In the closing decades of the twentieth century, the CRC exhibited growing numbers of characteristics that were troubling to the conservative members of its constituancy, especially its 1995 decision to ordain women to ministerial positions. As a result of this decision, the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church broke fraternal relations with the CRC in 1997. The membership of the CRC in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, the single largest gathering of conservative Reformed denominations in the United States, was suspended in 1999 and terminated in 2001. The gradual moderating movement of the denomination spurred more conservative congregations to leave, and a significant number of them wound up in either the PCA, OPC, or the United Reformed Church mentioned above.
History: Many members of the ChristianReformedChurch in the Netherlands (a group founded after members seceded from the ReformedChurch of the Netherlands) immigrated to the United States in 1847 after enduring severe famine and religious persecution in their native country (Melton, 302).
The church practices a theology based upon the ideas of John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and other leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland (this being a sister movement to the German Reformation of which Martin Luther was the primary leader) (Lippy and Williams, 511).
The CRC also holds fast to the doctrines found in the Belgic Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), and the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618-1619) (Lippy and Williams, 516).
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