Protestant Reformed Churches in America

Infobox Christian denomination
name = Protestant Reformed Churches in America (PRC or PRCA)


caption =
main_classification = Protestant
orientation = Calvinistic/Reformed
founded_date = 1924-1925
founded_place = United States and Canada
separated_from = Christian Reformed Church in North America
separations = 1953 over half of the denomination left to form the Orthodox PRC
congregations = 27
members = 7,000+
footnotes = Source: Abstract of the Minutes of the PRCA Synod of 2006The Protestant Reformed Churches in America (PRC) or (PRCA) is a Protestant denomination of 27 churches and over 7,000 members.

History

The PRC was founded in 1924 as a result of a controversy regarding common grace in the Christian Reformed Church. At that time the Christian Reformed Church adopted three doctrinal points on the subject of common grace. Reverends Herman Hoeksema, George Ophoff, and Henry Danhof rejected these three points and maintainined them to be contrary to the Reformed confessions of faith. Soon thereafter, when these men said they could not abide by these three points, they were disciplined through suspension or deposition from the ministry by their respective Classes. The CRC maintained that the position of these three men was inconsistent with the Bible's teachings. The men objected to this deposition also from a church political point of view, arguing that only the Consistory has the right to depose their minister, not a Classis. The CRC disagreed and these ministers, as well as their followers, left the CRC and organized into a new denomination. They took the name the Protestant Reformed Churches in America.

The PRC today continues to reject common grace as a variant of Arminian theology and believes that God's grace is always particular and never general or common. The rejection of common grace and the free offer of the gospel is often understood to be Hyper-Calvinism. Since the PRC hold these positions to be contrary to the Reformed Confessions and do not reject the necessity of gospel preaching, they therefore also maintain that the rejection of these positions should not be referred to as Hyper-Calvinism (see David Engelsma's "Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel"). The position of the PRC as regards common grace and the free offer of the gospel is rejected by the majority of modern day reformed denominations and scholars, and the PRC maintains that these denominations and scholars do not fully hold to the Reformed confessions.

In the early 1950s, the churches endured a severe, internal, doctrinal controversy regarding the unconditionality of the covenant of grace. Membership in the church declined by over one half and half of the ministers left the PRC during this period. The denomination today continues to teach that God unconditionally establishes and maintains His covenant with His elect people alone.

Distinctive doctrine

The PRC believes that the Bible is the infallibly and inerrantly inspired word of God and that the message therein is well summarized in the Three Forms of Unity: the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort. While the PRC approves of most of the Westminster Confession of Faith, it does not endorse it because of a different understanding of marriage and divorce and the covenant of works.

The PRC believes that marriage is a lifelong bond and that, although an individual may divorce his or her spouse for continued infidelity, the marriage bond is not dissolved apart from death. Hence, neither party is permitted to remarry while the other person is still living. Those who do divorce and remarry while their first spouse is still alive are considered adulterers, regardless of the circumstances of the divorce (Gritters, "The Family: Foundations are Shaking").

The PRC holds that God's covenant is only with his elect and that it is unconditional (meaning that there are no conditions that people must fulfill to enter into the covenant or to stay in the covenant). The PRC rejects Antinomianism, believing instead that God calls the people of the covenant to believe and obey and that he personally and entirely produces in them the required faith and works.

In public worship services, the PRC mostly sings the Psalms with organ accompaniment, but in contrast to exclusive psalmody, it does permit the singing of certain non-biblical hymns. Article 69 of the church order adopted by the Synod of Dort states that: "In the churches only the 150 Psalms of David, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Twelve Articles of Faith, the Songs of Mary, Zacharias, and Simeon, the Morning and Evening Hymns, and the Hymn of Prayer before the sermon shall be sung." It is a common practice within PRC services to open with the singing of the "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" doxology and some end the service with the singing of "May the Grace of Christ the Savior" doxology. Outside of the official church service, members are free to sing non-biblical hymns and carols. Also, the PRC uses the King James Version of the Bible, although they do not endorse the King James Only movement and members are free to use other Bible versions.

The PRC also advocates amillennialism in Christian eschatology and holds exclusively to young Earth creationism.

The PRC is firmly against the heresy of Federal Vision theology (Universal Covenantalism - Conditional Covenant Theology) which has infected other Reformed and Presbyterian churches. The PRC positively defends and confesses Unconditional Covenant Theology which the Lord alone establishes, maintains, and sustains with His elect in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Church government

The denomination holds to the Reformed form of church government and is organized in two classes, Classis East and Classis West (the eastern border of Illinois is the boundary between the two), which meet two or three times a year and in an annual Synod.

The name of the denomination is not the Protestant Reformed Church (singular) but the Protestant Reformed Churches (plural). The PRC maintain that a denomination is not a church but a federation of churches, and that each of these churches is self-governing by a body of elders chosen out of the congregation. The PRC holds that God has given the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Mat 16:18, which is understood as granting authority for the preaching the gospel, and the exercise of church discipline) to the instituted church, not the denomination. Thus in the PRC only an instituted church can place an individual or a church officer under discipline. The PRC denies that a meeting of Classis or Synod has the authority to do this, though they may advise a congregation to do so.

At the same time the PRC maintains the binding authority of the decisions of the broader assemblies. Individuals and congregations must submit to these decisions if they are going to remain in the denomination, and if an individual congregation refuses to do so, the broader assembly has the authority to declare that congregation to be outside the federation of churches.

Only male members who have made a public confession of faith and are in good standing may vote for church officers or be ordained.

Churches and missions

The PRC has around thirty member churches scattered throughout the United States and in Canada. A majority of the churches in the United States are located in western Michigan but there are also churches in the midwestern and western United States. The PRC has few formal relationships with most reformed denominations and organizations, although in recent years, the PRC has developed relationships with two churches in Singapore, a small fellowship in New Zealand, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Australia, a small sister church in Northern Ireland which was founded with the help of the PRC, and the Protestant Reformed Churches in Myanmar.

The PRC has also developed contacts in India, Germany, Eastern Europe, and Russia.fact|date=July 2008 Currently, the PRC is engaged in missions in a few locations in the United States and in Canada, and they have recently organized a church in the Philippines. In 2005, the Synod of the PRC closed the denomination's missionary field work in Ghana, due to a lack of membership.

Organizations

*Protestant Reformed Theological School - the seminary of the PRC, located in Grandville, Michigan.
*Reformed Free Publishing Association - publisher of theological and other Christian books by PRC authors and of a semi-monthly magazine "The Standard Bearer", located in Jenison, Michigan
*The Reformed Witness Hour - a radio broadcast sponspored by the PRC.

References

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External links

* [http://www.prca.org Unofficial homepage of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America]
* [http://rfpa.org/Scripts/default.asp Reformed Free Publishing Association]