The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA or CRC) is a Protestant Christian denomination which follows Reformed Calvinist theology. The church was founded by Dutch immigrants in the late 1800s. Its churches are predominately in areas of heavy Dutch settlement in western Michigan, near Chicago, British Columbia, Ontario and in Iowa. The denomination has about 1,000 congregations and developing congregations located in the United States and Canada. There are over 275,000 members of the denomination. The church has grown more ethnicly diverse with some congregations predominately Native American, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, African-American and Hispanic but very few churches significantly integrated.
The Christian Reformed Church split from the Reformed Church in America in a theological dispute that originated in the Netherlands. Some churches merged with the CRC - the True Protestant Dutch Reformed Church in 1890. Other churches later split from the CRC including the Protestant Reformed Church (1924) and the United Reformed Churches in North America (1990s).
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.
The denomination has close ties to Calvin College and runs Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the denomination's North American headquarters are located. Other colleges associated with the denomination are Trinity Christian College, Dordt College, Reformed Bible College , Redeemer University College, King's University College , and the post-graduate Institute for Christian Studies.
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