March 9, 2007

The Consistory
Canadian Reformed Church of Abbotsford, B.C.
P.O. Box 66
Abbotsford, B.C.
V2S 4N7

Esteemed Brothers:

Re:  Scriptural Unity

With concern for the maintenance of the Confessions in the Canadian Reformed Church of Abbotsford I address Consistory regarding the following:

Observations:

a)         At the conclusion of a home visit on February 14, 2007 I received the latest response from Consistory, dated January 22, 2007, relating to a series of correspondence involving the Consistory and four concerned brothers in the congregation.

b)        Consistory writes in this letter that the “Abbotsford consistory and all its office bearers are committed to uphold the Church’s confessions and church order.”

c)        Consistory also writes in this letter that “we hope and pray that with further discussion of such divergencies, we may in due time come to scriptural unity.”

d)       The Consistory incorrectly states that we differ in only two matters.  However Consistory does not interact or consider the very critical point made in our letters dated October 4, 2005 and April 12, 2006 that General Synod 2004 acted unjustly by not interacting with all of the requests which were brought to it by the Consistory’s “Appeal to General Synod 2004.”

Considerations:

a)         The Consistory states in the Appendix to its letter dated January 22, 2007 that “this is a problem created by Synod and not by Lynden or Abbotsford.”

b)         The celebration of the Lord’s Supper together is an expression of a pre-existing scriptural unity.

c)         Synod 1998 provided Scriptural, confessional and church orderly reasons for amending the Proposed Agreement that was presented by the CCOPC to General Synod (see Considerations 1 to 11 of Consistory’s Appeal to General Synod 2004 – Appendix A of our October 4, 2005 letter).

d)        Neither Synod 2001 nor Synod 2004 interacted with the Scriptural, confessional and church orderly reasons for amending the above Proposed Agreement (see Considerations 10 to 14 of Proposed Appeal of Article 86 of General Synod Chatham 2004 – Appendix B of our October 4, 2005 letter).

e)        The failure of Synod 2004 to interact with all of the Considerations or specifically answer all of the Requests contained in the Appeal of the Church at Abbotsford, is a denial of the right of appeal this church has under Article 31 of the Church Order (see Considerations 30 to 33 of Proposed Appeal of Article 86 of General Synod Chatham 2004 – Appendix B of our October 4, 2005 letter).

f)         In their book Decently and in Good Order, (see pages 63 and 64) Prof. K. Deddens and Rev. G. VanRongen state that "After one has gone the full ‘ecclesiastical way’ - from the consistory to the classis, from the classis to the regional synod, and from the regional synod to the general synod - one has either to except the latest decision as yet - which does not create any insurmountable difficulties whenever it is not a matter of conscience - or he has to ‘liberate’ himself from the binding decision."  They continue by stating that "The latter way had to be followed when the general synod of the forties in the Netherlands took decisions which were indeed in conflict with the Word of God and with the Church Order, and when they interpreted the word ‘unless’ in Article 31 as ‘until’ - which does not make any sense as we have shown in the above lines, and led to moral constraint." (my emphasis).

g)        As concerned members of the Church at Abbotsford we have indeed gone the ‘full ecclesiastical way’ since we were all part of the Consistory at the time the original appeal was sent to General Synod Chatham 2004.

h)        Consistory openly admits that scriptural unity does not exist (Observation (c) above) and yet persists in the practice of an unscriptural unity.  In light of Consistory’s admission that there is unscriptural unity is it not incumbent upon Consistory to appeal to General Synod Smithers 2007?

Therefore, in accordance with its commitment described in Observation (b) above and the objective described in Observation (c) above, we hereby request that Consistory forward the Proposed Appeal as contained in Appendix B of our October 4, 2005 letter to General Synod Smithers 2007 in time for consideration by this Synod.

Brothers, I hope and pray that these matters will be resolved to the preservation of His Church here in Abbotsford.  I wish you the Lord’s blessing upon your deliberations.

Yours in His service,

John Vantil