Portal:Reformed Christianity

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The Reformed Christianity Portal

Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, a schism in the Western Church. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregational traditions, as well as parts of the Anglican (known as "Episcopal" in some regions) and Baptist traditions.

Reformed theology emphasizes the authority of the Bible and the sovereignty of God, as well as covenant theology, a framework for understanding the Bible based on God's covenants with people. Reformed churches have emphasized simplicity in worship. Several forms of ecclesiastical polity are exercised by Reformed churches, including presbyterian, congregational, and some episcopal. Articulated by John Calvin, the Reformed faith holds to a spiritual (pneumatic) presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper.

Emerging in the 16th century, the Reformed tradition developed over several generations, especially in Switzerland, Scotland and the Netherlands. In the seventeenth century, Jacobus Arminius and the Remonstrants were expelled from the Dutch Reformed Church over disputes regarding predestination and salvation, and from that time Arminians are usually considered to be a distinct tradition from the Reformed. This dispute produced the Canons of Dort, the basis for the "doctrines of grace" also known as the "five points" of Calvinism. (Full article...)

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John Knox (c. 1510 – 24 November 1572) was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation and he is considered the founder of the Presbyterian denomination. He was educated at the University of St Andrews and worked as a notary-priest. Influenced by early church reformers such as George Wishart, he joined the movement to reform the Scottish church. He was caught up in the ecclesiastical and political events that involved the murder of Cardinal Beaton in 1546 and the intervention of the regent of Scotland. He was taken prisoner by French forces the following year and exiled to England on his release in 1549.

When Mary Tudor ascended the throne and reestablished Roman Catholicism, Knox was forced to resign his position and leave the country. Knox first moved to Geneva and then to Frankfurt. On his return to Scotland, he led the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, in partnership with the Scottish Protestant nobility. Knox helped write the new confession of faith and the ecclesiastical order for the newly created reformed church, the Kirk. He continued to serve as the religious leader of the Protestants throughout Mary's reign. In several interviews with the queen, Knox admonished her for supporting Roman practices. Eventually, when she was imprisoned and James VI enthroned in her stead, he openly attacked her in sermons. He continued to preach until his final days.

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Image 1Early Calvinism was known for simple, unadorned churches as depicted in this 1661 portrait of the interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 2Moses Amyraut formulated Amyraldism, a modified Calvinist theology regarding the nature of Jesus' atonement. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 3The Shield of the Trinity diagrams the classic doctrine of the Trinity. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 4Fall of Man by Jacob Jordaens (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 5The Directory for Public Worship described what should (and should not) occur in worship. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 6The Grote Kerk in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, c. 1665 (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 7Stephen Bocskai, leader of Hungarian Calvinists in the anti-Habsburg rebellion and first Calvinist prince of Transylvania (r. 1605–1606) (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 8The burning of the Guernsey Martyrs during the Marian persecutions in 1556 (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 9The seal of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, an early American Presbyterian church founded in 1789 (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 10Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper initiated Neo-Calvinism. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 11Calvin preached at St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 12The Parable of the Prodigal Son, depicted in a portrait by Rembrandt, illustrates forgiveness. (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 13Statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, influential theologians in developing the Reformed faith, at the Reformation Wall in Geneva (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 14A Reformed church in Koudekerk aan den Rijn in the Netherlands in the 19th century (from Reformed Christianity)
Image 15John Calvin depicted on his deathbed with church members in The last moments of Calvin, a late 19th century portrait by Lluís Domènech i Montaner (from Reformed Christianity)

Did you know...

...that for the first four decades of its existence, the altar of the Reformed Dutch Church in Bloomingburg, New York, was on the same end as the main entrance?

...that as he lay dying, the American Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen declared that there is no hope without the active obedience of Christ?