BAVINCK: Die Katolisiteit van Christendom en Kerk

Die Katolisiteit van Christendom en Kerk

“Ek het nog ander skape wat nie aan hierdie stal behoort nie. Ek moet hulle ook lei, en hulle sal na my stem luister, en dit sal wees een kudde, een herder. … Heilig hulle in u waarheid; u woord is die waarheid. Soos U My gestuur het in die wêreld, het Ek ook hulle in die wêreld gestuur. En Ek heilig Myself vir hulle, sodat hulle ook in waarheid geheilig kan wees. Maar Ek bid nie vir hulle alleen nie, maar ook vir die wat deur hulle woord in My sal glo — dat almal een mag wees net soos U, Vader, in My en Ek in U; dat hulle ook in Ons een mag wees, sodat die wêreld kan glo dat U My gestuur het. En Ek het hulle die heerlikheid gegee wat U My gegee het, sodat hulle een kan wees, net soos Ons een is.” (Joh. 10:16; 17:17–22)

“Ek glo … aan een, heilige algemene (katolieke) kerk…” – Apostoliese Geloofsbelydenis

“Ons glo en bely ’n enige katolieke of algemene kerk, ’n heilige vergadering van almal wat waarlik in Christus glo, wat almal hulle volle saliheid in Jesus Christus verwag en in sy bloed gewas is, geheilig en verseël deur die Heilige Gees.” – NGB artikel 27

Inleiding

In 1888 het die bekende gereformeerde teoloog, Herman Bavinck ‘n lesing aangebied by die Teologiese Skool in Kampen, Nederland, met die tema: De Katholiciteit van Christendom en Kerk, wat wesentlike leesstof is vir alle gelowiges en kerke aangaande die belangrike waarheid van die ‘algemeenheid’, die ‘katolisiteit’ van die kerk, in navolging van die Skrif (sien Joh. 10 en 17 hierbo).

Vir gelowiges afsonderlik en ook saam in gemeentes, is die eenheid van die kerk belangrik, soos Jesus ons ook leer in Joh. 17, maar dan moet dit ook die eenheid en heiligheid wees soos die Skrif dit leer, die waarheid leer (17:17).

Bavinck as ‘n gereformeerde gelowige en teoloog, se besinning van die onderwerp is eintlik vir alle tye belangrik, ook vir ons tye waar daar soveel verdeeldheid onder gelowiges en gereformeerde kerke is.

Met hierdie inskrywing wil ek elke leser sterk aanbeveel om Bavinck se lesing te lees en daaroor te peins, bid en besin in die lig van die Skrif.  Hier is die Nederlandse teks en die Engelse vertaling daarvan (hopelik sal daar ook ‘n Afrikaanse vertaling nog verskyn iewers in die toekoms):

De Katholiciteit van Christendom en Kerk

The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church

Die lesing bestaan uit 4 dele:

Inleiding

1 Wat de Schrift aangaande de katholiciteit leer

2 Hoe de katholiciteit door de kerk in haar historie is verstaan

3 Welke plicht de katholiciteit voor het heden ons oplegt

Die beste Nederlandse uitgawe is die een wat deur ‘n Inleiding deur drs. G. Puchinger voorsien is met “slot, personenregister, zaakregister en vertaling van woorden en citaten”.

Hier is ‘n paar resensies wat wys op die belangrikheid en aktualiteit van Bavinck se lesing ook vir ons tye (beklemtonings bygevoeg):

Johan D. Tangelder

“Unity and catholicity according to the will of Christ can only be realized in this present world on the basis of the truth of God as revealed in Scripture. To be a real church of Jesus Christ, as far as this is possible in this sinful world, the church ought to show the three marks of the true church. This means, the church must be: a place where the gospel is preached, the sacraments administered and discipline applied. But the church may never be sectarian in character. Her separation from the world and unto Christ may never lead to an isolation from the world. She must stand in the midst of life.”

“Dr. Bavinck saw his world increasing in godlessness. The secular spirit was taking hold everywhere. He understood that Christians needed each other in the battle against unbelief. He was convinced that rather than Christians fighting each other, they should firmly oppose together the secular spirit. Yet Bavinck always refused to compromise the Saviour whose voice he heard in the Scriptures. He had the true catholicity of spirit as well as an unswerving loyalty to the truth. He was truly Reformed and worked along confessional lines. For Bavinck, the gospel went beyond the personal salvation of the individual. “The gospel is a message of good tidings not only for each individual, but also for all of humanity, for the family, and society and government, for art and science, for the whole cosmos, for the groaning creature” (p. 11 De Katholiciteft van Christendom en Kerk.) This glorious message must be proclaimed by the church. This church is a fragmented body, but the New Testament paints a beautiful picture of the unity and catholicity of the church.”

“Bavinck concludes his oration with these relevant words: “Every sect which holds its own circle for the only church of Christ and believes to be the only one in the possession of truth languishes and dies off, like a branch that is torn from its stem” (p.52). As we experience tensions in our churches and an increasing lack of understanding of the nature of the church, we do well to read and discuss Dr. Bavinck’s thought provoking oration.”

Prof. Willie Jonker – Boekbespreking

“De rede van Bavinck laat er namelijk ook geen twijfel over bestaan dat een dergelijk ingaan in de wereld alleen maar zin heeft als de kerk werkelijk kerk blijft. Als Bavinck vandaag zijn rede gehouden zou hebben, zou juist hij, die destijds zo scherp tegen het gevaar van een sektarisch isolement gewaarschuwd heeft, ongetwijfeld ook gewaarschuwd hebben tegen verwarring van de katholiciteit van het christelijk geloof met een lichtvaardige en onkritische uitwissing van alle grenzen.”

Prof. Barend Kamphuis

“In the last chapter of his booklet, Bavinck discusses the challenge given to the Reformed churches of his day by the catholicity of Christianity and the church. He warns against dualism. Though it may have been overcome in theory, he believes that it nevertheless often exists in practice. He contends that this is the case in Pietism, because Pietists keep as far from the world as possible. “Whether withdrawing from the world in Pietist fashion or attacking it and seeking to conquer it by force in Methodist fashion, what is missing here is reformation in the genuine, true, full sense of the word.

Instead, individuals are rescued and snatched out of this world—the world that lies in wickedness—there is never a methodic, organic reformation of the whole cosmos, of nation and country”. In this case, too, neglect of the catholicity of Christianity and neglect of the catholicity of the church go together. ‘‘The sense that separation from the church is a sin has all but disappeared. One leaves a church or joins it rather casually”. Bavinck warns against the endless schisms that threaten Protestantism. “By breaking the unity of doctrine and the church, Christians do violence to the communion of saints, deprive themselves of the Spirit’s gifts of grace…”. But he doesn’t believe in mere external unity, either. In fact, “no matter how harmful the ongoing divisions have been for the unity of church and doctrine, the consequences to  Christianity itself have not been unqualifiedly negative. They testify to the vitality of the Christian faith, to its power in a people, a power that still moves thousands”. We have to maintain the catholicity of faith and church. It is impossible for us as churches “to shut ourselves off from the one, universal Christian church and in isolation to seek salvation for the sorry circumstances in which many churches of our age find themselves”

We see that in this address the catholicity of Christianity is primary. Where catholicity of Christianity is maintained, the church will also be catholic; similarly, where the catholicity of Christianity is lost, there is no room for the catholicity of the church. In Bavinck’s view, dualism leads to sectarianism. “

Hier is ook ‘n paar aanhalings uit die lesing van Bavinck, vanuit die engelse teks (beklemtonings bygevoeg. Let wel: lees en verstaan asb hierdie aanhalings nie in isolasie nie, maar in die konteks van die hele teks of lesing van Bavinck):

1 Wat die kerkvaders onder katolisiteit verstaan het:

“In the first place, they use it to refer to the church as a unified whole in contrast to the  dispersed local congregations that make up the whole and are included in it. The local church can, however, legitimately call itself catholic because it attaches itself to the universal church.  Secondly, the term expresses the unity of the church as inclusive of all believers from every nation, in all times and places. Catholic is thus in contrast with the nationally identified people of God — Israel. And finally, the church is sometimes referred to as catholic because it  embraces the whole of human experience. It possesses perfectly all doctrines concerning either invisible and visible things that human beings need to know; it provides a cure for all kinds of sin, either of body or soul; it produces all virtues and good works, and partakes of all spiritual gifts.”

2 Die katolisiteit van die kerk beteken die katolisiteit van die Christelike geloof:

“This catholicity of the church that is confessed by all Christians presupposes the catholicity of the Christian religion. It is based on the conviction that Christianity is a world religion that  should govern all people and sanctify all creatures irrespective of geography, nationality, place, and time. … How we relate grace to nature, re-creation (herschepping) to creation (schepping), determines whether our ecclesiastical vision will be broad or narrow. The affirmation of the catholicity of the church and of the universalism of Christianity is of the greatest significance in our time, which is so rife with errors and schisms.” (slc: sien ook NGB artikel 27, 28)

3 Die katolisiteit van die Christendom en kerk moet gesien word in die lig van die hele OT openbaring, vanaf die skepping van die ganse kosmos tot die primêre fokus op Israel:

“Our attention is unavoidably drawn to the fact that the five books of Moses, which begin with the grandeur of Creation, with a vision of the entire cosmos and the whole of humanity, conclude by focusing attention on a small and insignificant people and its minute concerns  about holiness and cult. There seems to be an undeniable disproportionality between this sublime beginning and this narrowly focused conclusion.”

4 Die verbond en wet van YHWH het die hele lewe van Israel bepaal, en die profete gewys dat die Israel se geloof nie tot hul beperk sou bly nie:

All dualism is eschewed in the unity of God’s theocratic rule. The law of YHWH regulates everything even to the smallest minutiae. Not only the priests but also the kings; not only the cultic and the moral but also the civil and social and political dimensions of life are governed by the one law of God. Here we encounter an inner catholicity, a religion that encompasses the whole person in the wholeness of life.

In this way Israel’s theocracy is a by of the coming kingdom of God that shall take up into itself all that is good and true and beautiful. The prophets unveil for us the mystery that Israel’s religion will not be restricted to national Israel. The universal kernel breaks out of the particular husk in which it is enclosed. At this point the links between religion and people, covenant of grace and nation, church and state, believer and citizen remain; a division of the church is only possible by leaving one’s land and people. In the future all nations will be blessed by Abraham’s seed. Torah, history, and prophecy, each in its own way, point to this glorious future. The day is coming when through the servant of the Lord, the light of Israel will shine upon the nations, and the Lord’s salvation will reach to the ends of the earth.”

5 Die NT openbaar God se liefde vir die ‘wêreld’, menende nie net Israel nie, maar die ganse skepping,die ganse aarde, nie net Palestina nie:

“This prophecy was fulfilled in the fulness of time. And again it is noteworthy that the  foundation on which the church is built is just as broad as that of Israel. God so loved the world, the cosmos, that he sent his only Son, the one by whom all things were created …  Christianity is the religion of the cross; the mystery of suffering is its center. An aesthetic enjoyment of the world as in the Hellenic tradition is not possible. This single notion of “world” shows us clearly how wide a gulf exists between the Christian and the classic worldview.”

6 Die Christelike geloof (in sy NT vorm) begin klein, maar sal ook deur die Here se genade groei deur die ganse geskiedenis:

“It is true that the Cross casts its shadow over all creation but so does the light of the  resurrection. On the one hand, the kingdom of heaven is a treasure hidden in a field and a pearl of great price for which a man sells everything he has in order to buy it; at the same time it is also a mustard seed that grows into a tree in which the birds of the air build nests and a yeast  that a woman takes and hides in three measures of flour until it is all leavened. (slc – sien Mattheus 13)”

7 Die Christendom en kerk ken kan deur geen grense beperk word nie, dit is universeel, soos die sonde alles beinvloed het, so moet die genade dit ook doen:

“It is impossible to express the thoroughgoing universalism of the Christian faith in words more powerful and beautiful than these. Christianity knows no boundaries beyond those which God himself has in his good pleasure established; no boundaries of race or age, class, or status, nationality, or language. Sin has corrupted much; in fact, everything. The guilt of human sin is immeasurable; the pollution that always accompanies it penetrates every structure of humanity and the world. Nonetheless sin does not dominate and corrupt without God’s abundant grace in Christ triumphing even more (Rom. 5:15-20). The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, it is able to restore everything. We need not, indeed we must not, despair of anyone or anything.”

8 Die Evangelie is goeie nuus nie net vir individue nie, maar ook vir gesinne, samelewings en die staat, die hele kosmos:

“The Gospel is a joyful tiding, not only for the individual person but also for humanity, for the family, for society, for the state, for art and science, for the entire cosmos, for the whole groaning creation.”

9 Die katolisiteit van die NT kerk was van sy begin af bedreig met verdeelheid deur dwalinge:

“When the judaizing tendency became popular, a conflict was inevitable and the young Christian church faced its first dangerous crisis. Paul recognized the absolute seriousness of this struggle. It was a struggle about the catholicity of the church, about freedom in Christ, about the universal significance of the Cross, about the richness of God’s grace, about justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. Was there to be a schism at the beginning, was the exclusivism of the false brothers to triumph over Pauline catholicity? It was precisely in this catholicity that Paul, in his letters, gloried as the mystery of God — “the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6). We know that thanks to the unanimous decision of the apostles the unity and catholicity of the Church was saved at the Council of Jerusalem.” (slc – sien Hand. 15)

10 Bavinck volg die Tischendorf lesing van Hand. 9:31 om die eenheid en katolisiteit van die Christelike kerk te beklemtoon:

“Peter’s so-called “church visitation” travels, mentioned in Acts 9:32 is adequate proof of such apostolic oversight. In fact, the churches of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria considered themselves so unified that (assuming Tischendorf’s reading of Acts 9:31 is, as I believe it is, correct) they were referred to in the singular as ή εκκλησία. (‘die kerk‘ Nota: Die SV, KJV en OAV volg die Meerderheidsteks/TR = ‘die gemeentes’; die NAV, 2020 vertaling het ook ‘die kerk’)

11 Die NT openbaar deurlopend die eenheid en katolisiteit van die kerk:

“It is, in fact, almost unthinkable that this spiritual bond among the early churches should have been absent. The unity and catholicity of the church is a constantly recurring theme throughout the New Testament. It follows directly from the unity of God himself, from the unity of the divine mediator between God and humanity, from the unity of the Spirit, from the unity of truth, from the unity of the covenant and the unity of salvation. It is described and graphically depicted to us by Jesus and his apostles with the images of a vine, a flock, a body, a kingdom, bride and wife, and a temple or building. Jesus himself prayed for this unity and his prayer has been and continues to be heard.”

“This catholicity of the church, as the Scriptures portray it for us and the early churches exemplify it for us is breathtaking in its beauty. Whoever becomes enclosed in the narrow circle of a small church (kerkje) or conventicle, does not know it and has never experienced its power
and comfort. Such a person shortchanges the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit and incurs a loss of spiritual treasures that cannot be made good by meditation and devotion. Such a person will have an impoverished soul. By contrast, whoever is able to see beyond this to the countless multitudes who have been purchased by the blood of Christ from every nation and people and age, whoever experiences the powerful strengthening of faith, the wondrous comfort in times of suffering to know that unity with the whole church militant that has been gathered out of the whole human race from the beginning to the end of the world, such a person can never be narrow-minded and narrow-hearted”

12 Kerklike tug is nie in stryd met die katolisiteit van die kerk nie! 

In fact, the resistance to those who introduce them in the church is a sacred calling. It is not simply a right but a solemn duty to exercise church discipline against those who disturb the unity of doctrine teaching and the church. The church is admonished to distance herself from such, to let them go, in order that repentance might take place. Seen in this way the exercise of church discipline is not in tension or conflict with the church’s catholicity — on the contrary! It is precisely because church discipline may never become or lead to καθαίρεσις but rather to οικοδομή (II Cor. 13:10) and thus may never be applied in order to get rid of someone, it  remains the earnest prayer of the church, throughout the process of discipline, that this last extreme measure commanded by the Lord might bring the stubborn and recalcitrant sinner back to the loving care of the Savior. In discipline the holiness of the church is revealed but no less its catholicity.”

13 Deur die eerste eeue met al die dwalinge en verdraaiinge van die Christelike geloof, het daar in sterk reaksie sektes en dwalinge ontstaan wat ook die katolisiteit van die kerk bedreig het:

“The hallmark of a true Christian was a contempt for the world and for death. The second and third centuries are filled with dualism and asceticism. And when the church later became more and more worldly, particularly by and after Constantine, this tendency was strengthened among the most serious Christians. The strong protests of such schismatic movements as  Montanism, Novatianism, and Donatism against the secularization (verwereldlijking) of the church were either not heard or rejected. The church did not want to go the route of asceticism and separatism. Rather, she desired to become a world church and so she did. However this did not take place apart from the church’s acknowledging and incorporating asceticism and monasticism as a corrective element, all the while insisting that this was not to be the universal Christian ideal for all.”

14 Rome het die ware betekenis van katolisiteit verander met hul dualisme:

“Nature, the world, is good, not corrupt; it is only missing that which in its own strength it could never reach. The Christian faith, grace, enters the world in order to make possible the attainment of the supernatural, the visto Dei. It does not reform and renew that which exists, it only completes and perfects Creation. Christianity is that which transcends and approaches the natural, but it does not penetrate it and sanctify it. With this, Rome, that considers itself to be truly catholic, changes the character of New Testament catholicity. The catholicity of the Christian principle that purifies and sanctifies everything is exchanged for a dualism that separates the supernatural from the natural by considering it as transcendent above the natural.”

15 Die gevolge van Rome se dualisme:

“It is not difficult from this to see how it became necessary for Rome to set itself over against culture, the state, society, science, and art. According to Rome, Christianity is exclusively church. Everything depends on this. Outside the church is the sphere of the unholy. The goal had to be to bring about the church’s hegemony over everything. All authority and power was to be brought under the papacy.”

“Rome thus maintains the catholicity of the Christian faith in the sense that it seeks to bring the entire world under the submission of the church. But it denies catholicity in the sense that the Christian faith itself must be a leavening agent in everything. In this way an eternal dualism remains, Christianity does not become an immanent, reforming reality. This dualism is not an antinomy in which one of the realities annuls the other. Rome does not abolish the natural order in Manicheaen fashion but suppresses it. It leaves marriage, family, possessions, earthly vocation, the state, science, and art intact and even permits them, in their own place, a greater space and freedom than Protestantism tends to do.”

16 Die Reformasie het wesentlike gebots met Rome se dualistiese siening van die Christendom en kerk:

“The Reformation collides with this powerful Roman position on almost every point. Conventionally, the Reformation of the sixteenth century is seen exclusively as a reformation of the church. In fact, however, it was much more than that; it was a radically new way of conceiving Christianity itself. Rome’s world-and-life view was dualistic; her disjunction between the natural and supernatural was a quantitative one. By returning to the New Testament, the Reformers replaced this with a truly theistic worldview that made the distinction a qualitative one. On this matter Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin are one. All attempted to free the entire terrain of the natural from the hegemony of the church. In this they are in agreement with the humanists, who also envisioned emancipation from the church. Notwithstanding this formal agreement, what a difference there is between them! While the humanists argued for the rights of the natural person, who is seen to be good and uncorrupted, the Reformers championed for the freedom of the Christian person, who is emancipated from the law of sin and death by the Gospel.”

17 Die Reformasie leer dat die genade die natuur herstel:

“The Reformation not only gave us a better understanding of the articles of faith concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit, concerning the church and forgiveneness of sins. The Reformation also restored to honor the first article of our universal Christian faith and confessed it with emphasis: “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” In this way they uncovered and restored the natural to its rightful place and purified it from the Roman stigma of being profane and unholy. The natural order is not something of lesser worth or of a lower order as though it were not capable of being sanctified and renewed, but only suppressed and governed. The natural is as divine as the church even though its origin is in Creation rather than re-creation and derives from the Father rather than the Son. It is for this reason that the reformers had such a thoroughly healthy understanding of Christianity. They are ordinary, natural people but people of God; there is nothing peculiar, odd, exaggerated, or unnatural about them, nothing ofthat unhealthy narrowmindedness that so often disfigures even sincere Christians. It is true that the Protestant assessment of the world is generally a more somber one than that of Rome. Protestant morality is much stricter, sometimes even rigoristic and puritanical. The Protestant, in fact, believes that sin corrupts and profanes everything, confessing that the entire world “lie in wickedness” and is full of temptation.

At the same time, the Protestant acknowledges that the natural order is not unholy in itself and is thus capable of being purified but must not be despised or repudiated. Precisely because Protestants combat sin more seriously than Rome does, they are also able to appreciate the proper worth of the natural order. In Protestantism the mechanical relation of nature and grace gives way to an ethical relation. The Christian faith is not a quantitative reality that spreads itself in a transcendent fashion over the natural but a religious and ethical power that enters the natural in an immanent fashion and eliminates only that which is unholy. The kingdom of heaven may be a treasure and a pearl of great price, but it is also a mustard seed and a leaven.”

18 Daar was egter verskille ook tussen Luther en Calvyn/Zwingli:

“Luther thus, like Calvin and Zwingli, frees the earthly realm from the ecclesiastical. However, he leaves it standing without connection next to the spiritual realm and sometimes speaks as though the external is a matter of complete indifference and not capable of ethical renewal. Luther’s mistake here is that he restricts the Gospel and limits the grace of God. The Gospel only changes the inward man, the conscience, the heart; the remainder stays the same until the final judgment. As a result, dualism is not completely overcome; a true and full catholicity is not achieved. Re-creation (herschepping) continues to stand alongside creation (schepping).”

19 Veral Calvyn het die valse Roomse dualisme oorkom, want die wet en evangelie spreek tot die totale ganse lewe:

Nonetheless, it is Calvin whose labors completed the Reformation and saved Protestantism. He traced the operation of sin to a greater extent than did Luther, and to a greater depth than did Zwingli. It is for that reason that the grace of God is more restricted by Luther and less rich in Zwingli than it is in Calvin. In the powerful mind of the French Reformer, re-creation is not a system that supplements Creation, as in Catholicism, not a religious reformation that leaves Creation intact, as in Luther, much less a radically new creation as in Anabaptism, but a joyful tiding of the renewal of all creatures. Here the Gospel comes fully into its own, comes to true catholicity. There is nothing that cannot or ought not to be evangelized. Not only the church but also home, school, society, and state are placed under the dominion of the principle of Christianity. Calvin established this dominism in Geneva with an iron will and implacable rigor. The German reformation, therefore, was a reformation of worship and preaching while the Swiss reformation included a renewal of state and society. The former was exclusively ecclesiastical (godsdienstig) in character, the latter also displayed a social and political character. All of this results from the fact that the Bible is, for Luther, only a source of
salvation truth, whereas for Calvin it is the norm for all of life.”

20 In die gereformeerde protestantisme is die onderskeid tussen fundamentele en nie-fundamentele sake van die geloof:

“This conviction led Protestantism necessarily to a significant distinction not only between faith and theology — a much earlier distinction — but also between fundamental and non-fundamental articles of faith. Calvin already made this distinction so as not to give legitimacy to every church secession, including those of the churches that he had reformed. From a Protestant perspective some flexibility on the point of purity of Word proclamation has to be accepted, since otherwise virtually all communal life would be made impossible and the most frightening kind of sectarianism would be fostered. What immediately follows from this
is another judgment concerning heretics and schismatics. The harsh anathemas of the church fathers could no longer be taken over without qualification.”

21 Die gereformeerde protestantisme het nie geglo in godsdiensvryheid nie maar wel in gewetensvryheid:

However, on one important point the Reformation did break with the Roman practice of persecuting heretics, namely, on the point of freedom of conscience, a concept to which Rome is implacably opposed. Claiming that all those who are baptized rightfully belong to her, Rome even legitimates the use of force to bring people back into the bosom of the mother church that alone saves. The Reformation had to repudiate all coercion of conscience, not simply because she had won her own freedom of conscience and worship with blood and tears from the tyranny of Rome, nor because she failed to see heresy as dangerous — more dangerous than many crimes, nor yet because she considered conscience to be a holy place that could not be defiled by error.

Rather, she was in principle opposed to all coercion of conscience because in this area God alone is sovereign and not human. God alone can bind the conscience and no creature may or can usurp this right that is God’s alone. Coercion does not avail here. “Faith is a matter of persuasion, not of coercion.” No one can be saved by a religion he considers false. For this reason no matter how much the rigorous party of the Reformed in our nation sought to enforce public restrictions against non-Reformed religions they never insisted that confessors of other religions be examined or harrassed with respect to their conscience and belief. In fact they explicitly argued the contrary. On a Protestant basis, an inquisition is an impossibility.”

22 Beide die geskiedenis van Rome en Protestantisme kon nie die katolisiteit van die kerk waarborg nie, weens baie dwalinge, sektes en skeuringe in die eeue wat gevolg het:

The history of Catholicism and Protestantism after the Reformation did no live up to  expectations. In the sixteenth century, Rome did experience very significant and irrecoverable losses, but she not only continued to exist alongside the Reformed churches, she also got back on her feet and strengthened herself internally at the Council of Trent. She closed herself off completely from the Protestant movement and forever dashed all hopes of rapprochement. Furthermore, in the battle against the renegade heretics, she unexpectedly received powerful support from the Jesuit order. The embodiment and exponent of everything anti-Protestant, this order dedicated itself with all its energy to the destruction of the work of the Reformation. By gaining control of education, this order arrested or reversed the gains of the Reformation in many countries and sought to compensate for its losses to the Reformation in Europe by bringing the Catholic religion to many pagan lands.”

Die Reformasie se latere geslagte het weer in ‘n dualisme verval deur onder andere Anabatisme en Pietisme:

“Enormous changes in social and political life, the revival of classicism, the development of the natural sciences, and the rise of independent philosophy, were all powerful forces that existed alongside the Reformation from its beginning. When this duality after a period of time became an antagonism, the Reformation, in the circles where it still had the strongest influence, became disillusioned and disheartened, and retreated into itself. Thus that peculiar conception of the Christian life came into being that I will, for brevity’s sake, designate as “Pietism.” This was, however altered, the same orientation that was represented in the early church by of Montanism, Novatianism, and Donatism. In the Middle Ages the same spirit characterizes many sects and monastic orders, and during the time of the Reformation was found in its most radical form among the Anabaptists. During the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries it also took form in a variety of religious movements including independentist and Baptist groups, Quakers and Moravians, Pietists and Methodists, in revival movements and Darbyism. To this day it remains one of the most important forms in which the Christian faith comes to expression.”

23 Beide Roomse jesuite en Pietisme het die katolisitiet van die kerk teengewerk, en kan nie die sekularisme van ons dae beantwoord nie:

In this way it has come about that the catholicity of Christianity and the church, after a history of eighteen centuries, has ended up on the obscurantist light-denying Jesuitism of Rome and the other worldly pietism of Protestantism. It is of interest to note some of the striking parallels that exist, alongside the differences between these two movements. Both movements sin against the catholicity of Christianity and the church and are thus incapable of the Reformation to which we are called today. How the times have changed! In the Middle Ages the church was all-powerful; we cannot consider any aspect of life then without eventually encountering the church. The church was the center of life in the same way that the church building was the center of city and town. The Reformation so dominated the history of the sixteenth century that all other movements were more or less placed in its shadow. However, the emancipatory forces that existed alongside the Reformation have since then grown in power and influence and have, after a brief struggle, gained the upper hand over virtually all of Christendom. A new worldview has arisen that does, to be sure, grant freedom of religion to all that is itself unconnected with Christianity and the church and seeks to eliminate the latter from public life in order to relegate them to private life and thus to reduce them to sectarian phenomena. For the most part, our contemporary culture takes place without reference to Christianity and church. Our situation is thus quite different — a new order prevails.”

This is also the reason that Pietism in one form or another is so attractive to many Christians today. It is not our intention here to deny the gift that God gave to the church in times of decline through such men as Fox and Wesley, Spener and Francke, Von Zinzendorf and Labadie, Darby and Irving, Moody and Booth. And who would deny the rich blessing that often rested on their work? Their passion, courage, faith, and love were admirable. Their protest against the worldliness and corruption of the church was not without foundation. Often they were seized by a holy passion for the honor of God and the salvation of people or else, withdrawing to a life of solitude, they excelled in many Christian virtues.

Nonetheless, there is something lacking in their Christianity. It immediately makes a different impression on us than the truly Christian and also thoroughly healthy worldview of the Reformers. One misses the genuine catholicity of the Christian faith in them. Admittedly these sects did not all or altogether follow through to the consequences of their starting points. They never went to the extreme of the Anabaptists, who repudiated the entire world, state and society, art and science, theology and church, and conceived of Christianity as a radically new creation, descending from heaven just as Christ took his human nature from heaven. But a restrictive, ascetic perspective on the world and its culture does dominate them. Whether withdrawing from the world in Pietist fashion or attacking it and seeking to conquer it by force in Methodist fashion, what is missing here is reformation in the genuine, true, full sense of the word.

Instead, individuals are rescued and snatched out of the world — the world that lies in wickedness — there is never a to methodic, organic reformation of the whole cosmos, of nation and country. Thus the periphery is attacked but never the center; the bulwarks but never the fortress itself. It is not a mighty, imposing conflict between the entire church militant and the world in the entirety of its organization as a kingdom under its own master, but rather a guerilla war that weakens the enemy here and there but never triumphs. This is an individualistic battle where everyone fights on their own and in their own way rather than in an organized campaign. For this reason the current of life itself is not redirected. The conflict is characterized by a struggle against individual sins while the root of all sins is often left untouched. The unbelieving results of science are rejected, but there is no inner reformation of the sciences on the basis of a different principle.

Public life is ignored and rejected — often as intrinsically “worldly” — while no effort is made to reform it according to the demands of God’s Word. Satisfied with the ability to worship God in their own houses of worship, or to engage in evangelism, many left nation, state and society, art and science to their own devices. Many withdrew completely from life, literally separated themselves from everything, and, in some cases, what was even worse, shipped off to America, abandoning the Fatherland as lost to unbelief. It needs to be rioted that while this orientation has much about it that is Christian, it is missing the full truth of Christianity. It is a denial of the truth that God loves the world. It is dedicated to conflict with and even rejection of the world but not to “the victory that overcomes it” in faith. (slc – sien 1 Joh. 4:4-5)”

24 Die vrug van die Pietisme is nog meer kerkskeuring en verdeeldheid:

“What is the fruit of all this? Not a reformation of churches but an increase in their number and a perpetuation of division. The rise of sectarianism that has accompanied the Protestant movement is a dark and negative phenomenon. It manifested itself already at the beginning
of the Reformation, but it has never flourished as it has in our age. New church after new church is established. In England there are already more than two hundred sects. In America they are innumerable. The differences have become so many and so insignificant that one cannot keep track of them. There are even voices arguing for a new discipline in theology itself devoted to the comparative history of church confessions. What is even more serious is that this sectarianism leads to the erosion and disappearance of church consciousness. There is no longer an awareness of the difference between the church and a voluntary association.

The sense that separation from the church is a sin has all but disappeared. One leaves a church or joins it rather casually. When something or other in a church no longers satisfies us, we look for another without any pangs of conscience. The decisive factor turns out to be our taste.

Exercise of discipline thus becomes virtually impossible; it loses its very character. What preacher is left who dares, in good conscience, except perhaps in extremely rare instances, to use the form for excommunication? The worst result of all this is that by breaking the unity of doctrine and the church, Christians do violence to the communion of saints, deprive themselves of the Spirit’s gifts of grace, by which other believers labor to build up the saints, shut themselves up in their own circle, promote spiritual pride, strengthen Rome, and give the world occasion for scorn and mockery.”

25 Die waarheid eis die totale lewe op in die Here se koninkryk, dit is ware katolisiteit van die kerk, en dat alle valse eenheid verwerp word:

We may not be a sect, we ought not to want to be one, and we cannot be one, without denying the absolute character of truth. The kingdom of heaven may not be of this world, but it does demand that everything in the world be subservient to it. It is exclusivistic and refuses to accept an independent or neutral kingdom alongside of it. Undoubtedly it would be much easier to leave this entire age to its own devices and to seek our strength in quietness. But such a restful peace is not permitted us here. Because every creature of God is good and not to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because everything can be sanctified by the Word of God and prayer, rejection of any one of His creatures would be ingratitude to God, a denial of His gifts.

Our conflict is not with anything creaturely but against sin alone. No matter how complicated the relationships may be within which we as Christ-confessors find ourselves in our age, no matter how serious and difficult, perhaps even insoluable, the problems may seem in the areas of society, politics, and above all, in science, it would testify to unbelief and powerlessness for us to withdraw proudly from the fray and under the guise of Christianity to dismiss the whole of our age’s culture as demonic. In the words of Bacon, that would be nothing less than attempting to please God with a lie. On the other hand, faith has the promise of overcoming the world. That faith is catholic, not restricted to any time, place, nation, or people. It can enter into all situations, can connect with all forms of natural life, is suitable to every time, and beneficial for all things, and is relevant in all circumstances. It is free and independent because it is in conflict only with sin and in the blood of the Cross there is purification for every sin.”

Yet under this external unity Rome hides the same differences and oppositions that the Protestant principle allows to develop alongside each other. For this reason it is not a curse but a blessing that the Reformation refused all false, inauthentic forms of unity and permitted external differentiation of that which did not internally belong together. It is a sad fact of life that the State Churches are still poisoned with this Roman leaven and seek to marshal their forces against Rome by externally uniting faith and unbelief in a way that blunts consciences and corrupts character, resulting in a church life that is thoroughly unhealthy. This is not the smallest advantage that the sects in general and the free churches of our century in particular have gained for us, namely, that they have wrested freedom of religion also from the state churches and have liberated faith and confession from all ties to the state.

The Christian religion is once again, as in the first centuries of our era, dependent on its own resources. This will make it stronger rather than weaker in the spiritual struggle. For this reason the free churches undoubtedly have the promise of the future. Only one condition needs to
be made here: provided they preserve the catholicity of the Christian faith and the Christian church.”

In die handhawing van die katolisiteit van die Christendom en kerk moet ons kerke sien as minder en meer suiwer:

However, understood in an organic way, the distinction does have validity. In the same way that the one universal Christian church comes to more or less purity of expression in individual churches, in the same way the one universal Christian truth comes to more or less pure expression in the various confessions of faith. There is no universal Christianity present above the confessional divisions but only in them.

No one church, no matter how pure, is identical with the universal church. In the same way no confession, no matter how refined by the Word of God, is identical with the whole of Christian truth. Each sect that considers its own circle as the only church of Christ and makes exclusive claims to truth will wither and die like a branch severed from its vine. The one, holy, universal church that is presently an object of faith, will not come into being until the body of Christ reaches full maturity. Only then will the church achieve the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, and only then will she know as she is known.”

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Verdere Pro Regno artikels van of oor Bavinck

Meer oor Bavinck: The Bavinck Institute 

Totius oor die eenheid van die kerk in waarheid.