The Heidelberg Catechism in the RCUS

More than four decades ago, I purchased a little-remembered but significant book at an antiquarian bookshop in or near South Bend, Indiana: The Heidelberg Catechism in its Newest Light, by the Rev. Prof. James I. Good, and published by the Publication and Sunday School Board of the [German] Reformed Church in the United States in 1914. Good taught at the denomination's Central Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. As I noted in a previous post about the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the RCUS eventually united with the Evangelical Synod in North America in 1934 and later with the Congregational and Christian Churches in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ. However, one group within the old RCUS remained outside the merged body in 1934 and retained the denominational name. Originally the Eureka Classis within the larger body, today it is simply called the Reformed Church in the United States, a highly confessional body holding to the Three Forms of Unity.

Good's treatment of the Catechism, at the time the denomination's sole confessional standard, is wide ranging, touching on its authors, its history, and its global influence. Included are illustrations of the frontispiece of the Catechism in several languages, such as German, Latin, French, Greek, Lithuanian, Bohemian (i.e., Czech), and even Tamil, Amharic, and Arabic. Towards the end of the book, Good offers this observation about the relevance of the Catechism for the then current efforts towards greater Protestant church unity:

The Heidelberg catechism has . . . always been looked upon as an irenical catechism; that is, one making for peace and intended to bring about church union. It is true, it does not seem to be altogether irenic, and its irenical character has often been pressed too far, we think. For it boldly declares itself, especially against three opponents,—against Unitarians and Pelagians in answers 33, 35, 62, 63 and 114; against Romanism in answers 30, 57, 62, 63, 64, 80, 95 and 98, and against the high-Lutherans, with their new doctrine of ubiquity in answers 47, 48, 76 and 78. But true irenics will never give up fundamentals and the catechism is right there. Present-day irenics often goes [sic] too far, so far as to imperil the whole cause of church-union, because it blurs out all differences and gives a composite creed as meaningless as a composite picture. Much irenics now is only syllabub and gives us a creed of the jelly-fish variety. The Heidelberg catechism is truly irenic, for it holds to fundamentals, and yet is favorable to union. It gives us a solid foundation on which to base our union (286-287).

Good, it seems, was one of the more confessional members of the former RCUS. He was not averse to church union, but he wanted to see it take place on as firm as possible a foundation, and he believed that the Catechism provided such. Sad to say, in the successor bodies, the emphasis on any creedal foundation considerably softened in the ensuing decades, leaving a very much diminished denomination in its wake. Yet its members' cousins in the continuing RCUS carry on, if on a small scale, across the United States, but especially in the Great Plains states.