocate these conceptions which are contrary to the accepted confessions, but that he will reveal his sentiments to one of our ecclesiastical assemblies” (Van Dellen and Monsma, Revised, p.39). The reason for this, Van Dellen and Monsma go on to explain, is because “[The confessions] have been found to be a summary of divine revelation by the churches, under the direction of the Holy Spirit….” And so, “in the interest of harmony and unity, and for the sake of the truth of God involved, [an officebearer is obligated to] reveal his doubts to the churches in order that the churches may together look into the matter, revising the creeds if need be, or else attempting to convince the erring brother concerning his misinterpretation of God’s Word.”

What is conspicuously absent from Van Dellen’s and Monsma’s account of officebearers submitting their gravamina is any reference to a consistory’s ability to grant the officebearer an exception. Upon receiving an officebearer’s gravamen, Van Dellen and Monsma suggest that a consistory only had two options: “[revise] the creeds if need be, or else [attempt] to convince the erring brother concerning his misinterpretation of God’s Word” ((Van Dellen and Monsma, Revised, p.39). No mention is made of a ‘third way’ in which a consistory ‘accepts’ a gravamen or grants an exemption.

In fact, the possibility of an exemption seems ruled out on the grounds that Van Dellen and Monsma go on to explain that no officebearer is allowed to persist indefinitely in their disagreement with the church. According to these commentators, the FOS requires that an officebearer who has revealed his difficulties to the church must “cheerfully submit himself to the conclusions of the consistory, classis, or synod.” By ‘submission to the conclusions of the church,’ Van Dellen and Monsma clearly mean that the officebearer promises to repent of his error or errors, i.e., to change his mind. If an officebearer refuses to change his mind, then, Van Dellen and Monsma say, “he is by that very fact suspended from office. Formal suspension would have to take place, but by his refusal to submit himself to the judgment of the churches the brother concerned has virtually suspended himself. Whether or not deposition [i.e., removal from office] would follow suspension, would depend on the question whether or not the brother concerned persists in his error or errors” (Van Dellen and Monsma, Revised, p.40, emphasis added). 

In Part II of this series, we examined Prof. Smith’s claim that her understanding of confessional-difficulty gravamina is one that has existed in the CRC since at least the 1940s. At this point in Part III, it should be clear that this is extremely unlikely. Instead, we have seen that the policy of confessional subscription officially set by the CRC in 1861, i.e., the policy of unconditional or, as Calvin CRC put it, “unqualified” subscription, was the CRC’s official policy throughout the 1940s, the 1950s and through to at least 1969. Still, perhaps things would changed in the 1970s. We will examine that possibility in Part IV.