Protestant church in the United States, organized in 1934 by uniting the Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Synod of North America. The church brought together churches of Reformed and Lutheran background. It accepted the Heidelberg Catechism (Reformed), Luther's Catechism, and the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) as its doctrinal standards, but, when these differed, the Bible was the final rule of faith. In 1957 the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ. Membership at that time was about 800,000. The merger was unusual because of the presbyterian form of government of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the congregational form of the larger body