Reformed Church in America Splits as Conservative Churches Form New Denomination

MinistryWatch ^ | Jan 11, 2022 | Kathryn Post

[hamburger hill]

On New Year’s Day, 43 congregations of the Reformed Church in America split from the national denomination, one of the oldest Protestant bodies in the United States, in part over theological differences regarding same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

The departure of the theologically conservative congregations to the new group, the Alliance of Reformed Churches, leaves some who remain in the RCA concerned for the denomination’s survival. Before the split, the nearly 400-year-old denomination had fewer than 200,000 members and 1,000 churches.

[FES0844]

The falling away continues. Maranatha!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

My grandfather was a member. After my grandmother died young, my father and his sisters lived in a Dutch Reform orphanage. My last name traces to a 1665 settler in New Netherlands, who later became a Dutch Reformed Church minister in Staten Island.

[Flavious_Maximus]

Why would a moral righteous person go to a LGBT church to be lectured about morality by a queer degenerate pastor?

Since when did sodomy and hedonism become moral traits?

[super7man]

From the article:
“As the RCA was attempting to define and clarify marriage,” said Barr, “and efforts had been happening over the decades in that regard, there continued to be this tension within the RCA of whether or not the Bible was the full authority of God’s Word.

Well, I guess, there you have it.

[Getready]

Yeah....heard that argument in the Bible...”did God really say?....” Eve fell for it....

[moovova]

"I really think the mass exodus of all these conservative churches is going to throw the RCA into a really difficult financial situation,” said Steven Rodriguez, an RCA church planter in Brockport, New York. “I doubt the RCA will be financially sustainable for much longer.”

That's a shame. No, really, I'm series.

[al_c]

Conservatives form new denomination? Sounds more like the liberals are leaving the original church teachings. The conservatives should take the name of the church and let those heathens form their new denomination.

[PeterPrinciple]

The creation of ARC, paired with the RCA’s decisions at General Synod, has put many RCA congregations in the position of deciding whether to stay in the RCA.

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Jesus came to divide.

[Louis Foxwell]

The identical division occurs this year in the United Methodist Church. There seems to be some concern over the orthodoxy of the breakaway group.

[PeterPrinciple]

The conservatives should take the name of the church and let those heathens form their new denomination.

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But they never leave. liberals are parasites, they destroy the host.

[al_c]

Yep ... just like COVID.

[aimhigh]

What is sad is how few congregations are leaving. When Communist Russia began to persecute churches, there was a 95% falling away. The average church dwindled from 300 to 15.