Denomination Publicly Repents For Using Guidepost Solutions To Investigate Sexual Abuse
The Protestant Reformed Church in America (PRCA) is a small denomination that was founded in 1924 and consists of 33 churches comprising a little over 8000 members, most of them spread across West Michigan.
In 2023, facing multiple claims of sexual abuse over decades, in what they acknowledged was a blight and “grievous plague” within their own churches, the denomination voted to hire Guidepost Solutions to investigate sexual abuse claims, paying them $358,000. The result? Finding a history of sexual abuse in 90% of their congregations, much of which has largely gone unchecked and undealt with. Target 8 explains:
In those churches, it uncovered a total of 43 abusers and people who mishandled allegations of child sexual abuse. The report didn’t break down that number. During interviews, Guidepost also found 45 cases of sexual abuse involving the church’s schools, including some in West Michigan.
“I’ve known since I was in seminary that the Protestant Reformed Churches had a bit of a problem with sexual abuse and handling it,” said The Rev. Clayton Spronk, pastor at Faith PRC in Hudsonville, “So to find out that this report is confirming that is not a surprise. Sadly, the church — and this is true in every church — all of the sins that you find in the world are found in the church.”
Target 8’s investigation found only one alleged abuser who was ever criminally charged: Ronald VanOverloop, a former Ottawa County pastor.
One reason for that, according to the Guidepost report: churches and schools failed to report child sexual abuse allegations as required by law. Educators and clergy are mandatory reporters.
Things changed in the last year; however. Ministry Watch reports that the denomination is repudiating and rejecting their earlier 2023 decision to hire Guidepost Solutions at their 2024 annual meeting in view of a non-secular entity. As recapped in the final report on the PCRA’s website:
Today synod treated a majority report and a minority report on six protests against a decision of Synod 2023 to hire Guidepost Solutions to investigate sexual abuse in the Protestant Reformed Churches of America. …After deliberation on the majority report, Synod decided to approve its recommendation to “sustain the protests and declare that Synod 2023 erred by authorizing a secular organization to assist Christ’s church in an ecclesiastical work (investigating sin) that belongs exclusively to the church” on three grounds:
1. Synod 2023’s grounds for hiring a secular organization were flawed in two respects.
a. First, no ground used scriptural principles to demonstrate that consistories are permitted to use a secular organization to help them investigate cases of sin (Agenda pp. 488, 495, 504, 507). Such clear demonstration is necessary when taking action that is weighty, controversial, and unprecedented.
b. Second, no ground used church-political principles to demonstrate that consistories are permitted to use a secular organization to help them investigate cases of sin (Agenda pp. 487, 504). Particularly this is true of synod’s third ground. Such clear demonstration is necessary when taking action that is weighty, controversial, and unprecedented.
2. Synod’s decision to authorize a secular organization to assist Christ’s church in an ecclesiastical work conflicts with Reformed ecclesiology.
3. Synod 2023’s decision conflicts with the Bible’s teaching that the church, in carrying out her calling, must consciously depend on God for His help, may turn to others within the church for their help, but may not turn to a secular organization for help in investigating cases of sin. As was pointed out in the protests, “the church of Jesus Christ is spiritually distinct in character from that of a secular organization.”
Not that they intend to abandon the mission to root out sexual abuse altogether. The report suggests that a new committee might hire “an appropriate organization that belongs to the church organic to investigate the sin of sexual abuse in the PRCA.”
Interesting Note: One of the denomination’s most idiosyncratic beliefs is that they largely condemn and eschew homeschooling one’s children, even to the point of church discipline, in view of sending them to their own home-brewed schools.
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A denomination of only 33 congregations had sex scandals? Their doctrine has to be to blame; must ibe Calvinists who like Steve Lawson believe God predestines all things and thus they believe God predestined their sexual escapades. Best way “to root out sexual abuse altogether” is drop Augustinian predestination altogether; the common denominator between Calvinist pastors and Catholic priests who do sexual abuse is belief in Augustinian predestination.
I was right! Per their website their denomination was formed in the 1920s because they were thrown out of another church for being such insane hypercalvinists that they actually reject the concept of common grace. With Hypercalvinism like that I’m surprised it hasn’t turned out that all their members are rapists. But I guess enough goodness remains in mankind post-fall that even in a group of insane hypercalvinists its hard for them to achieve total depravity.