Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated)

The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) () are a Protestant denomination that holds to an orthodox view of Neo-Calvinist doctrine. The church arose in 1944 out of the so-called Liberation (), when it separated from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. Prof. Dr. Klaas Schilder played an important role in the Liberation. There are currently 270 affiliated local congregations with a total of 125,253 members (1 October 2007).

Name

After the Liberation the church maintained that they were the legitimate continuation of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and thus adopted that name (Dutch Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland). However, because the denomination from which they had separated continued using that name, the addition "liberated" was used colloquially, although never officially, to distinguish the new denomination. Members of the Liberated church referred to the denomination from which they separated as the synodical church, which signified the remaining members' adherence to the rulings by the National Synod against which the Liberated churches protested. An older name for the Reformed Churches (Liberated) was Article 31 Churches in reference to one of the articles in the Church Order at the centre of the dispute between the two groups.

Organisation and government

The Reformed Churches (Liberated) are presbyterian in organisation, with strong emphasis on the authority vested in each congregation. Local...
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