Evangelical and Reformed Church
The Evangelical and Reformed Church was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States that existed from 1934 to 1957. It was formed through the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Synod of North America, bringing together diverse theological traditions. At its peak, the church had around 650,000 members, primarily located in seventeen states, and was influenced by the Calvinist tradition, emphasizing personal faith and service. The church embraced the Heidelberg Catechism as a foundational document, which outlines core beliefs and practices.
During its brief history, the Evangelical and Reformed Church engaged in significant social initiatives, including assisting in war relief efforts during World War II. It also demonstrated an interest in ecumenism, ultimately merging with Congregational Christian Churches in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ. The governance of the Evangelical and Reformed Church followed a Presbyterian polity, which empowered local congregations in decision-making. This denomination reflects a historical interplay of Reformed theology and Evangelical practice within the broader landscape of American Protestantism.
On this Page
Evangelical and Reformed Church
The Evangelical and Reformed Church was a short-lived Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. It was formed in 1934 by the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Synod of North America. Just twenty-three years later, in 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church would merge with a number of Congregational Christian Churches to become the United Church of Christ (UCC).
Prior to the merger into the UCC, the Evangelical and Reformed Church had a membership of about 650,000 parishioners concentrated mostly in seventeen states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
History
Like many other Protestant Christian Churches, the Evangelical and Reformed Church's roots can be traced to the Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century.
On October 31, 1517, a German priest and theologian named Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailed his "95 Theses" to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, challenging certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church. This led to decades of debate, discussion, and division over how churches should be organized and doctrine established, as well as questions about how the Catholic Church should be reformed. Some of these protestors against the Catholic Church—including many Protestants—were influenced by John Calvin (1509-1564).
Calvin was a French theologian who spent much of his life in Switzerland. Like other Protestant Reformers, he felt both the powerful Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England had strayed too far from the principles of the first-century apostles and earliest Christians. He proposed some beliefs very different from those of the established churches, including the concept of predestination. Calvin believed that God decided—or predestined—whether a person would go to heaven or hell before they were born and that nothing the person did in life could change that.
Reformed churches sprang up all throughout Europe, though not without a great deal of fighting and even bloodshed in a number of areas. When Europeans traveled to the Americas—often seeking relief from persecution and the right to practice their reformed and Protestant beliefs—they established branches of Reformed churches in the colonies that became the United States.
One of these, the Reformed Church in the United States, also known as the German Reformed Church, was concentrated in Pennsylvania and spread west from there. Established in the mid-1700s, the church largely followed a Calvinistic tradition until the Great Awakening movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries began to influence its theological leanings. In some areas, churches adopted "high church" practices similar to those of the Anglican Protestant churches, leading to some division within the denomination. By 1934, the Reformed Church was largely acting like a mainstream Protestant church.
Meanwhile, a strong Evangelical presence—which had surged in response to the growth of liberal theology—had been established in Missouri. This early twentieth-century movement focused more on knowledge, moral behavior, and ethics than on any divine presence in the world. Evangelicals emphasized the truth in the Holy Bible and that salvation came by grace through belief in Jesus Christ. They also stressed evangelism—spreading the "good news" of the Gospel and bringing more people into the faith.
A growing interest in ecumenism, or interdenominational cooperation, led the Reformed Church to seek union with another church in the early twentieth century. Discussion began in 1932 with the Evangelical Church, and despite differences in worship and belief, the two churches merged in 1934. While still resolving its internal differences and forging a new administrative system combining the two denominations, the new Church played an important role in the War Emergency Relief Commission during World War II and established missions in China, Japan, Iraq, Ecuador, and Ghana.
The new Church's interest in unity and ecumenism would later lead to a merger with the Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ in 1957.
Beliefs
During its twenty-three-year existence, the Reformed and Evangelical Church had a strong Calvinist leaning. It embraced the Heidelberg Catechism as an outline of beliefs intended for teaching the faithful. Created in Germany during the reign of Frederick III (1515-76), this doctrine of faith was written in response to a controversy about whether Christ was physically or spiritually present at the Lord's Supper. Broken down into fifty-two sections intended to be taught on each Sunday of the year, the Catechism uses scriptural references to explain the basic tenets of the faith.
The Church also accepted Luther's approach to faith based on experiencing a relationship with God. The overall emphasis was on personal piety and service to God and each other, rather than on a by-the-book practice of worship and prayer.
Organization
The Church generally followed a Presbyterian polity, with leaders elected from within congregations and an emphasis on making decisions for practice and worship on a local level. Approximately thirty regional synods met on a regular basis to decide matters beyond the level of the individual congregations.
In 1942, the General Synod endorsed a public proposal to begin the process of merging with the Congregational Christian Churches through formal discussions about the structure and theology of the new Church. After a final ratification of the resulting Interpretations of the Basis of Union occurred, a General Synod of the two groups was planned for 1950, although it was postponed for more than seven years while some local Congregational churches brought legal action against their General Council to block the union. This was later resolved, and the merger combining the Congregational Christian Churches and the Reformed and Evangelical Church was completed in 1957.
Bibliography
"The Evangelical and Reformed Church." United Church of Christ, www.ucc.org/about-us‗short-course‗the-evangelical-and-reformed. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.
"History of the RCA." The Reformed Church in America, www.rca.org/about/history/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.
Jones, Timothy Paul. Christian History Made Easy. Rose Publishing, 2009.
“Religious Records Research at the Archives & Library of the Ohio History Connection: Evangelical and Reformed.” Ohio History Connection, 3 June 2024, ohiohistory.libguides.com/religious/EvangelicalandReformed. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.
Zikmund, Barbara Brown. "Women in the United Church of Christ." Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, edited by Rosemary Skinner Keller and Rosemary Radford Reuther, Indiana University Press, 2006, pp. 371-373.