The Christian Reformed Church calls itself Christian because it forms one small part of Christ’s church on earth. It recognizes as fellow-Christians all people who accept the teachings of the Bible as they are summarized so beautifully in the Apostles’ Creed. This includes believers from many denominations such as Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Pentecostal. We may disagree with these believers on some practices or teachings. But we recognize them as sisters and brothers in Christ if they believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and if they confess that Jesus died for their sins, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven.

Together with other Protestant churches, the Christian Reformed Church teaches that:

• The Bible is our only reliable guide to what we should believe and how we should conduct our lives (2 Tim. 3:14-17). It is God’s unfailing Word to us. It shows us who God is by telling us the great things God has done. The Bible leads us to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
• God saves us by grace, by his acts of kindness and love that we do not deserve. Our own efforts cannot rescue us from sin. Only Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross can make us right with God (Eph. 2:8-10). The good we do is the result of our salvation, not its cause.
• We can be saved only by faith in Jesus Christ (John 3:16-18).

The Christian Reformed Church calls itself Reformed because it stands in the tradition of the Reformed Churches. These churches follow the teachings of the sixteenth-century church reformed by John Calvin. Calvin struggled valiantly to return Christianity back to its biblical roots. Christian Reformed Church teachings are closely akin to Presbyterian and other Reformed churches, and it enjoys solid relationships with many of them.