The United Church of Christ was founded in 1957 by the joining of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Church. These two denominations were likewise the result of mergers in the 1930s of the Evangelical Synod with the Reformed Church, and of the Congregational Church with the Christian Church. The present United Church of Christ includes German-rooted Evangelical and Reformed churches, Puritan Reformation-based Congregationalism, and the free-thinking spirit of the southern Christian Church.