Stand firm in your freedom!

Earlier this week the Eastern Ministerial Conference was held where many Canadian and United Reformed ministers and their wives were encouraged by speeches, devotions, scripture, prayer, song, and sweet fellowship. I was asked to give a presentation about the biography I wrote on my father. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My COVID19 project was to write a biography on my father. I was invited to speak a few words to you about it.

You might wonder how it came about that I should write a biography on my father. I have Dr. John Smith (OT professor at CRTS) to thank as he encouraged me to write it. I was telling him about how two of my sisters had recently downsized and had both come across envelopes and files of letters and other personal items that my father had left behind when he died unexpectedly and suddenly in 1968. After a brief discussion on our siblings’ email group it was decided that the stuff would come to me. When I told John about this, he urged me to write my father’s biography saying that the stories of the early Canadian Reformed immigrants needed to be told by my generation, while the memories are still alive.

My father was the first Canadian Reformed minister when he came to Edmonton, Alta., in June of 1951, at the age of 35. My parents made the ten-day sailing from the Netherlands to Quebec City and then the transcontinental journey to Edmonton. He exchanged a small village pastorate, where he could make his visits by bicycle, for a parish that effectively was the provinces of BC, Alberta, and Manioba. No sooner was he installed in Edmonton a few days upon arriving there and he was off to the Bulkley Valley and the Fraser Valley, and then to Southern Manitoba. He traveled throughout the vast Canadian West by rail visiting the far-flung churches and house congregations, preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, helping to institute churches, and visiting the immigrant saints. It would be later that year and the next before three colleagues came to share the load of the work that needed to be done.

 The book is mostly historical and somewhat thematic. I wrote about my father’s family roots, his youth in IJmuiden and his education in the Free University of Amsterdam, WW II, including his father’s arrest for his work in the resistance against the Nazis, both German and Dutch, and his eventual death in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Then I wrote about my father’s church struggle in the ecclesiastical liberation of ’44, his one Dutch pastorate in Mussel, Groningen, his immigration to Edmonton, his decade there with its troubles that led to a total burnout that lasted at least six months. Then about his recovery and the call five years later to Cloverdale, BC.  He served there happily and fruitfully, but for a short period since he died 2 ½ years after we moved to that small and lovely town.

 The book consists of 11 chapters, in which I tell my father’s story, and 11 appendices. Eleven appendices seem to be a lot, but I included them since I wanted my father to be heard in his own voice. My father was first of all a pastor, but he was a scholarly man. The appendices cover topics related to the Dutch church struggle of 1944, Unionism, immigration, space travel, Sphere Sovereignty, the relationship between faith and science, philosophy, and include three sermons: an OT, a NT, and a catechism sermon.

 As I read my father’s documents, I discovered that he often referred to Gal. 5:1—For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. I do not know that he was conscious that he made reference to that text across the different issues he dealt with, but it is a text that seemed to tie things together for him.

 My father, born in 1916, was bred in the context of the Réveil, of the first and second secessions, and in a church milieu which proclaimed freedom in Christ. He underwent his primary and secondary education in a confessional Reformed school in IJmuiden, North Holland.

 My father’s first existential crisis was WW II, which broke out when he was 22 years old. Germany invaded the Netherlands and established Nazi rule. The Netherlands was occupied territory and was made subservient to national socialism, which militated against the reign of Christ. This became critical to my father when Germany started rounding up young Dutchmen and transporting them to German factories to serve there as slave labour for the war effort. He had to go into hiding.

 The crisis became more poignant when my father’s father was arrested because of his resistance work and was eventually shipped by rail in a cattle car to a concentration camp, Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. My Opa would have passed under the gates of the camp which cynically proclaimed Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free). This was a Nazi slogan which stamped the so-called “Deutches Reich.” In his letters to his family, which he wrote from Camp Vugt in the south of the Netherlands and then ultimately from Sachsenhausen where he died of dysentery, he encouraged his wife and children to keep believing that as Christians they were free in Christ no matter what their temporary circumstances may be, and to stand firm in that freedom.

 The second major crisis, which tested his faith that we are free in Christ, was the ecclesiastical liberation of 1944. In the late 30s and early 40s certain theological opinions were given confessional status in the church. The General Synod of the GKN had placed a yoke of slavery upon the churches. The flashpoint was the doctrine of presumptive regeneration. The teaching that the children of believers were to be baptized on the basis of the presumption that they had been or would be born again was bound upon the pulpits of the churches.  Many, such as my father, had no issue with some holding to that theological opinion, but the sticking point was that it was made binding, at pain of suspension and deposition. And indeed, many faithful preachers and elders were deposed because they would not toe the line of the synod. Office bearers, even some whole churches, were expelled for teaching that we are to baptize our children on the basis that God has a covenant with believers and their children. My father, and many others, liberated themselves from a synodocratic church. With tears stinging their eyes they set themselves free to remain in the freedom with which Christ sets us free.

 When my parents immigrated in 1951 my father was almost immediately drawn into a debate of whether or not we may join trade unions. This had become a controversy in the New Westminster Church, whose consistory had taken the position that membership in a trade union is incompatible with membership in the church. My father studied a number of trade union constitutions and published an essay on it in the first yearbook of the Canadian Reformed churches. He demonstrated that the trade unions of the day demanded obedience to both past and future decisions of the union. He made the significant point that we owe such allegiance only to Christ. Should we bind ourselves to decisions of a union yet to be made, then, said he, we are allowing ourselves to be put under a yoke other than the yoke of Christ.

 In 1960 my father experienced a severe and sustained burnout. For six months he was sidelined and out of commission. So severe was it that he could not endure remaining in Edmonton. He convalesced, rested, and recovered in Carman, Manitoba, and southern Ontario. His faith was shaken, but he was given the strength to hold on to Christ. Even in the depths of his despair he held on to Christ, for he knew that he had no other recourse but to hold on to the one who had set him free through his death on the cross.

  In the first half of the 1960s the churches were embroiled in a controversy related to the form of subscription. As we all well know a minister has to promise, at both the local church and classis, that his teaching will be in harmony with the Reformed confessions. Should his teaching diverge from this standard, and should he not conform his teaching, he will be removed from the ministry. Rev. Cornelis de Haan of the Winnipeg church refused to sign the classis form, and he was, therefore and eventually, removed from the ministry. By signing this form a minister promises that he will only preach and teach the freedom found only in the teaching that we are free in Christ, and that any other belief is slavery.

 My father’s greatest academic love was the study of philosophy. His introduction to this field of inquiry was born at the Free University as he followed the lectures of Dooyweerd and Vollenhoven. He was given the opportunity to devote himself to this study after we moved to Cloverdale, BC, and he enrolled as a part-time student at Western State College (now University). There he focused on analyzing and critiquing secular western philosophy and, through lectures, benefitted especially the university crowd in the Fraser Valley in the late 1960s. He published several articles in the youth magazine, In Holy Array, two of which are included in my book. The great difference between secular western philosophy and the Christian message is where they both look for freedom. Whereas the former seeks it in man the latter finds it only in Christ. Again Gal 5:1 rose to prominent significance: Christ has set us free whereas human philosophy is an enslaving yoke.

 When my father died in 1968 he was busy with publishing a series of articles on the Open Brief. The Open Brief was a statement signed by twenty-five Dutch ministers of the GKN-Liberated. In my father’s assessment the statement sought to undo the ecclesiastical Liberation of 1944. The signatories wanted more latitude in doctrinal issues than the Form of Subscription, in their opinion, gave them. My father clarified what was at stake in the Liberation of 1944. The signatories called the Liberation nothing but a matter of human ideology rather than yet another example of Christ’s freeing his people—as he had done in the first secession (1834) and the second secession (1886). Signing on to the Open Brief, said my father, led people from freedom in Christ to the slavery of man’s opinion. He ended his unfinished articles by asking: 

Is that the easy yoke of Christ? Is this His light burden? No, not at all. It was and is a yoke of bondage. By this horrible synodical usurpation [of the synodocratic GKN] God’s redeemed people were compelled to ascribe more power and authority to the general synod and its ordinances than to the Word of God.

 Once again, my father set the issue in the light of the gospel of the freedom of Christ. As men called to serve in the midst of the Canadian and United Reformed Churches we can be thankful to serve in the line of the two secessions and the liberation. In all three instances the gospel of Christ who gives freedom was at stake. My father understood that, and I am thankful to serve in this ecclesiastical and historical context. I have had to sign the Form of Subscription several times and always did so gladly. It is not burdensome to promise to proclaim the liberating truths of the gospel.

 I could reflect on more: for example, his involvement with the birth of the Voice of the Church (our evangelistic radio broadcast), our Theological College, Christian schools, his sermons which proclaim freedom in Christ. But let me end by returning to Galatians 5:1—For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

 Often people will say, “Don’t just stand there; do something!” On the basis of this text of Scripture it might be just as good, and perhaps it is even better, to say, “Don’t just do something; stand there!”

 Thank-you.

Incarnation, Immigration, and Integration

(*My father wrote this rather intriguing piece in 1963 as a reflection on becoming a Canadian citizen. It speaks to today's political and sociological situation. I included it as an appendix to the biography I wrote on my father,)

Incarnation, Immigration, and Integration

 I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only-begotten Son who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. We put our trust in him who, in the beginning of our era, was born in Bethlehem. With courage we find and accept our place in the whole of the human race and its history, and thus also in the midst of the Canadian nation and its history.

Being born of Mary, God’s Son became a real human being, a true member of the human race, a son of Adam taking his place in the lineage and in the history of Adam’s descendants.

Mankind’s history is a terribly troubled history. It is a history of sin, unbelief, idolatry, lying, hatred, and murder. It is an awful thing to be a man and to belong to the human race—not only because we suffer under the unrighteousness and hatred of mankind, but also, and primarily, because, as human beings, we are accountable for the sin of the whole human race. Mankind’s history is our history and our past.

We tend to consider ourselves apart from the generations who lived and worked and sinned before us. “What do we have to do with their history?” we ask. But think of Daniel: He had read in Prophecy of Jeremiah that seventy years were to pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem. These years had passed and Daniel beseeched God to fulfill his promise by bringing his people back to Canaan and Jerusalem. But Daniel began his prayer with a stirring confession of sins. “…we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.  We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land” (Dan. 9:5,6).

How could Daniel pray and confess his sins in this way? He was still young when he, as a prisoner, was brought to Babylon. You remember that he was still a boy when he was chosen to be educated for the king’s service, and how he proved to be faithful to God’s commandments. Nonetheless, after having finished his prayer he said, “I was confessing my sin and the sin of my people (Dan. 9:10).

He confessed the sins of the fathers to be his sins and those of his people. He acknowledged that their past was his past, that their history was his history. He took the whole history of Israel into consideration. The LORD had given wonderful gifts, especially the gift of his prophets whom God had sent to speak his Word. But Israel had repeatedly refused to give heed to their preaching. That was what led Daniel to confess, “We have sinned—I and my fathers. O God, forgive us!”

As a human being, a member of the human race, I am involved with and a part of its history. We are confronted with its past and the LORD says, “It is also your history.”

What shall we think of, and what shall be our attitude towards the past of Canada and the history of the Canadian nation? We, or our parents, immigrated to Canada. By immigrating to Canada and choosing to live here we made a decision about our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. But it did not only affect our future. By immigrating to Canada we also brought about a change to our past and to the past of our descendants. By leaving “the old country” as emigrants we were broken off its tree and by immigrating to Canada we were engrafted into the Canadian tree. We are incorporated in and integrated with the whole of the Canadian nation. Its past has become our past, its history our history. At school our children are taught Canadian history as the history of the nation to which they now belong. This is a fact, one we must wholeheartedly accept. God does not consider us apart from the Canadian people. We are responsible for their past, their history. God holds us accountable for it. We are liable for the sins, the trespasses, and the unrighteous deeds done in the history of this our country and of this our people.

This is a terrible responsibility, one which we, ourselves, cannot bear. There is no acceptable excuse that we and the whole Canadian nation could give to render us innocent before God. And so it is pure gospel that the Son of God took upon himself the very nature of man from the flesh and blood of the woman Mary. He truly was incorporated into the human race. He did so by his own free will. In doing this he took upon himself all the sins and trespasses and misery of the whole human race, making himself liable also for the history and the past of the Canadian nation.

That historical fact gives us the courage and boldness to accept the Canadian nation with all its history and past, and to accept responsibility for it.

The Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. His was a holy conception and his a holy birth. From the first moment of his existence as a member of the human race Mary’s Son was holy and righteous. He was not a partaker of Adam’s disobedience, nor did he live in the sins of his ancestors. That is why he could bear their sins and pay for them.

The Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes, “…on you [will] come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar” (Matt. 23:35).

Cain murdered Abel because his brother was righteous and walked with the Lord. Zechariah was murdered because he was a faithful prophet. The murder of Zechariah is mentioned in the Chronicles, which then was the last book of the Old Testament. Much innocent blood was shed from the beginning to the end of Old Testament times. The scribes and Pharisees were quick to say, “We did not do it. It does not concern us.”

Jesus said, “You did it! You murdered all the innocents from Abel to Zechariah.” They did the same terrible thing. They were about to murder the Innocent One, the Chief Prophet and Teacher. By killing the Innocent One they agreed with Cain’s murder and took upon themselves the sins and transgressions of their ancestors.

How shall we now think about Canada’s history and its past? With indifference? As an outsider? We cannot do so. It is our past. With our own lying, and stealing, and hatred, and murder, we agree with the very same sins of our ancestors, and we take upon ourselves the unrighteousness of our Canadian ancestors.

But how can it be, that we should ever accept the history of the Canadian nation as our history? We can only do so because of the historical fact of Jesus having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He also took upon himself the unrighteousness of the Canadian nation, but as the holy and Innocent One, as God’s only-begotten Son.

We are protected from God’s wrath only by the innocence which Christ, in his grace, shares with all who are in communion with him. We are acquitted from the unrighteous deeds which permeate the history of the nation to which we belong, in which we share, and in which we continue, only by the righteousness of Christ. And so we can pass judgment on Canada’s history. Not with the indifference of a stranger. Not with the aloofness of a European. Much less with the pride of a Calvinist. But, rather, humbly and courageously as people comforted in Christ.

Because of his holy conception and birth of Mary, David’s daughter, he is also the true seed of David, establishing God’s redeeming and saving kingdom also in the history of the Canadian nation. By his innocence, in which he steadfastly continued by obediently humbling himself unto death on the cross, we receive the privilege of serving him as our King, and of proclaiming and manifesting his blissful kingship in every sphere of life. Thus we have been chosen to accept Canada’s past also in this respect: that under the royal dominion of Christ we may continue to exhibit the righteous deeds of our Canadian ancestors, in the present time and in the time to come.

And so it is with boldness and courage, with comfort and joy, that we find and take our place in the course of Canada’s history—as it was in the past, is in the present, and will be in the future. Our immigration and our integration is sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God who, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, became the Son of Mary, Adam’s daughter and David’s descendent.

---

Jules T. van Popta, December, 1963.

This day in history

Seventy years ago today my parents, the Rev. and Mrs. J.T. van Popta, arrived in Canada. After a ten-day voyage they stepped off of the SS Volendam on to the quay at Quebec city. They arrived in their new country with their two daughters, Joanna and Sarah. A third daughter, Alida, would enter the outside world two months later, after the family had trekked across the country by rail and arrived at their ultimate destination, Edmonton, Alberta. 

Photo taken at the family's departure from Mussel, the Netherlands.

On board the SS Volendam

On board the SS Volendam

 

Book review of Man of the First Hour

Over on his blog Wes Bredenhof reviewed my recent biography of my father in a post he called "A Herald of Freedom in Christ." 

My father on a Sunday afternoon after preaching the gospel of freedom and joy.

 

Biography of Jules Taco Van Popta

RPPress is putting the last touches on our first biography, Man of the First Hour: A Son’s Story. The story of Jules (Jelle) Van Popta is a remarkable one and it has fallen to his youngest son to give an account of his father’s struggle and triumph. This is the story of the first minister who served within the Canadian Reformed Churches. As such, we gain a uniquely personal perspective of some of the ecclesiastical issues that have faced our church federation. In addition, the details of the political and ecclesiastical trials in the Netherlands during the war years, and the early years in Canada will no doubt resonate with all children of Dutch immigrants. We have benefitted enormously from the choices of those who, post WW II, voyaged across the Atlantic to make a new beginning for themselves and their offspring. How the Lord has blessed those who had the courage to cast their bread upon the waters! This story provides reasons for opportunity to shed tears, laugh heartily, and truly, to thank the Lord for His faithfulness! With this book, George van Popta goes beyond family history, as fascinating as this is, and salutes all parents who journeyed as pilgrims in a strange land, never losing sight of the heavenly city.

Order here.