Reformed Church in America
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The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a Calvinist Reformed Protestant denomination that was formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The denomination has about 300,000 members and has congregations in both the U.S. and Canada. The RCA is a founding member of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches and some parts of the denomination belong to the National Association of Evangelicals.
The Reformed Church uses several statements of doctrine and faith. These include the historic Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed; the traditional Reformed Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and Canons of Dort; and the modern "Our Song of Hope".
Its oldest group of congregations, the (Collegiate) Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York, now known as the Collegiate Church Corporation, was founded in 1628 in New Amsterdam. It is the oldest Protestant church with a continuous ministry - and also the oldest corporation - in North America. Although the British captured the New Netherlands in 1664, all RCA ministers were still trained in the Netherlands and all services in the Reformed Church remained in the Dutch language until 1764. Dutch language use faded therafter until the new wave of Dutch immigration in the mid-1800's, which prompted a temporary revival of it. Several churches left the denomination in 1857 to form the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), and more churches left in 1882 for the CRC. In the post-World War II years the church expanded in Canada, which was the destination of a large group of Dutch emigrants. Between 1949 and 1958 the church opened 120 churches among non-Dutch suburban communities.
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Noteworthy members
- Everett Dirksen, U.S. senator
- Norman Vincent Peale, preacher
- Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president
- Robert Schuller, preacher
- Martin Van Buren, U.S. president
RCA colleges and seminaries
- Central College, Pella, Iowa
- Hope College, Holland, Michigan
- New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey
- Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa
- Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan
See also
External links
- RCA official site (http://www.rca.org)
- Collegiate Church Corporation (http://www.collegiatechurch.org)