On behalf of your Christian brothers and sisters, welcome to the homepage of the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America.
Our calling is to live out the mandate of our Lord known as the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations. It is our conviction that we serve the Risen Lord; the One who empowers His people to spread His worship and glory across the nations and through the generations among those who consider themselves classically evangelical, reformed, and vitally connected to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We welcome you to join us on the journey.
+Chuck Huckaby
Bishop
Reformed Evangelical Synod of America
This statement is not so much a creed as an expression of desire for unity within the Body of Christ. It has been popularly attributed to Augustine of Hippo, but is not found in his writings. It has been quoted by a dizzying variety of Christians for centuries in varying forms.
Recent research shows its first usage in the Germanic lands during the 1620’s, where it served as a common rallying cry for peacefully-disposed divines of both the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in that land. The first definitive printed use that scholarship can demonstrate to us today comes from the writing of an orthodox Lutheran divine named Rupertus Meldenius who wasn’t known to be a supporter of ecclesiastical union, but who did manifest an anxiousness for the peace within the church and zealousness for practical scriptural piety in place of the dry and barren scholasticism of his time. It was also embraced in England by moderates, including Richard Baxter (a Puritan). Wesley seemed to speak in a similar vein, and the Stone-Campbell ‘Restoration Movement’ also embraced the concept. In the twentieth century, even Pope John XXIII used the phrase in his first encyclical, Ad Petri cathedram.
Regardless of the origins of the statement, its sentiments ring true. We shall find Christian unity by holding fast to the essential truths of the faith, allowing diversity in matters which are not specifically laid-out on Scripture and the unified historical witness of the Church, and by having love for all people in all situations, regardless of how deeply we may disagree over things. Sadly, this idealistic concept rarely finds a home among even the most strident defenders of this teaching, and we should daily pray that it may not be so with us.
Unity in essentials.
Diversity in matters of doubt.
Love in all things.
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