Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | CREC |
Classification | Protestant |
Orientation | Reformed |
Theology | Evangelical |
Polity | Presbyterian |
Presiding minister | Uri Brito |
Region | |
Origin | 1998 |
Congregations | 130+ (2024) |
Other name(s) | Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches |
Official website | crechurches |
The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), formerly the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches,[1] was founded in 1998 as a body of churches that hold to Reformed (Calvinistic) theology.[2] Member churches include those from Presbyterian, Reformed, and Reformed Baptist backgrounds. The CREC has over a hundred member churches in the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Belarus, Poland, Brazil, Jersey, and the Czech Republic.[3] These are organised into nine presbyteries, named after figures in church history: Anselm, Athanasius, Augustine, Bucer, Hus, Knox, Kuyper, Tyndale, and Wycliffe.
The denomination was started in 1998 as the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals (CRE).[4][5] It changed its name to the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches in 2004,[6] and then, in 2011, to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.[7]
The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches holds to classic Calvinism (as promulgated in the Westminster Standards, Three Forms of Unity, and 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith), but on some doctrines in which Calvinists differ, (e.g., the Federal Vision, paedocommunion, and paedobaptism) the CREC allows each church to decide its own stance. The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches allows member churches to hold to any of the following historic confessions:
The CREC rejects both modernism and fundamentalism.[9] It has published a number of "memorials", which among other things affirm Young Earth creationism, deprecate government schooling, and reject women serving in the military.[10] While non-partisan, CREC churches are “uniformly hostile to the leftist agenda”.[11]
Churches in CREC generally practise covenant renewal worship.[11]