Posted on 01/14/2022 7:42:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
After months of preparation, a theologically conservative denomination has broken away from the Reformed Church in America, with 43 congregations joining the new body on New Year’s Day.
Known as the Alliance of Reformed Churches, the new denomination was created as the RCA continues to deal with a debate over its official stance on LGBT issues.
Dan Ackerman, director of Organizational Leadership at ARC, wrote in a blog post last June that there were “three primary convictions” that led to the formation of the new denomination.
“The Bible as understood within Reformed theology — its understanding of God, sin and the world — provides a thoughtful faith that can engage people facing today’s uncertainties,” wrote Ackerman at the time.
“The mission of Jesus in the world, entrusted to the local church, can be better served by a more agile form of ministry and governance than what we’ve inherited from the 1500’s.”
“The nature of the organization is to hold a high value on congregational mission and vision so that the organization provides added value to its congregations while, in turn, receiving its funding from those same congregations as partners,” Ackerman continued.
Jeff Walton of the theologically conservative think tank Institute on Religion & Democracy noted in a blog post published Wednesday that the number of churches leaving the RCA for the ARC represents about 5% of the denomination.
“Now the realignment that began in the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is reaching the Dutch Reformed – but without the lawsuits and acrimony that characterized some of those prior splits,” wrote Walton.
Delegates to the RCA General Synod in October approved recommendations that allow transferring churches to retain assets and church buildings.”
In recent years, there has been much debate in the RCA over whether the denomination should become accepting of homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
In July, an earlier task force known as Vision 2020 recommended a “restructuring” of the RCA, believing that the debate over sexual ethics was part of a broader trend of division.
"There have been numerous points, especially in the last 70 years, where the RCA has been at an impasse. Points of disagreement and tension have included differences of views on things like ecumenical partnerships, social justice/political involvement, merging with another denomination, communism, internal restructuring,” stated the Vision 2020 report.
“This means we currently face something we have previously weathered, but it also means that we are likely to be here again if we do not find a way to handle conflict differently.”
At its general synod last October, the denomination voted to create a task force that would consider proposals to resolve the debate within the approximately 186,000-member RCA.
So, these are reformed ‘Reformed’?..................
I doubt it, especially if they still allow ordination of women as ministers. They are just carrying the poison seed with them.
Multiplication by division. Can someone show me the biblical teaching or model for this?
The Allied Reformed front? The People’s Front of Allied Reformers?
Yep.
In a decade or so, they will be in the same situation.
The ones that left will be accused of hatred and bigotry in the not too distant future, if it hasn’t happened already.
I would consider being called a hater for standing in support of Western Civilzation an honor when it comes from perverts and quislings.
This is the bottom line here. Either the Word is inerrant and authoritative or else it is not. As soon as you put man in charge of making the rules the game is already over.
RCA was egalitarian which attracted those who wanted to accommodate this fallen world. Going gay was just a logical next step from that.
My understanding is that the breakaway "conservatives" are going to remain egalitarian. Thus they merely are taking a more winding path to the wide gate.
Gays aren’t going to tithe at chuuch.
Get woke, go broke.
A wonder: All existance is from the Word of God.
“Spliters!”
True. The thing is though, the left are really pushing to outlaw “hate” and to label Christians as haters,. They want persecution of Christians and those with moral values, just,like,other nations do to,their Christian populations. That may soon be a reality here soon. Hopefully Christ comes back before that happens here, but if not, Christians will,be in for a rough time here, as there is a lot,of hatred for Christianity brewing in the us these days, so,it,will,be much more costly than simply being called hateful by the hypocritical left, it may soon become “illegal” [actually, it already is sort of in some cases)
We have it pretty good now, with freedom of speech in most cases, for now, but the 1st a is under attack like never before. Peoples lives znd careers are suffering because the cancel,culture is attacking them, ruining their lives for having opinions that the left hate.
This of course,is no,reasonmto,shrink,from standing for the truth, just pointing out that it’s gonna bet much harder and costly,to do so because the ones screaming for tolerance, the left, are totally intolerant of Christians values and morals
The other day someone expressed the view that the world is being divided into two camps: rabidly for LGBQ etc and everyone else.
Gosh, some Christian churches want to be ... Christian? How primitive!
Well, yes. Standing up against evil is never easy. Most people give in to it because they “don’t want trouble”. Before long they are permanently mired in “trouble”. As we are seeing now. As happened in Nazi Germany. Appeasing evil is a short route to hell.
On ramps to the broad way that leads to destruction are typically understood as small compromises rather than big breaks (that are easily noticed).
We fight this with $$$.
It is frightfully expensive to operate a church building let alone an entire denomination.
Yank the $$$$ from donations and it is going to die.
Look for the Global Methodist Church to become official this year sometime. Leaving the UMC to form a traditional, international Wesleyan denomination, which is what the Methodist church originally was. The “United” part is where the denomination started to go hard left.
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