Reformed Church in America - History

History

The RCA began in 1628. The early settlers in the Dutch colony of New Netherland held informal meetings for worship until Jonas Michaelius organized the first Dutch Reformed congregation in New Amsterdam, now New York City, in 1628 called the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, now the Marble Collegiate Church. During Dutch rule, the Reformed Church was the established church of the colony and was under the authority of the classis of Amsterdam.

Even after the British captured the colony in 1664, all Dutch Reformed ministers were still trained in the Netherlands, and services in the Reformed Church remained in the Dutch language until 1764. (Dutch language use faded thereafter until the new wave of Dutch immigration in the mid-19th century, which prompted a temporary revival of it.) In 1747, the church in the Netherlands gave permission to form an assembly in America which in 1754 declared itself independent of the classis of Amsterdam. This American classis secured a charter in 1766 for Queens College (now Rutgers University) in New Jersey. The appointment in 1784 of John Henry Livingston as professor of theology marked the beginning of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

The Dutch-speaking community prospered in the former New Netherland as farmers and traders, dominating New York CIty, the Hudson Valley and parts of New Jersey and maintaining a significant presence in southeastern Pennsylvania, southwestern Connecticut, and Long Island.

In the early 18th century, nearly 3,000 Palatine German refugees came to New York. Most worked first in English camps along the Hudson River to pay off their passage (paid by Queen Anne's government) before they were allowed land in the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys. There they created numerous German-speaking Lutheran and Reformed churches, such as those at Fort Herkimer and German Flatts. They used German as the language in their churches and schools for nearly 100 years and recruited some of their ministers from Germany. By the early 20th century, most of their churches had joined the RCA.

During the American Revolution a bitter internal struggle broke out in the Dutch church, with lines of division which followed ecclesiastical battles that had gone on for twenty years between the "coetus" and "conferentie" factions. One source indicates that defections may have occurred as early as 1737. 'Desolation pervaded many of the churches, whereas prior to 1737 good order was maintained in the churches, and peace and a good degree of prosperity were enjoyed. ...But in 1754, the Coetus of the previous year, having recommended the changing of the Coetus into a Classis with full powers, the opposition became violent, and the opponents were known as the Conferentie.' A spirit of amnesty made possible the church's survival after the war. The divisiveness was also healed when the church immersed itself in an intensive foreign missions program in the early 19th century.

In 1792, a formal constitution was adopted; in 1794 the Reformed Church held its first general synod; and in 1867 formally adopted the name "Reformed Church in America". In the nineteenth century, in New York and New Jersey, the descendants of the original Dutch settlers struggled to preserve their European standards and traditions while developing a taste for revivalism and an American identity.