Various factors gave impetus to the Americanization of the CRCNA. Internally, there was the phenomenon that all immigrant groups are familiar with: the birth of generations who no longer felt the attachment to the "old world," but who felt that maintaining those ties alienated them from their own homeland. The children of the immigrants spoke English as their native language, were proud to be Americans, and felt that their church should take its place in society. Added to this was the press of American life which forced its ways into the previously isolated communities as the "frontier" became more populated and new technologies in travel (trains and automobiles) and communication ( telegraphs and telephones) drastically reduced distances between population centers. Progressive Pietists and Positive Calvinists alike urged the churches to come out of the isolationist shell and be salt and light in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Externally, perhaps the largest factor in pressuring the CRC out of isolation and "Dutchness" was the advent of World War I. It should be noted that many rightly feared the end of the community's isolation and the increasing prevalence of materialism and licentiousness in North American society. However, when 100 American lives were lost by the German sinking of the Lusitania, a crisis situation developed in which Dutch Americans, whose language closely resembled German ("Dutch" vs. "Deutsch") and was sometimes confused with it. There was also a German-Reformed presence in the western part of the CRC which had led to the establishment of a college and seminary in Grundy Center, Iowa. Suspicious Americans actually burned down the CRC church and Christian school in Peoria, Iowa. And so, the members of the CRC were forced to come to terms with their loyalties. Some states enacted laws which virtually persecuted German- or Dutch-speaking churches and required as a sign of patriotism that they conduct all their affairs in English. American sentiment was largely pro-British and anti-German, though the Dutch immigrants tended to condemn Britain because of their conduct of the Boer War in South Africa. But as America entered the war in 1917, a clear choice was forced upon the CRC community, and patriotism became the order of the day. While the antithetical neo-Calvinists for a time condemned the war and chided the thinking of Wilson that this could be a "war to end all wars," and the pietists decried the human depravity that caused war in the first place, a tide of loyalty and sense of pride in the role the U.S. might play internationally began to rise and churches proudly displayed the U.S. flag in their sanctuaries (those that refused did so to their peril, and the practice is still common in the CRC today) and sent their youth to the front as true Americans.

These internal and external factors helped the CRC to stand more on its own as an independent, American denomination. In the decade of the 1920's, the church shifted decisively towards the use of the English language. While in 1915, only 17 of the 223 churches used only English, 1932 was the last year a report was presented to synod in Dutch. As long as immigration continued, there were still pockets of Dutch language services and an audience for De Wachter. But the future course was now unmistakable.

GROWTH OF THE C.R.C.N.A. (from Bratt, pp. 222-223)