The 320-member Lighthouse Community Church (formerly named First Reformed of Allendale) has laid the groundwork to terminate its 90-year affiliation with the Reformed Church in America, in part because of a “counterfeit unity not founded upon truth,” said Steve Demers, senior pastor. (Editor’s note: Demers is a graduate of Covenant Seminary and for our PCA readers, this is the home church of Ken Pierce, pastor at Trinity PC in Jackson, MS.)

“We really see this as God calling us to something as much as away from something,” said Demers, 60. “We’re hoping to gather like-minded believers who really want to go back to the early church and devote ourselves to the apostles’ teachings.”

Demers said the theological issues with the RCA are a hand-in-glove fit to the problems that pervade the culture at large.

He believes agreements the RCA has made with the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches with their social gospel emphasis, and with denominations including the United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church USA that ordain gays, have missed the theological mark.

“It’s a counterfeit unity not founded upon truth but a desire to be united rather than to be one,” Demers said. “For us, it’s not a homosexual issue as much as it’s an issue of the authority of the word of God.”

Those issues amount to a doctrinal distraction from Lighthouse’s evangelistic efforts, Demers said.

“We end up spending energy on trying to defend the truths within the denomination rather than spending our time proclaiming the truth to the world,” he said. “The RCA has not officially taken a stand contrary to God’s word, but it’s a direction it seems to be going in.”

But it’s that ecumenical unity the RCA has forged through the years that strengthens its cause, said the Rev. Wesley, “Wes” Granberg-Michaelson, outgoing general secretary for the RCA.

And it’s a record Granberg-Michaelson stands on. Of his 17 years as the RCA’s top administrator, Granberg-Michaelson said he could think of only two churches that left the RCA.

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