Christianity is more than a religious experience or a sense of the divine, it involves faith in the truth of Scripture. This truth is communicated to us in a variety of ways in the Bible, but the result is a body of teachings which provide the content of what we believe.
Our Primary Standard—the Bible
We place our trust and faith in Christ alone: in his person, work, and Word. The Bible and it alone, as the Word of Christ, is our final standard for all that we believe and do. It is inspired of God and therefore the absolute authority as truth; inerrant and infallible in all matters, including history and science. The whole counsel of God in Scripture is our standard in every area of life and thought.
Our Subordinate Confessional Standards
When asked, “What does the Bible teach?” or “How do you interpret it?” we respond with a unified voice by referring to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed church which summarize the message of Scripture.
Our statement of faith includes the Apostle’s Creed as well as the historic confession of the churches of the Reformation. We affirm and teach that system of doctrine which is set forth in the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. These three doctrinal statements, born of the Protestant Reformation, define what it means to be “reformed.”
The following list of documents are the subordinate standards of our church. They include three creeds of orthodoxy from the early church and three confessional statements from the time of the Reformation (The Three Forms of Unity).
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The Apostles’ Creed
- The Nicene Creed
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The Athanasian Creed
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The Heidelberg Catechism
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The Belgic Confession
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The Canons of Dort
The Consitution of our denomination states,
The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are called canonical, being recognized as genuine and inspired, are received as the true and proper Word of God, infallible and inerrant, and the ultimate rule and measure of the whole Christian faith and doctrine (Article 176).
The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession of Faith, and the Canons of Dort are received as authoritative expressions of the truths taught in the Holy Scriptures, and are acknowledged to be the subordinate standards of doctrine in the Reformed Church in the United States (Article 177).
(RCUS Constitution, Part IV. Doctrine and Worship, Section 1, Doctrine)
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