Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 23:57:36 EST From: Darrell128 Subject: NR 98020: CRC Synod Askes to Delete Anti-Catholic Statement from Heidelberg Catechism' NR #1998-020: Christian Reformed Synod Asked to Delete Anti-Catholic Statement from Heidelberg Catechism Should the Christian Reformed Church delete a statement in its doctrinal standards declaring that the Roman Catholic Mass "Thus the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry.?" The answer seemed obvious to Classis Lake Erie, which with little debate unanimously adopted an overture asking the Christian Reformed synod to delete that language from the Heidelberg Catechism. The only discussion on the floor of classis was whether some of the quotations in the document were correctly attributed. While getting Classis Lake Erie to adopt the overture may have been easy, getting the Christian Reformed synod to change a confession which was first written over four centuries ago and which has been used by the CRC since it began in 1857 will be quite a bit more difficult. "I can't imagine that a decision of this magnitude would be made on the basis of one look at it at one synod, that would be very uncharacteristic," said CRC General Secretary Dr. David Engelhard. NR 1998-020: For Immediate Release: Christian Reformed Synod Asked to Delete Anti-Catholic Statement from Heidelberg Catechism by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service EAST LANSING, MICH. (March 25, 1998) URNS - Should the Christian Reformed Church delete a statement in its doctrinal standards declaring that the Roman Catholic Mass "is nothing but a of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry?" The answer seemed obvious to Classis Lake Erie, which with little debate unanimously adopted an overture asking the Christian Reformed synod to delete that language from the Heidelberg Catechism. The only discussion on the floor of classis was whether some of the quotations in the document were correctly attributed. While getting Classis Lake Erie to adopt the overture may have been easy, getting the Christian Reformed synod to change a confession which was first written over four centuries ago and which has been used by the CRC since it began in 1857 will be quite a bit more difficult. "I can't imagine that a decision of this magnitude would be made on the basis of one look at it at one synod, that would be very uncharacteristic," said CRC General Secretary Dr. David Engelhard. "It is possible it could be put into the hands of a committee for further reflection, but it's possible that synod could argue that we studied this fifteen or twenty years ago." Engelhard's mention of prior study refers to requests by Rev. James LaGrand and by Classis Rocky Mountain which had asked Synod 1975 to delete or amend Question and Answer 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism in which the catechism asks "How does the Lord's Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass?" The catechism responds with a statement of Reformed theology on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and then answers that "the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have their sins forgiven through the suffering of Christ unless Christ is still offered for them daily by the priests. It also teaches that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine where Christ is therefore to be worshipped. Thus the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry." Synod rejected LaGrand's request to delete the question entirely, asked a denominational study committee to look at proposed amendments, and decided in 1977 not to change the language on five grounds, including that "a historical creed must not be altered without weighty reasons," and that the "statements of [the Roman Catholic Council of Trent] which answer 80 rejects have not been repudiated by the Roman Catholic Church." Synod 1977's fourth reason for keeping QA 80 was the most detailed: "Although the language in answer 80 appears sharp, such indignation at the withholding of assurance of salvation from believers is not inappropriate to a confessional statement. Trent speaks rather sharply too. And the acts of teaching and refuting are frequently coupled in the New Testament." Those arguments weren't persuasive to Classis Lake Erie or to First CRC of Detroit, which brought the overture to classis "due to our increasing association with our brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic Church." "Members of the Christian Reformed Church marrying people from other denominations, and in particular the Roman Catholic faith, is increasing as is our association with Roman Catholics generally," wrote the church in its overture. "When prospective members coming to the Christian Reformed Church from Catholic background are instructed in the Christian Reformed Church doctrines, they are offended and puzzled by the strong language used in QA 80." While acknowledging that the catechism "might be historically accurate to the 1500's," First Detroit CRC argued that "churches of any denomination rarely, if ever 'repudiate' previous positions. Over time, however they do change them. The Roman Catholic Church as shown in its new confession with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and as stated in the Baltimore Catechism, believes in justification by faith alone." First Detroit CRC noted a Joint Declaration on Justification made by North American Roman Catholics with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Among the statements cited are a provision that "justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father. Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works." It also quoted the Roman Catholic Baltimore Catechism's statement that "on the cross Christ physically shed his blood and was physically slain, while in the Mass that is no physical shedding of blood nor physical death, because Christ can die no more; on the cross Christ gained merit and satisfied for us, while in the Mass he applies to us the merits and satisfaction of his death on the cross." As a result, First Detroit CRC argued that the CRC synod should remove QA 80 from the text of the Heidelberg Catechism while placing an appendix at the back of the catechism indicating when it was included by the authors and when it was removed by the Christian Reformed Church. In the formal grounds, the classis argued that "the phrase 'is a condemnable idolatry' should be reserved for describing actions of persons who don't believe in justification by faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior," that "practice of basic love, unity, and understanding among Christians today demands the removal of QA 80 from confessional status in the CRCNA," and that "QA 80 was not included in the original text of the Heidelberg Catechism and was added only as a response to statements in the Council of Trent made in December of 1563." While First Detroit CRC noted that its overture stemmed from increasingly close contacts with Roman Catholics, a Calvin Seminary professor who has decades of close contacts with Catholics said his own experience led him to opposite conclusions. Missions professor Dr. Roger Greenway, who for fifteen years served as a Christian Reformed missionary to Mexico and as Latin American secretary for the CRC board of world missions, said he teaches a seminary class citing at least seven different theological positions within the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America. "Sometimes you've got to have a rock thrown against the back of your head to wake you up," said Greenway. "I've had that, and people who have forever all their lives met with some genteel Roman Catholics, who have always lived in the atmosphere of a rather evangelical Roman Catholicism in North America which has been leavened by a predominantly Protestant environment, when these folks get down into a culture where the Roman Catholic Church has dominated for who knows how many hundreds of years, they get shocked." "In trying to analyze the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, I came up with seven or eight 'faces' of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, and some of them are very different from one other," said Greenway, noting that the Catholics range "from the traditional Trent-like Catholic Church to churches that are almost indistinguishable from evangelical churches, except that there is still a formal adherence to the Papacy, to the Vatican, and to the statements that remain unchanged." According to Greenway, the "number one problem" with revising the Heidelberg Catechism is that the Roman Catholic statements of the Council of Trent, which the Heidelberg Catechism was written to oppose, haven't been changed by the Catholic Church. In its seventh session, the Council of Trent declared that "in order to destroy the errors and to extirpate the heresies, which have appeared in these our days on the subject of the said most holy sacraments; as well those which have been revived from the heresies condemned of old by our Fathers, as also those newly invented, and which are exceedingly prejudicial to the purity of the Catholic Church, and to the salvation of souls" it would adopt a number of canons. Among them are Canon IV stating that "if any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification; though all (the sacraments) are not indeed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema." In its thirteenth session, the Council of Trent decreed in Chapter V that the consecrated Host may "be borne reverently and with honour in processions through the streets, and public places" in order that "all Christians may, with a special and unusual demonstration, testify that their minds are grateful and thankful to their common Lord and Redeemer for so ineffable and truly divine a benefit, whereby the victory and triumph of His death are represented." The canons of the Thirteenth Session also anathematize Reformed doctrine with Canon I specifying that "if any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema" and Canon VI specifying that "if any one saith, that, in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored with the worship, even external of latria; and is, consequently, neither to be venerated with a special festive solemnity, nor to be solemnly borne about in processions, according to the laudable and universal rite and custom of holy church; or, is not to be proposed publicly to the people to be adored, and that the adorers thereof are idolaters; let him be anathema." Trent barred even public advocacy of the Reformed position on justification through faith alone without use of confession to a priest by means of Canon XI of the Thirteenth Session, specifying that "if any one saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and condemnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares, that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burthened with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated." In its twenty-second session, the Council of Trent, "because that many errors are at this time disseminated and many things are taught and maintained by divers persons, in opposition to this ancient faith, which is based on the sacred Gospel, the traditions of the Apostles, and the doctrine of the holy Fathers; the sacred and holy Synod, after many and grave deliberations maturely had touching these matters, has resolved, with the unanimous consent of all the Fathers, to condemn, and to eliminate from holy Church, by means of the canons subjoined, whatsoever is opposed to this most pure faith and sacred doctrine," and adopted even sterner canons against Protestant views of the Lord's Supper. Canon I specifies that "if any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema." Canon II specifies that "if any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other priests should offer His own body and blood; let him be anathema." Canon III says the same about those who say "that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities;" Canon IV anathematizes those who say "that, by the sacrifice of the mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most holy sacrifice of Christ consummated on the cross; or, that it is thereby derogated from." Canon V anathematizes those who say "it is an imposture to celebrate masses in honour of the saints, and for obtaining their intercession with God, as the Church intends," and Canon VI anathematizes those who say "that the canon of the mass contains errors, and is therefore to be abrogated." Following canons anathematize those who say the Roman Catholic sacramental ceremonies and vestments are incentives to impiety, who say private masses by priests are unlawful, who condemn "low tones" of speaking in parts of the Mass so that the congregation cannot hear the words spoken, who say water ought not to be mixed with the sacramental wine, and who say the mass should only be celebrated in the language used by the people. While the Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council has endorsed masses in the language used by the people in the church, it has never revised Trent's doctrine that masses in Latin are proper and that use of the common language is not necessary. Greenway acknowledged movement in Roman Catholic practice since the Council of Trent, but argued that changing Trent's condemnation of Protestant views would be necessary before Protestants should consider changing their responses to those condemnations. "I have a copy of the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church, and that makes statements that I don't think the Catholic Church in the sixteenth or seventeenth century ever would have said," said Greenway. "The problem as I see it is that there is movement, but no retraction of the anathemas. I don't see any repentance or retraction on the part of the hierarchy." "I am waiting for the Catholic Church to deal with some of the contradictions that are appearing within their own statements and certainly among their own clergy," said Greenway. "You can't have it seven different ways, unless pluralism has come to mean you can believe and confess anything and still stay under one umbrella." Despite the Catholic Church's failure to amend or retract the decrees of the Council of Trent, Greenway said he expects the Christian Reformed synod to appoint a study committee responding to Classis Lake Erie's overture. "I'm not surprised an overture like this is coming from our classes today," said Greenway. "I suspect that ministers who have spent their entire time in North America and have not dealt with the other faces of the Roman Catholic Church today probably wonder whether this question and answer is correct in what it says." "I certainly am willing to listen to those who are taking essentially biblical positions on a number of issues, but then I want them to say, 'We were wrong in the sixteenth century, we repent, we shouldn't have expelled Martin Luther and John Calvin, and we're sorry about that,'" said Greenway. "I think integrity requires that you face your history and either renounce it and say 'We were mistaken,' or you say 'We were right but we want to show a different face today.'" Cross-References to Related Articles: [No related articles on file] Contact List: Rev. William C. De Vries, Pastor, First Christian Reformed Church 1444 Maryland, Grosse Pointe Park, MI 48230 O: (313) 824-3511 * H: (313) 824-1789 Dr. David Engelhard, General Secretary, Christian Reformed Church in North America 2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49560 O: (616) 246-0744 * H: (616) 243-2418 * FAX: (616) 246-0834 * E-Mail: engelhad@crcna.org Dr. Roger S. Greenway, Professor of World Missiology, Calvin Theological Seminary 3233 Burton St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4387 O: (616) 957-6933 * H: (616) 874-7039 * FAX: (616) 957-8621 Pastor George Vander Weit, Stated Clerk, Classis Lake Erie 2901 Waterloo Dr., Troy, MI 48084 O: (810) 645-1990 * H: (810) 649-5388 * E-Mail: northhills@juno.com ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive98: nr98-020.txt (corrected 3/30/98) .