Happy 150th, CRC!
Scott Hoezee, Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary
The Banner
July 2007

Our story begins in the Netherlands of the 19th century, where the Reformed church traced its origins back to the Protestant Reformation and, more specifically, to the theology of John Calvin. Reformed Christians celebrate the sovereign grace of God in creation and redemption even as each believer revels in the comfort that comes, as the Heidelberg Catechism summarizes it, by knowing that “I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”

By the early 1800s the Reformed church in the Netherlands had essentially become the official state church. But as the government exercised more influence over the church and its worship practices, some Dutch Christians became uneasy.

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