Church union was facilitated by the fact that both the Evangelical and the Reformed churches had roots in German Protestantism. As immigrants from GERMANY and SWITZERLAND came to America they founded congregations where they settled, the Reformed immigrants largely in the Central Atlantic region and those who would create the Evangelical church in the Mid-west. Eventually, the congregations within each of these traditions joined together and new denominations were founded. The SYNOD of the German Reformed Church in the United States of America was created in 1793, nearly a century after the first German Reformed congregations were gathered. Mirroring the union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia (see PRUSSIAN UNION), pastors of Lutheran and Reformed traditions in the UNITED STATES met in St. Louis, Missouri in 1840 to found the German Evangelical Church Society of the West, the first united church in U.S. history.
Both churches grew in number and expanded geographically, although they remained largely regional institutions. As they grew, each church changed its name to reflect its broader membership. Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the Evangelical Synod of North America and the Reformed Church in the United States that began to discuss church union. By 1918 the Reformed Church had developed a plan for uniting all churches in the Reformed tradition. In 1925 the Evangelical church began official negotiations with other denominations toward organic union.
Although other Reformed denominations, such as the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA, were a part of initial discussions, the final parties in the negotiations were the Evangelical Synod of North America and the Reformed Church in the United States. After six years of negotiating, a Plan of Union was approved by the Reformed church in 1932–1933 and the Evangelical church in 1933. On June 26, 1934, a union celebration was held and the Evangelical and Reformed Church officially came into existence.
The Plan of Union, the document in church mergers that usually spells out both the ideological terms of the agreement and the mechanics of the process, was unique. It emphasized faith and common belief as the basis for union. The institutional nature of the church was left to be worked out after the union. Protestantism had been created upon and distinguished by concern for doctrinal points and church governance. In the Evangelical and Reformed merger, however, a common faith and belief were assumed. No single statement of faith or creed was designated as author-itative in E & R churches, although all of the historic creeds of both churches were recognized as important, such as the AUGSBURG CONFESSION and HEIDELBERG CATECHISM. Emphasis was placed on looking to the Scriptures first to define Christian faith and life, and to the creeds secondarily. In both it was acknowledged that individual interpretation was appropriate and would create a range of understandings.
Once the union was enacted a committee was created to write a constitution for the new church, including a definition of its form of government. Because the polities, the governmental forms, of the two merging churches were quite different (the Evangelical church being more centralized and the Reformed church based more on congregational autonomy), it was not an easy process. After four years a hybrid polity combining some presbyterian traits and some congregational traits was agreed upon. The Constitution and bylaws were adopted in 1938 and took effect in 1940.
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