What Reformed Christians believe, and how they worship
Reformed churches are Protestant churches in the tradition of John Calvin and the Dutch Reformation, confessing the Three Forms of Unity. In Ontario the name covers four related federations with a shared Dutch heritage and distinct histories.
What ‘Reformed’ means
“Reformed” is the name Protestant churches in the tradition of the Swiss and Dutch Reformation have used since the sixteenth century. It began in Zurich and Geneva with Zwingli and John Calvin and took deepest root in the Netherlands. “Calvinist” means much the same, though the churches prefer “Reformed”: the point is not a man but a church reformed according to the Word of God.
Reformed churches hold that the Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God and the only rule for faith and life; that sinners are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone; and that God’s sovereign grace runs through the whole of salvation, from election to final glory. They read the Bible as one covenant story, so the children of believers are baptized as members of the covenant, as Israel’s children were circumcised. Christ alone is head of the church, which is governed by elders and organized in federations of equal churches rather than under bishops or as independent congregations.
Churches of Dutch background summarize this faith in the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession (1561); the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), a warm question-and-answer summary arranged in fifty-two Lord’s Days for weekly preaching; and the Canons of Dort (1618–19), the Synod of Dort’s decisions on God’s grace in election and conversion. Office-bearers sign a form of subscription promising to teach in agreement with these confessions and with the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian creeds.
The four Reformed federations in Ontario
Four federations of Dutch Reformed background have congregations in Ontario, and their differences are best understood as a family history. All four trace their roots to the Secession of 1834 (the Afscheiding), when congregations left the state-supported Dutch Reformed Church to return to the Three Forms of Unity.
Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC). Seceder immigrants settled in Michigan in the 1840s, and in 1857 several of their congregations left the Reformed Church in America to form what became the Christian Reformed Church. It received most of the Reformed immigrants who came to Canada after the Second World War, and now has about a thousand congregations. In Wellington County it is found in Drayton and Guelph.
Canadian Reformed Churches (CanRC). In the Netherlands the Seceders and Abraham Kuyper’s Doleantie of 1886 united in 1892. That church divided in 1944 in the Liberation (Vrijmaking), a dispute about covenant and baptism and about the authority of synods, in which Klaas Schilder and others were deposed. Immigrants from the Liberated churches came to Canada after the war, and when talks with the CRC broke down they instituted their own congregations, the first at Lethbridge, Alberta, on 16 April 1950. The federation now has more than seventy churches, including Fergus North, Maranatha in Fergus and Elora.
Free Reformed Churches of North America (FRC). Seceder congregations that stayed out of the 1892 union continued as the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken. Post-war immigrants from that church found the CRC’s teaching on the covenant and conversion different from their own, formed separate congregations in the 1950s, and took the name Free Reformed in 1974. It is the smallest of the four, with about twenty congregations, most in southern Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA). The newest federation came out of the CRC itself. In the early 1990s a number of CRC congregations objected to the direction of the denomination, above all to the 1995 decision to allow women to serve as ministers, elders and deacons. Thirty-six churches formed a new federation and held their first synod in 1996; there are now about 130. The nearest to Fergus and Elora are in neighbouring counties, at Listowel.
The CanRC, URCNA and FRC all belong to the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, and the Canadian Reformed and United Reformed are in ecclesiastical fellowship. The CRC’s membership in that council was suspended in 1997 over women in office, and since 2007 all its offices have been open to women. Its 2022 synod affirmed that the church’s historic teaching on marriage and sexual conduct has confessional status, and some congregations have since left.
Worship in Reformed churches
Across the four federations a Sunday service has the same skeleton: votum and greeting, the Ten Commandments, confession and assurance, congregational prayer, Scripture reading, a sermon of thirty to forty-five minutes, an offering and a blessing. Infant baptism and the Lord’s Supper follow set liturgical forms. Most Canadian Reformed, United Reformed and Free Reformed congregations hold two services each Lord’s Day, one of them ordinarily expounding the Heidelberg Catechism; many CRC congregations now hold one service and preach the Catechism less regularly.
Canadian Reformed churches sing the Genevan psalms and a fixed hymn collection from the Book of Praise; United Reformed churches sing from the Trinity Psalter Hymnal; Free Reformed churches sing almost only metrical psalms and stress experiential preaching; Christian Reformed churches use a broader range of music and more often have praise teams and children’s programs.
Compared with other churches
Reformed churches share the ecumenical creeds with Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran and evangelical churches, and share with all Protestants the conviction that Scripture alone is the final authority and that sinners are justified by faith alone. Compared with Baptist and most evangelical churches, they baptize the children of believers and trace conversion to God’s election rather than to a free decision of the will. Compared with Lutherans, they teach that Christ is present in the Supper by his Spirit rather than bodily. Compared with Catholic and Orthodox churches, they have no bishops, no sacrifice of the Mass and no invocation of saints, and hold that tradition must be tested by Scripture.