4 comments

1. Thank you for that. The conversation with my wife’s uncle was more casual with his family and all, than theological, so I took it that way. I have been reading the synod reports you have been printing and it appears a number of denominations are looking at this seriously. I am glad. On your latter point, I was just talking to my brother in law today and he was telling me the CRC is starting to move in a more biblical direction. He said that a number of liberal teachers have left Calvin College and liberal congregations were leaving as well. I do not know the stats, you know more on this than I do, but this is what he was relating to me. We will continue to pray because I know there are good brothers and sisters still in the CRC despite it’s past liberal slide.

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   • Frank,

     I think that’s true but I think it’s mostly a mistake to think about the CRC “going liberal.” What mostly happened is that it went broadly evangelical. It will help the CRC to recover the Reformed confession if they analyze the problem correctly. There’s a half-way house between being confessionally Reformed and being liberal and that house is broad, latitudinarian evangelicalism.

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2. My wife’s uncle was a CRC minister and I remember asking what the differences were between the Dutch Reformed and the CRC. One of the things that he and his family mentioned was an emphasis in the Dutch Reformed Church on being Dutch. I do not know what all transpired to separate the 2 denominations, but the emphasis of being Dutch is a form of kinism. His comments may have been somewhat casual, but apparently this is something that perhaps some of the “old timers” may have already dealt with in the past.

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   • Frank,

     The CRC and the RCA were both Dutch. The latter came to the new world about 1710. The former was formed c. 1854.

     THe RCA became American, as the Dutch put it, learned English, and was affected by Pietism and revivalism. That’s why the CRC was founded, because they found the RCA to have become more American than they were Reformed. They had elders who were members of the Masonic Lodge, the congregations sang hymns instead of psalms, and they did not send their children to Christian schools.

     The CRC retained its Dutch culture and language exclusively until the 1920s and 30s, when they began conducting worship services in English and incorporated hymns into the Psalter. Arguably, the story of the CRC since the early 1930s has been one of gradual Americanization and conformity to American Evangelical theology, piety, and practice.

     The RCA put its foot down several years ago and effectively chased Daph most of the remaining churches with some Reformed conviction. The CRC, however, has had something of a Reformed Renaissance movement within it. It remains to be seen how it will all turn out, but there is some reason for optimism about the future of the CRC as confessionalists continue to speak up snd step up within the denomination.

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