The previous article concluded that in view of present day globalisation, with its lightning speed communication and ever increasing world-wide travel, it may be worth taking a closer look at the development of international ecclesiastical relations. As mentioned in that article, when New Testament churches were first instituted, there were relations among these churches. The New Testament Scriptures give evidence of it. Initially these relations were world-wide. Historically it appears that it was not until after the Great Reformation of the 1500s that Reformed Churches started having more focused and comprehensive relations within their own countries. These churches formed federations or bonds within their countries mainly for practical reasons. Churches within one country could be joined together in such a bond much more easily than joining with churches internationally. That was because they were under the same political civil rule, spoke one language, could communicate easily and often had to deal with similar political, social and cultural issues. Broader ecclesiastical unity, on the other hand, was often hindered and made practically impossible on account of political conflict, lack of communication, difficulties associated with international travel and so forth.

A Changing World⤒🔗

It was much different in the past than today. To give just one concrete example of what has changed: during the Great Reformation, when there was much political unrest and even chaos, church leaders encouraged faithful members who felt compelled to move to another place to look for a true church in the area to which they moved. There was no way that a Dutch minister could know whether there was a truly Reformed faithful church in a certain city or town in a German, Scottish, Irish, British, French or Spanish province, let alone in an Indian, Cylonian or whatever colonial fort or tea plantation. There was no telephone, annual directory, internet or anything like that and travel could take months or years.

It is therefore wrong and unrealistic for members of the churches today to argue that church leaders should give this same kind of advice when people consider a move to a different town or country. Today church members thinking of shifting to Darwin, Launceston, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Dublin, Athens can easily get a pretty good idea of what kind of churches are in a certain city or town. It does not take all that much to google for that kind of information. It may take a bit more effort to get that kind of information regarding a third world country. However, one is often surprised to see how many people in Brazil, Indonesia and various African countries sit in their tent or humpy with a mobile phone! Tele-communication has become world-wide and it is also surprising how well one can communicate in English in many places of this world.

As world-wide communication and travel increased following the invention of the telephone and jet engine, some attempts were made for closer ecclesiastical ties. Keep in mind that these inventions are still relatively new. Many of these technological changes took place within my own generation. Most of our European parents migrated to Australia or Canada by ship. For those who flew it still took a week and many fuel stops. Once in the country of destination there was some communication by telegraph and perhaps an occasional, very costly phone call connected via an operator. There definitely was no mobile, computer, nor infra-structure on which all these things run today. I am speaking about my own life-time and even though I am retired now, I do not consider myself that terribly old yet! The point is that these technological advances also provided oppor­tunities for ecumenical ties amongst churches.

It was especially in the late 1960s, when the world started to become a bit more politically relaxed after the two world-wars and any real communist threat appeared to be subsiding, that the need and desire for ecclesiastical unity was voiced. Before this time, among the Reformed Churches, there had been some recogni­tion and continuing relation between the European Churches and those of the colonies that were quickly growing into more or less independent countries. These churches established sister-church relations known as churches in correspondence with each other. The term reflected the times. It consisted mostly of an exchange of letters, which at that time was most commonly done be sea travel post. Hence it was very slow and limited. By the late 1960s fast mail and air travel started to become much more common.

Meanwhile, the immigrant countries had really come to stand much more on their own politically, socially and culturally. There was also an increasing world-wide recognition of other people and cultures. It appears to be especially from among the immigrant countries that toleration of all kinds was emphasised. The back­ground is that many people had fled to these countries from places where there was no religious freedom but severe persecution. Those who came through the two world-wars were also scarred with the fear of ruthlessly imposed social, religious and political view points. From hind-sight one may recognise a fear of how the communist ideal was imposed in various countries in a religious-like way. Consequently in immigrant countries there was a determination that political, social, cultural, religious and philosophical views and ideologies should not be politically imposed. Among the Reformed, Scripture itself was used to show that in the New Testament age the Lord did not direct His apostles to politically impose the true faith on the heathen counties but to bring the gospel by preaching the Word. They were to convince and rebuke, but no instruction was given for the use of sword to impose the faith. Thus, till today, in America, for example, Hutterites and Amish are free to have their own colonies. Room was also given to various sects such as Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons.

Much more can be written about this point, but for now, the added point is that the indigenous people in migrant countries were permitted to continue their heathen practices and migrants coming in from other heathen countries such as India, China and Russia were also free to practice their own religions. Those holding to these religions were at times confronted with various Christian missionaries. It did not take long for those confronted in this way to realise that Christianity appeared to be much divided. In migrant countries such as America, Canada, and Australia, which due to a high percentage of European Christian migration inherited a cultural and constitutional Christian base, Christian division and religious toleration has had its effect.

Those heathens who look at Christianity from the outside mock its disunity. A good example that comes a bit close to home is how a number of years ago members of the Canadian Reformed Churches tried to establish a Christian political party. It was known as the Christian Heritage Party. In an effort to gain a general Christian voice within the country, Christians of all kinds, including Roman Catholics, became involved. Initially there was some unity concerning certain political issues, such as regarding abortion, euthanasia, Sunday shopping. However, when it came down to establishing concrete political policy within this party there was obvious division, for example, concerning labour relations, divorce, remarriage after divorce, etc. When leaders of this party were questioned in radio broadcasts such divisions among Christians soon gave way to further mockery concerning Christian disunity.

This article is not about such Christian political disunity but more about the parallel ecclesiastical disunity. It was in the context of the more general religious and idealistic toleration that the World Council of Churches (WCC) was established in an attempt to bring all Christian denominations together. To accomplish Christian ecclesiastical unity, attempts were made to simply ignore all ecclesiastical struggles and schisms resulting from heresies as if they did not exist. Noting that historically the churches had been united through the common acceptance of the ecumenical Creeds, in particular the Apostles' Creed, the WCC decided that this creed was to be the only basis for this organization. However, as one can imagine, it never led to the unity of all Christian Churches because there was no serious re-examination of conflicting teachings and a return to God's Word. Those who truly want to hold on to what the Lord teaches in His Word could not even consider being part of the WCC. It was an organization without any indica­tion and assurance of false and offensive doctrines being rejected. Instead this attempt at unity of Christianity was rightly seen as a betrayal of the truth of God's Word. Such betrayal would be offensive to the Lord God, who warns against false teachers, and is a very sad reflec­tion on those who have given their life as martyrs while upholding the truth of God's Word.

This general world-wide attempt at uniting Christians was not the only effort made to establish broad ecclesiastical unity. Various denominations have also tried to be joined together more closely because they could find more points in common. The Uniting Church in Australia and the United Church in Canada as well as various Baptist conferences are all evidences of such attempts. The expression denomination which has grown out of these kinds of efforts shows that the thinking concerning differences among Christian churches is not so much of whether a church is true or false but rather whether it is better or worse. It is for this reason that as Reformed Churches we have rightly resisted the term denomination and insisted, as main­tained in Article 29 of the Belgic Confession, that the Scriptural distinction between the true and false Church should be maintained.

Attempts at Unity among Reformed Churches←⤒🔗

As Reformed Churches expanded and grew throughout the world, and political barriers were breaking down, they started searching for how true unity in Christ among churches in various places should really come to expression. Among the Reformed Churches (non-liberated) the Reformed Ecumenical Synod which later changed into the Reformed Ecumenical Council was formed. Among the Reformed Churches (Liberated) the model of corresponding sister-churches has been used and is still somewhat in focus. In an effort to bring true unity into practice, of course, one must first of all come to the recognition that there is another true and faithful church out there. Thus the term recognition of other true churches started receiving a meaning of its own in the context of inter-church relations. The question in this context really was: can we, as church of the Lord, recognise His work there in that other place.

In order to come to such recognition it is helpful to have some kind of common ground. The most obvious common ground is the confessions. The confessions do not necessarily have to be identical so long as they truly say what Scripture says. Past church struggles and divisions have already shown that sometimes a church claims to hold onto a confession but in practice does not. It was in this context that, in determining whether unity with Presbyterian churches can be entertained, attention was naturally given to the Westminster Confession of Faith. While there are many things in this confession which run parallel with the Three Forms of Unity there are a few things that conflict with it. The question has become: how important are these points? There has also been the recognition that among Presbyterian churches the whole manner of Confessions and of adhering to them is approached a bit differently than in Reformed churches. All this has historically made reformed churches hesitant to enter into relations with Presby­terian churches. Although there has been this hesitation along with internal conflict about this matter, in the end a number of Reformed churches did enter into relations with Presbyterian churches. Even though Reformed churches (from the Liberation 1944 context of sister-churches) in the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have entered into sister-church relations with Presbyterians, none of these bonds of churches, to the best of my knowledge, have had a general synod which whole-heartedly endorsed the Westminster Confessions. Among some a certain indirect reference of recognition to these Confessions was made at a Regional Synod or via a deputies' report. Such lack of whole-hearted acceptance of each other's Confessions has left such ecclesiastical relations with a bitter-sweet result. It is something that we live with but really cannot be happy about.

Actually, it was the bond of Australian Free Reformed Churches that was hoping to bring some mutual orderliness and unity in this whole matter when proposing in the 1970s an international meeting of Reformed Churches (from the Liberated 1944 context) to speak about our approach in this matter. This proposal did not eventuate as was intended. On the contrary, when the Dutch sister-churches (RCN(L)) organized the first such meeting they invited all their Presbyterian sister-churches. One of the first actions of this organization, which has become known as the International Council of Reformed Churches (ICRC), was to formulate a Constitution for itself which the various member churches could agree to while insisting that this is a non-decision making organization. Nevertheless, one may suggest that the ICRC does make decisions via its members. Let that inconsistency be what it is, the further difficulty that arose from this was that constitutionally the member churches agreed to subscribe only to their own Confessions¹and not to that of each other. A further difficulty was that since not all the member churches had been able for various reasons (including time and resources) to recognise one another as true churches, how could they then consti­tutionally speak of the unity of faith that member churches have in Christ?²This caused unrest and disunity among the members of the Australian Free Reformed Churches so that in the end they withdrew from this organization.

There was similar unrest about the same point among members of the Canadian Reformed Churches as evident from the number of appeals that were addressed to their synods at that time. Among the Canadian Churches which are still members of the ICRC further unrest and disunity among their members became evident when they recently joined the American ecumenical organization, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC). Appeals and requests for clarification have been addressed to the Canadian Reformed synods about the status of member churches of this organization. With all this historic background one wonders what would be the faithful and best way to move forward with international inter-church relations.