Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct/85

Contributor - Arie Blok

Title - Ecumenical Relationships and the Reformed Church in Canada

Topic - Church Unity

As a denomination, we have a long history of ecumenical relationships. In our earliest days in the New World, we shared in the close kinship of the Reformed family of churches. We still exercise this close kinship with our membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and in correspondence with other Reformed denominations throughout the world.

The Great Awakening in colonial America began with the ministry of Reformed pastor Theodorus Frelinghuysen in the Raritan Valley in New Jersey and soon spread into much of colonial America. That brought Rev. Freylinghuysen into close contact with William Tennant who was Presbyterian, Jonathan Edwards who was a Congregationalist and George Whitefield who belonged to the Methodist movement of the Church of England.

Later, our involvement in Foreign Missions brought us into cooperative efforts with missionaries of other denominations in evangelism and the founding of new churches. Throughout our denominational history, we have been a separate but not a separatist denomination.

We have been very comfortable with some of our ecumenical relationships but not as comfortable with others. As long as I can remember, each year has seen at least one overture to the General Synod asking that the RCA end her membership in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. Some elements in the RCA are very comfortable with that part of our ecumenical relationship, and other elements are very uncomfortable with it. To some, membership in these bodies is essential, while others see ourselves as "prisoners" of our membership in the National and World Councils of Churches.

I believe that in this situation, we should look at the "whys" and "wherefors" of our ecumenical relationships, especially our relationships with the so-called "Ecumenical Movement',as it is embodied in the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and perhaps to a lesser degree, in the Canadian Council of Churches.

1. Why we should maintain relationships with other Christians There are good reasons why we should maintain ecumenical relationships with other Christians. Don't misunderstand me! I am not making a plea for any kind of separatism. Separatism is a denial that we as believers have a bond not only with the Lord Jesus but also with all our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We and other believers constitute one worldwide Church of Jesus Christ. We may not be united in one organization, but we are united in one living organism. We are all members of the body of Christ.

We need relationships with other churches to carry out our mandate under Christ's Great Commission. As a denomination, we have always chosen to be cooperative on the mission field, rather than competitive. As a denomination, we simply would not be able to be active on as many mission fields as we are without this policy of cooperation.

We also need to give expression to our fellowship with other Reformed Churches worldwide. Like any other large family, we should keep in contact with each other. We also have a close kinship with others, our fellow Evangelicals, with whom we share a love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

2. But what about our relationship with the N.C.C., the W.C.C. and the C-C-C-?

Since we are by history and custom a cooperative denomination, we have been involved in inter-denominational cooperation in many ways. The RCA has been a participator in the Bible

Society movement from the beginning. Not only denominational missions but inter-denominational missions and so-called "independent" missions have attracted funds and personnel from our denomination.

It should not surprise us then, that our RCA would also have become involved in the so-called "Ecumenical Movement" embodied in the World Council of Churches, the National and Canadian Councils of Churches and the Consultation on Church Union, commonly referred to as COCU.

They are, in a sense, an outgrowth of our long involvement on the North American scene. We were, first of all, united with other churches in opposing the efforts of British administrators to force a State Church upon the people, in the early history of both the United States and Canada. Secondly, the essential unity of doctrines and lifestyle that resulted from the Great Awakening drew the leaders of the denominations closer together.

On the one hand, in the National Council, and in the World Council of Churches, to a lesser degree, we are in a kind of union with other churches with which we share a long history. The "underdog" denominations that once fought for their lives against the imposition of a State Church now call themselves the "mainline denominations", and we, of course, are "mainline" also. Some mainline denominations are very large, others small like ourselves, but virtually all denominations in the N. C. C. are "mainline", which is the ecclesiastic way of saying "on the right side of the tracks".

Almost all the member denominations of the N. C. C., the C. C. C. and the W.C.C. have doctrinal statements by which they express agreement with the historic Christian faith, and all of them have an element in them that adheres to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, which I like to sum up under the "three B's" - the book, the blood and the blessed hope.

But on the other hand, all is not well with the Ecumenical Movement. I recently attended a meeting in a college in London (Ontario) at which we were given a tour of the college. During the tour, our guide told us that the college had been founded for the training of an evangelical ministry. When I asked our guide if the college had remained true to the purpose of its founders, I was told, "Well, we still have a sizeable evangelical element here".

That has also been the history of many of the mainline denominations. Most of these denominations have evangelicals in them, the good credal statements are still there, but in some of these denominations, especially in the largest of them, the denominational machinery is controlled by those who are not committed evangelicals.

The secular press usually displays a great ignorance when it comes to the church, but its tendency to lump denominations into the two categories of "Evangelical" and "Ecumenical" and to describe Protestant churches as being either " born- again" or " mainline", has a lamentable amount of truth in it

To sum it up, the situation is this, on the one hand, there are many evangelical believers like ourselves in the denominations that make up the National Council of Churches, the World Council, of Churches and the Canadian Council of Churches, but they do not control these Councils any more than we do.

The argument is often made that we should remain in the W. C. C., the N. C. C. and the C. C. C. in order to influence these Councils for good. This is a laudable purpose, and in theory this could happen; after all is not even the General Secretary of the N.C. C. from the RCA?

However, this does not happen, and I can give you some reasons why this does not happen: (1) denominational representatives on these Councils are usually those who approve of the Councils as they are; (2) these Councils are controlled in reality by an entrenched cadre that is very conscious of where the power lies; (3) those with a long involvement in these Councils have a loyalty to them as strong as their loyalty to their denomination, and that is often true of denominational staffs as well. Any time an article is published criticizing the N. C. C. or the W.C.C., I receive a rebuttal in the mail from our RCA staff at "475".

Yes, there have been changes for the better that have also affected the Ecumenical Movement and the Councils of Churches. Theological liberalism no longer wields the power it once did..In many denominations, the younger ministers tend to be more evangelical than their older colleagues. Those who openly sneer at Evangelicals are now considered to be "too undiplomatic" for prominent positions in the Councils, although it is still considered fashionable to sneer at Jerry Fallwell. Statements coming from the Councils today are usually not deliberately hostile to Evangelicals. The pronouncements of the last meeting of the W. C. C. that met in Vancouver were closer to historic Christianity than those of the previous W. C. C. meetings. The present Consultation on Church Union is not as totally compromising as the earlier COCU, and some attempts are made to deal seriously with doctrinal issues.

Still, at the same time, "the more things change, the more they remain the same". Things have changed somewhat from the days when the New York staff of the N.C.C. with their most ardent followers went down to the airport to welcome and entertain the buddhist Dalai Lama of Tibet as a great religious leader and a fellow clergyman, but that would still not really be out of character tor some of them today. The leaders of the, W. C. C., the N. C. C. and, perhaps to a lesser degree, the C.C.C. are not committed to the historic and evangelical Christian faith. Yes, Evangelicals are considered in making decisions, but the evangelical position is still regarded as only one of several valid options in the Ecumenical Movement today.

No, I do not think that a decision to get out of the N. C. C., the W. C. C. and the C. C. C. would be a vote against ecumenicity and for separatism. The Ecumenical Movement is not really all that ecumenical. Its ecumenicity is pretty much limited to churches within the Councils, and its proponents among us seem to be remarkably uninterested in, and sometimes even opposed to, our developing a relationship with such equally ecumenical groups as the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). (Pardon me! I should have said "more ecumenical groups" because we cannot be truly ecumenical unless we are truly Christian.) To the upholder of the Councils, involvement with non-Council groups is not "ecumenicity" but "competition".

As Canadian churches, we can do very little about RCA ties with the N.C.C. and the W.C.C. After all, the Reformed Church in Canada is only two percent (2%) of the RCA, but we can determine our own relationships with Canadian churches and inter-church organizations. 1, for myself, would feel much more at home in the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada than in the Canadian Council of Churches. After all, we are a Bible-believing and Gospel-confessing church, upholding the faith once delivered unto the saints. We are Evangelicals, whose goal should be that Christ's Reformed Church in America should be and remain truly Reformed and uncompromisingly Evangelical. We could have a warmer and deeper relationship with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada than we can enjoy with the C. C. C. I believe that we should take a close and careful look at our ecumenical relationships, and carefully come to decisions as to where our affiliations should be.

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