RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Reformed (German) Church
Schneider as missionary at Broosa, later at Aintab, in Asia Minor, under the American Board of Foreign Missions. This continued till 1866. In 1879 the first missionary was sent 3. Statistics to Japan and in 1900 to China (cf. H. and K. Miller, History of the Japan Mis-
Agencies. sion, 1904). The church had (in 1908) 1,170 ministers, 1,681 congregations, 288,271 communicants, 1,716 Sunday-schools, 25,333 Sunday-school teachers and officers, 232,746 Sunday-school scholars, and 221 students for the ministry. The contributions for congregational expenses were $1,886,610, and for benevolence $403,779.
The first theological school was founded at Carlisle, 1825. This was removed to York in 1829, and to Mercersburg in 1836. Its classical school, begun 1831, grew into Marshall College, 1836, removed in 1853 to Lancaster and united with Franklin College to form Franklin and Marshall College. The theological seminary was removed to Lancaster in 1871. In Ohio efforts were made to found a theological school at Canton (1838), then at Columbus (1848), but no permanent school was founded till in 1850, when Heidelberg College and Theological Seminary were founded at Tiffin, Ohio. The latter was united with IJrsinus School of Theology in 1907 to form Central Theological Seminary, located at Dayton, Ohio, 1908. A German Mission house was founded in 1870 at Franklin, Wis., where there is now a college and theological seminary. Other colleges are Catawba College, Newton, N. C; Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa. (with theological department removed to Philadelphia, 1898-1907) . Female colleges are Allentown Female College, Allentown, Pa., Woman's College, Frederick, Md., and Claremont Female College, Hickory, N. C. Preparatory schools are Mercersburg College, Mercersburg, Pa.; Massanutten Academy, Woodstock, Va., and Interior Academy, Dakota, 111. The church has orphans' homes at Womelsdorf, Pa., Greenville, Pa. (formerly Butler, Pa.), Fort Wayne, Ind., and Crescent, N. O; also deaconess homes at Alliance, Allentown, and Cleveland. It publishes twelve church papers in English, German, and Hungarian, and sixteen Sunday-school publications.
II. Doctrine, Worship, and Government: The Reformed Church was in language allied to the Lutheran Church, being German (although probably about three-fourths now use English at the church services). But otherwise it was allied historically with the Calvinistic family of churches and is a member of the Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System. Its early ministers (1725-92) adopted the Calvinistic creeds of Holland, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. When the church became independent of Holland, it adopted as its standard only the German creed, the Heidelberg Catechism. Certain tendencies toward a diminished Calvinism appeared with even some traces of Arminianism, though the church in the main was Calvinistic. But many preferred to be called Zwinglian rather than Calvinistic. In 1840, when J. W. Nevin was called from the Presbyterian Church to be professor of theology at Mercersburg, it was looked upon as cementing the
ties with the other Calvinistic churches. But the Mercersburg theology departed from the earlier system in claiming to be neither Calvinistic nor Arminian but Christocentric. It emphasized, however, what it conceived to be Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, though this was denied by the opponents of Mercersburg theology. It was claimed for the Mercersburg theology that it held to the " spiritual real presence " while the old Reformed held to the real spiritual presence as against an imaginary presence or no presence of Christ at all at the Lord's Supper. Mercersburg theology emphasized the objective efficacy of the sacraments and also the objective in the visible Church. Within the last twenty years there has arisen a reaction against these High-church views in a more liberal school of theology, the leader of which was the late William Rupp of the Lancaster Theological Seminary, which is inclined toward Broad-church positions. On worship the church has been semiliturgical, that is, its Sabbath worship was free, but its services for sacraments, marriage, and ordinations were prescribed in a liturgy. For over a century the Palatinate liturgy was used by the ministers. No liturgy was officially published by the synod till the Mayer liturgy of 1841, which has services only for sacraments and the like, but none for Sabbath worship. A small liturgy, based on the Palatine, was published by the Ohio synod (1832), but it also had no forms for the Sabbath services. Coincident with the rise of Mercersburg theology there was a development of liturgical worship for the Lord's Day services also. A provisional liturgy was published and later the order of worship was introduced into many of the eastern congregations; but the western and German part of the church retain the free services. Baptism is by sprinkling and the Lord's Supper is generally celebrated by the communicants coming forward to and standing at the chancel. Confirmation is practised as a public act of confession of faith. In worship, the congregations usually sit during the hymns and stand during prayer. In government the church is Presbyterian, having as its courts, rising in their order, congregation, consistory, classis, synod, and general synod. Historically its government has been more democratic than that of the Presbyterian Church in this country, its congregations reserving more rights. The Mercersburg party, with its high idea of worship, also urged higher ideas of government and thus emphasized aristocratic Presbyterianism. They stressed the authority of the higher church courts while the Old Reformed party emphasized the liberty of lower church courts. The church, however, is a synodical organization rather than a general-synod organization, as its synods reserve certain important rights, such as the founding of theological seminaries. But latterly the general synod has been gaining in authority as the general activities of the church in home and foreign missions, Sunday-school work, ministerial relief, and the like are being centered in it. The general synod meets once in three years. James I. Good.
Bibliography: On tha history: J. I. Good, The Origin of the Reformed Church in Germany, Reading, Pa., 1887; idem, History of the Reformed Church in Germany, 1680— 1890, ib. 1894; idem, Historic Handbook of the Reformed
Reformed (Hungarian) Church Regale