All Articles For Henry Danhof

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: August 2008, p. 443.

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: November 15, 2008, p. 92. One Sunday morning in 1925, two ministers had a race to the pulpit to see who would lead the worship service. Rev. Henry Danhof won. He was not about to lose—not after what he had just been through. He had been branded an Anabaptist. He had been reprimanded by synod. He had been badgered by classis. Repeatedly, he had tried to resign from the office of minister of the gospel. Repeatedly, his consistory had refused his resignation. He...

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: April 1, 2008, p. 295. After nearly four years of labor in Sully, Iowa, Henry Danhof accepted a call to Dennis Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.¹ At the time, the Dennis Avenue congregation was in mourning. Early in the year of 1914, God had taken Dennis Avenue’s pastor, Rev. J. A. Kett, by death. The consistory decided not to call a new minister right away, in order to give the congregation a proper interval to grieve. The congregation waited nearly...

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: February 1, 2008, p. 208. An officebearer in Christ’s church entering into office is in need of courage. He needs courage because his task of caring for Christ’s flock on behalf of the Good Shepherd Himself is not a task he can accomplish in his own strength. So it was with Joshua when he was given the work of leading Israel into Canaan. Four times in Joshua 1, God encourages him with the exhortation, “Be strong and of a good courage.” God Himself supplies...

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: January 1, 2008, p. 160. No one observing Henry Danhof’s early years in the Netherlands as they unfolded would have concluded that young Henry would someday be a leading figure in the Reformed scene in America. Instead, the conclusion would have been that Danhof was likely to be swallowed up by the hard circumstances of his life: he was an orphan at a young age, he became a lowly shepherd tending a flock of sheep, and he had very little formal education. In...

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. The name Henry Danhof is familiar to the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). Whenever the history of the PRC is told, Danhof’s name has a prominent place at the beginning of that history. Danhof, along with Revs. Herman Hoeksema and George Ophoff, was a minister in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in the early 1900s. Along with Hoeksema and Ophoff, Danhof held that the Three Points of Common Grace, adopted by the Synod of 1924, were false doctrine. Danhof, along with Hoeksema and Ophoff, was deposed by a classis of the...

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: September 1, 2009, p. 471. When we last left Henry Danhof, he was making a promise to the delegates of the Christian Reformed Synod of 1924. His promise was occasioned by the synod’s adoption of the theory of common grace as binding doctrine in the CRC. Almost before the ink of that decision in the synodical minute book was dry, Danhof submitted a document of his own. As we rejoin him now and peek over his shoulder at this letter he submitted, we...