Vol 44 Issue 02

The Reformed Free Publication Association met in Annual Business Meeting Sept. 21 in Southeast Church. Election of three board members and the adoption of several constitution changes occupied most of the evening after Rev. H. Veldman delivered a short but pithy talk. The speaker reminded the members of their continued responsibility to contend for the faith through our Standard Bearer which has for forty years been the means of publicly proclaiming and defending the basic truths of Scripture.

Report of Classis East July 5 and September 13, 1967 At Hudsonville, Michigan  Rev. G. VanBaren led in the opening devotions. After Classis was declared properly constituted, the Rev. R.C. Harbach presided while the Rev. VanBaren recorded the minutes. 

ASLEEP IN JESUS, by J. H. Hartenberger; Baker Book House; 120 pp., $1.50 (paper). 

Balance on Hand September 1, 1966—$1,306.79 Receipts  Subscriptions—$4,638.90  Membership Dues—$137.00  Gifts—$4,837.84  Advertising—$192.00  Bound Volumes—$690.50  Receipts for year—$10,496.24  Total Receipts—$11,803.03 Disbursements  Wobbema Printing—$9,297.74  Holland Bookbinding Co.—$503.75  Mr. J. Dykstra — Gift—$300.00  Miscellaneous—$164.00 

It is again with thanksgiving to our covenant God that we as Reformed Free Publishing Association are privileged to complete our forty-third year of publishing and distributing the Standard Bearer. 

It is a venturesome and delicate undertaking to write one’s own life (the undersigned believes that our readers will be interested in an account of Augustine’s life, particularly with a view to the Pelagian controversy, as set forth by Philip Schaff in his history of the Christian Church, Vol. III, 988 ff.), even though that life be a masterpiece of nature or of the grace of God, and therefore most worthy to be described. Of all autobiographies none has so happily avoided the reef of vanity and self-praise, and none has won so much esteem and.

Our Seminary is under the direct supervision of the Synod and its officially appointed Theological School Committee, which carries out the work in the interim between the annual meetings of Synod. The Theological School Committee is an out-growth of the former Curatorium, which supervised the school in the early days of our existence, before we were organized as a full-fledged. denomination with Classes and Synod.

END OF AFRICAN MISSIONS?  The missionary work of the church in Africa is in deep trouble. As the African nations emerge from paganism and take their place on the scene of Twentieth Century History, they show an increasing hatred of the white man’s church and of the work of missions. Some evidences of this:  —In Uganda twelve Roman Catholic priests were expelled from the land. The charge against them was smuggling arms, but reliable reports indicated they were only helping refugees from the fighting between Uganda and Sudan.

In examining ecumenism it is beneficial for us to observe also the actions and reactions of other denominations to this trend of the day towards church unity. This column has called attention to the recent concern of the Christian Reformed Church towards the ecumenical movement as embodied in the W.C.C. The Gereformeerde Kerken of the Netherlands had asked member churches of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod to give their reaction to the stand of the Gereformeerde Kerken that it was permissible for Reformed churches to belong to the W;C.C.

Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixes with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although their works were finished from the foundation of the world.