About Us
Beliefs
We call ourselves the Christian
Reformed Church in North America. What does that mean?
We call ourselves Christian because
we are followers of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus was
the Son of God and that he is the center of human history.
We’re called Reformed because we grow
on a branch of the church tree that emerged from the
Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe.
We’re a Church because we believe God
has called us together to be a people who belong to him and
live for him.
North America tells you where we are
situated; but it also tells you we’re connected with other
Reformed denominations in other places around the globe.
What unites these diverse people
across North America? What binds them into one entity?
Among
other things, we agree on certain core beliefs. That is one
of the reasons we gather to worship and to work, pursuing
God’s plan for this world. We believe in the Bible as the
authoritative Word of God. And we speak with a Reformed
accent.
What we Believe
The
bulk of what we believe we hold in common with the Christian
church around the world and throughout the ages. Three
creeds adopted by the worldwide church centuries ago
summarize the most important tenets of our faith: the
Apostles' Creed,
the
Nicene Creed,
and the
Athanasian Creed.
To summarize these common beliefs,
we’ll use the text of the Apostles’ Creed. But first an
explanation. Despite its title, the Apostles’ Creed was not
written by the apostles or disciples who walked and talked
with Jesus in the first century. Instead it is a compilation
of what believers in the first centuries knew from written
and oral testimony, which was then distilled into the
essentials of the Christian faith. This creed was reworked
by successive councils of the early Church. It was adopted
in its present form before the end of the fourth century.
A quick look at the structure of the
Apostles’ Creed reveals one of the bedrock truths of the
Christian faith: the Trinity. The creed is divided into
three parts: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. All Christians believe that the Bible reveals one
God in three “persons.” In other words, God is a perfect
community of love.
Apostle's Creed
Nicene Creed
Athanasian Creed
