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Calvinism

Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity,[1] or simply Reformed[2]) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible.

Statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox at the International Monument to the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland. They were among the most influential theologians that helped develop the Reformed tradition.

Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. Calvinists differ from Lutherans (another major branch of the Reformation) on the spiritual real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, theories of worship, the purpose and meaning of baptism, and the use of God's law for believers, among other points.[3][4] The label Calvinism can be misleading, because the religious tradition it denotes has always been diverse, with a wide range of influences rather than a single founder; however, almost all of them drew heavily from the writings of Augustine of Hippo twelve hundred years prior to the Reformation.[5]

The namesake and founder of the movement, French reformer John Calvin, embraced Protestant beliefs in the late 1520s or early 1530s, as the earliest notions of later Reformed tradition were already espoused by Huldrych Zwingli. The movement was first called Calvinism in the early 1550s by Lutherans who opposed it. Many in the tradition find it either a nondescript or inappropriate term and prefer the term Reformed.[6][2] The most important Reformed theologians include Calvin, Zwingli, Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, and John Knox. In the twentieth century, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Louis Berkhof, Karl Barth, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Cornelius Van Til, R. C. Sproul, and J. I. Packer were influential. Contemporary Reformed theologians include Albert Mohler, John MacArthur, Tim Keller, John Piper, Joel Beeke, and Michael Horton.

The Reformed tradition is largely represented by the Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, Evangelical Anglican, Congregationalist, and Reformed Baptist denominations. Several forms of ecclesiastical polity are exercised by a group of Reformed churches, including presbyterian, congregationalist, and some episcopal. The biggest Reformed association is the World Communion of Reformed Churches, with more than 100 million members in 211 member denominations around the world.[7][8] More conservative Reformed federations include the World Reformed Fellowship and the International Conference of Reformed Churches.

Etymology

Calvinism is named after John Calvin and was first used by a Lutheran theologian in 1552. Even though a common practice of the Roman Catholic Church was to name what it viewed as heresy after its founder, the term originated in Lutheran circles. Calvin denounced the designation himself:

They could attach us no greater insult than this word, Calvinism. It is not hard to guess where such a deadly hatred comes from that they hold against me.

— John Calvin, Leçons ou commentaires et expositions sur les révélations du prophète Jeremie, 1565[9]

Despite its negative connotation, this designation became increasingly popular in order to distinguish Calvinists from Lutherans and newer Protestant branches that emerged later. The vast majority of churches that trace their history back to Calvin (including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other Calvinist churches) do not use it themselves because the designation "Reformed" is more generally accepted and preferred, especially in the English-speaking world. These churches claim to be—in accordance with John Calvin's own words—"renewed accordingly with the true order of gospel".

Since the Arminian controversy, the Reformed tradition—as a branch of Protestantism distinguished from Lutheranism—divided into two groups: Arminians and Calvinists.[10][11] However, it is now rare to call Arminians a part of the Reformed tradition, with the majority of Arminians today being members of the Methodist Churches, General Baptist Churches or Pentecostal churches. While the Reformed theological tradition addresses all of the traditional topics of Christian theology, the word Calvinism is sometimes used to refer to particular Calvinist views on soteriology and predestination, which are summarized in part by the Five Points of Calvinism. Some have also argued that Calvinism as a whole stresses the sovereignty or rule of God in all things including salvation.

History

 
Calvin preached at St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva

The first wave of reformist theologians include Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), Martin Bucer (1491–1551), Wolfgang Capito (1478–1541), John Oecolampadius (1482–1531), and Guillaume Farel (1489 – 1565). While from diverse academic backgrounds, their work already contained key themes within Reformed theology, especially the priority of scripture as a source of authority. Scripture was also viewed as a unified whole, which led to a covenantal theology of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as visible signs of the covenant of grace. Another shared perspective was their denial of the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Each understood salvation to be by grace alone and affirmed a doctrine of unconditional election, the teaching that some people are chosen by God to be saved. Martin Luther and his successor, Philipp Melanchthon were significant influences on these theologians, and to a larger extent, those who followed. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, also known as sola fide,[12] was a direct inheritance from Luther.[13]

The second generation featured John Calvin (1509–1564), Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563), Peter Martyr Vermigli (1500–1562), and Andreas Hyperius (1511–1564). Written between 1536 and 1539, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion was one of the most influential works of the era.[14] Toward the middle of the 16th century, these beliefs were formed into one consistent creed, which would shape the future definition of the Reformed faith. The 1549 Consensus Tigurinus unified Zwingli and Bullinger's memorialist theology of the Eucharist, which taught that it was simply a reminder of Christ's death, with Calvin's view of it as a means of grace with Christ actually present, though spiritually rather than bodily as in Catholic doctrine. The document demonstrates the diversity as well as unity in early Reformed theology, giving it a stability that enabled it to spread rapidly throughout Europe. This stands in marked contrast to the bitter controversy experienced by Lutherans prior to the 1579 Formula of Concord.[15]

Due to Calvin's missionary work in France, his programme of reform eventually reached the French-speaking provinces of the Netherlands. Calvinism was adopted in the Electorate of the Palatinate under Frederick III, which led to the formulation of the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563. This and the Belgic Confession were adopted as confessional standards in the first synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1571. In 1573, William the Silent joined the Calvinist Church. Calvinism was declared the official religion of the Kingdom of Navarre by the queen regnant Jeanne d'Albret after her conversion in 1560. Leading divines, either Calvinist or those sympathetic to Calvinism, settled in England, including Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Jan Łaski, as did John Knox in Scotland. During the First English Civil War, English and Scots Presbyterians produced the Westminster Confession, which became the confessional standard for Presbyterians in the English-speaking world. Having established itself in Europe, the movement continued to spread to areas including North America, South Africa and Korea.[16]

While Calvin did not live to see the foundation of his work grow into an international movement, his death allowed his ideas to spread far beyond their city of origin and their borders and to establish their own distinct character.[17]

Spread

 
Early Calvinism was known for simple, unadorned churches, as shown in this 1661 painting of the interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam

Although much of Calvin's work was in Geneva, his publications spread his ideas of a correctly Reformed church to many parts of Europe. In Switzerland, some cantons are still Reformed, and some are Catholic. Calvinism became the dominant doctrine within the Church of Scotland, the Dutch Republic, some communities in Flanders, and parts of Germany, especially those adjacent to the Netherlands in the Palatinate, Kassel and Lippe, spread by Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus among others. Protected by the local nobility, Calvinism became a significant religion in Eastern Hungary and Hungarian-speaking areas of Transylvania. Today there are about 3.5 million Hungarian Reformed people worldwide.[18]

It was influential in France, Lithuania and Poland before being mostly erased during the Counter Reformation. In Poland, a faction called the Polish Brethren broke away from Calvinism on January 22, 1556, when Piotr of Goniądz, a Polish student, spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity during the general synod of the Reformed churches of Poland held in the village of Secemin.[19] Calvinism gained some popularity in Scandinavia, especially Sweden, but was rejected in favor of Lutheranism after the Synod of Uppsala in 1593.[20]

 
Abandoned Calvinist church in Łapczyna Wola, Poland

Many 17th century European settlers in the North America were Calvinist in doctrine, who emigrated because of arguments over church structure, like the Pilgrim Fathers, or were forced into exile, such as the French Huguenots. Dutch and French Calvinist settlers were also among the first European colonizers of South Africa, beginning in the 17th century, who became known as Boers or Afrikaners.

Sierra Leone was largely colonized by Calvinist settlers from Nova Scotia, many of whom were Black Loyalists who fought for the British Empire during the American War of Independence. John Marrant had organized a congregation there under the auspices of the Huntingdon Connection. Some of the largest Calvinist communions were started by 19th- and 20th-century missionaries. Especially large are those in Indonesia, Korea and Nigeria. In South Korea there are 20,000 Presbyterian congregations with about 9–10 million church members, scattered in more than 100 Presbyterian denominations. In South Korea, Presbyterianism is the largest Christian denomination.[21]

A 2011 report of the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life estimated that members of Presbyterian or Reformed churches make up 7% of the estimated 801 million Protestants globally, or approximately 56 million people.[22] Though the broadly defined Reformed faith is much larger, as it constitutes Congregationalist (0.5%), most of the United and uniting churches (unions of different denominations) (7.2%) and most likely some of the other Protestant denominations (38.2%). All three are distinct categories from Presbyterian or Reformed (7%) in this report.

 
Calvinist church in Semarang, Indonesia. [a]

The Reformed family of churches is one of the largest Christian denominations. According to adherents.com the Reformed/Presbyterian/Congregational/United churches represent 75 million believers worldwide.[24]

The World Communion of Reformed Churches, which includes some United Churches (most of these are primarily Reformed; see Uniting and united churches for details), has 80 million believers.[25] WCRC is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.[24]

Many conservative Reformed churches which are strongly Calvinistic formed the World Reformed Fellowship which has about 70 member denominations. Most are not part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches because of its ecumenical attire. The International Conference of Reformed Churches is another conservative association.

Church of Tuvalu is an officially established state church in the Calvinist tradition.

Theology

Revelation and scripture

Reformed theologians believe that God communicates knowledge of himself to people through the Word of God. People are not able to know anything about God except through this self-revelation. (With the exception of general revelation of God; "His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20).) Speculation about anything which God has not revealed through his Word is not warranted. The knowledge people have of God is different from that which they have of anything else because God is infinite, and finite people are incapable of comprehending an infinite being. While the knowledge revealed by God to people is never incorrect, it is also never comprehensive.[26]

 
The seal of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, an early American Presbyterian church

According to Reformed theologians, God's self-revelation is always through his son Jesus Christ, because Christ is the only mediator between God and people. Revelation of God through Christ comes through two basic channels. The first is creation and providence, which is God's creating and continuing to work in the world. This action of God gives everyone knowledge about God, but this knowledge is only sufficient to make people culpable for their sin; it does not include knowledge of the gospel. The second channel through which God reveals himself is redemption, which is the gospel of salvation from condemnation which is punishment for sin.[27]

In Reformed theology, the Word of God takes several forms. Jesus Christ himself is the Word Incarnate. The prophecies about him said to be found in the Old Testament and the ministry of the apostles who saw him and communicated his message are also the Word of God. Further, the preaching of ministers about God is the very Word of God because God is considered to be speaking through them. God also speaks through human writers in the Bible, which is composed of texts set apart by God for self-revelation.[28] Reformed theologians emphasize the Bible as a uniquely important means by which God communicates with people. People gain knowledge of God from the Bible which cannot be gained in any other way.[29]

Reformed theologians affirm that the Bible is true, but differences emerge among them over the meaning and extent of its truthfulness.[30] Conservative followers of the Princeton theologians take the view that the Bible is true and inerrant, or incapable of error or falsehood, in every place.[31] This view is very similar to that of Catholic orthodoxy as well as modern Evangelicalism.[32] Another view, influenced by the teaching of Karl Barth and neo-orthodoxy, is found in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Confession of 1967. Those who take this view believe the Bible to be the primary source of our knowledge of God, but also that some parts of the Bible may be false, not witnesses to Christ, and not normative for today's church.[31] In this view, Christ is the revelation of God, and the scriptures witness to this revelation rather than being the revelation itself.[33]

Covenant theology

 
Fall of Man by Jacob Jordaens

Reformed theologians use the concept of covenant to describe the way God enters fellowship with people in history.[34] The concept of covenant is so prominent in Reformed theology that Reformed theology as a whole is sometimes called "covenant theology".[35] However, sixteenth and seventeenth-century theologians developed a particular theological system called "covenant theology" or "federal theology" which many conservative Reformed churches continue to affirm today.[34] This framework orders God's life with people primarily in two covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.[36]

The covenant of works is made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The terms of the covenant are that God provides a blessed life in the garden on condition that Adam and Eve obey God's law perfectly. Because Adam and Eve broke the covenant by eating the forbidden fruit, they became subject to death and were banished from the garden. This sin was passed down to all mankind because all people are said to be in Adam as a covenantal or "federal" head. Federal theologians usually infer that Adam and Eve would have gained immortality had they obeyed perfectly.[37]

A second covenant, called the covenant of grace, is said to have been made immediately following Adam and Eve's sin. In it, God graciously offers salvation from death on condition of faith in God. This covenant is administered in different ways throughout the Old and New Testaments, but retains the substance of being free of a requirement of perfect obedience.[38]

Through the influence of Karl Barth, many contemporary Reformed theologians have discarded the covenant of works, along with other concepts of federal theology. Barth saw the covenant of works as disconnected from Christ and the gospel, and rejected the idea that God works with people in this way. Instead, Barth argued that God always interacts with people under the covenant of grace, and that the covenant of grace is free of all conditions whatsoever. Barth's theology and that which follows him has been called "monocovenantal" as opposed to the "bi-covenantal" scheme of classical federal theology.[39] Conservative contemporary Reformed theologians, such as John Murray, have also rejected the idea of covenants based on law rather than grace. Michael Horton, however, has defended the covenant of works as combining principles of law and love.[40]

God

For the most part, the Reformed tradition did not modify the medieval consensus on the doctrine of God.[41] God's character is described primarily using three adjectives: eternal, infinite, and unchangeable.[42] Reformed theologians such as Shirley Guthrie have proposed that rather than conceiving of God in terms of his attributes and freedom to do as he pleases, the doctrine of God is to be based on God's work in history and his freedom to live with and empower people.[43]

 
The "Shield of the Trinity" diagrams the classic doctrine of the Trinity

Traditionally, Reformed theologians have also followed the medieval tradition going back to before the early church councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon on the doctrine of the Trinity. God is affirmed to be one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son (Christ) is held to be eternally begotten by the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and Son.[44] However, contemporary theologians have been critical of aspects of Western views here as well. Drawing on the Eastern tradition, these Reformed theologians have proposed a "social trinitarianism" where the persons of the Trinity only exist in their life together as persons-in-relationship.[44] Contemporary Reformed confessions such as the Barmen Confession and Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have avoided language about the attributes of God and have emphasized his work of reconciliation and empowerment of people.[45] Feminist theologian Letty Russell used the image of partnership for the persons of the Trinity. According to Russell, thinking this way encourages Christians to interact in terms of fellowship rather than reciprocity.[46] Conservative Reformed theologian Michael Horton, however, has argued that social trinitarianism is untenable because it abandons the essential unity of God in favor of a community of separate beings.[47]

Christ and atonement

Reformed theologians affirm the historic Christian belief that Christ is eternally one person with a divine and a human nature. Reformed Christians have especially emphasized that Christ truly became human so that people could be saved.[48] Christ's human nature has been a point of contention between Reformed and Lutheran Christology. In accord with the belief that finite humans cannot comprehend infinite divinity, Reformed theologians hold that Christ's human body cannot be in multiple locations at the same time. Because Lutherans believe that Christ is bodily present in the Eucharist, they hold that Christ is bodily present in many locations simultaneously. For Reformed Christians, such a belief denies that Christ actually became human.[49] Some contemporary Reformed theologians have moved away from the traditional language of one person in two natures, viewing it as unintelligible to contemporary people. Instead, theologians tend to emphasize Jesus' context and particularity as a first-century Jew.[50]

John Calvin and many Reformed theologians who followed him describe Christ's work of redemption in terms of three offices: prophet, priest, and king. Christ is said to be a prophet in that he teaches perfect doctrine, a priest in that he intercedes to the Father on believers' behalf and offered himself as a sacrifice for sin, and a king in that he rules the church and fights on believers' behalf. The threefold office links the work of Christ to God's work in ancient Israel.[51] Many, but not all, Reformed theologians continue to make use of the threefold office as a framework because of its emphasis on the connection of Christ's work to Israel. They have, however, often reinterpreted the meaning of each of the offices.[52] For example, Karl Barth interpreted Christ's prophetic office in terms of political engagement on behalf of the poor.[53]

Christians believe Jesus' death and resurrection makes it possible for believers to receive forgiveness for sin and reconciliation with God through the atonement. Reformed Protestants generally subscribe to a particular view of the atonement called penal substitutionary atonement, which explains Christ's death as a sacrificial payment for sin. Christ is believed to have died in place of the believer, who is accounted righteous as a result of this sacrificial payment.[54]

Sin

In Christian theology, people are created good and in the image of God but have become corrupted by sin, which causes them to be imperfect and overly self-interested.[55] Reformed Christians, following the tradition of Augustine of Hippo, believe that this corruption of human nature was brought on by Adam and Eve's first sin, a doctrine called original sin. Although earlier Christian authors taught the elements of physical death, moral weakness, and a sin propensity within original sin, Augustine was the first Christian to add the concept of inherited guilt (reatus) from Adam whereby every infant is born eternally damned and humans lack any residual ability to respond to God.[56] Reformed theologians emphasize that this sinfulness affects all of a person's nature, including their will. This view, that sin so dominates people that they are unable to avoid sin, has been called total depravity.[57] As a consequence, every one of their descendants inherited a stain of corruption and depravity. This condition, innate to all humans, is known in Christian theology as original sin. Calvin thought original sin was “a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul.” Calvin asserted people were so warped by original sin that “everything which our mind conceives, meditates, plans, and resolves, is always evil.” The depraved condition of every human being is not the result of sins people commit during their lives. Instead, before we are born, while we are in our mother's womb, “we are in God's sight defiled and polluted.” Calvin thought people were justly condemned to hell because their corrupted state is “naturally hateful to God.”[58]

In colloquial English, the term "total depravity" can be easily misunderstood to mean that people are absent of any goodness or unable to do any good. However the Reformed teaching is actually that while people continue to bear God's image and may do things that appear outwardly good, their sinful intentions affect all of their nature and actions so that they are not pleasing to God.[59] From a Calvinist viewpoint, a person who has sinned was predestined to sin, and no matter what a person does, they will go to Heaven or Hell based on that determination. There is no repenting from sin since the most evil thing is the sinner's own actions, thoughts, and words.[60]

Some contemporary theologians in the Reformed tradition, such as those associated with the PC (USA)'s Confession of 1967, have emphasized the social character of human sinfulness. These theologians have sought to bring attention to issues of environmental, economic, and political justice as areas of human life that have been affected by sin.[61]

Salvation

 
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt, based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrating forgiveness

Reformed theologians, along with other Protestants, believe salvation from punishment for sin is to be given to all those who have faith in Christ.[62] Faith is not purely intellectual, but involves trust in God's promise to save.[63] Protestants do not hold there to be any other requirement for salvation, but that faith alone is sufficient.[62]

Justification is the part of salvation where God pardons the sin of those who believe in Christ. It is historically held by Protestants to be the most important article of Christian faith, though more recently it is sometimes given less importance out of ecumenical concerns.[64] People are not on their own able even to fully repent of their sin or prepare themselves to repent because of their sinfulness. Therefore, justification is held to arise solely from God's free and gracious act.[65]

Sanctification is the part of salvation in which God makes the believer holy, by enabling them to exercise greater love for God and for other people.[66] The good works accomplished by believers as they are sanctified are considered to be the necessary outworking of the believer's salvation, though they do not cause the believer to be saved.[63] Sanctification, like justification, is by faith, because doing good works is simply living as the son of God one has become.[67]

Predestination

Reformed theologians teach that sin so affects human nature that they are unable even to exercise faith in Christ by their own will. While people are said to retain will, in that they willfully sin, they are unable not to sin because of the corruption of their nature due to original sin. Reformed Christians believe that God predestined some people to be saved and others were predestined to eternal damnation.[68] This choice by God to save some is held to be unconditional and not based on any characteristic or action on the part of the person chosen. This view is opposed to the Arminian view that God's choice of whom to save is conditional or based on his foreknowledge of who would respond positively to God.[69]

Karl Barth reinterpreted the Reformed doctrine of predestination to apply only to Christ. Individual people are only said to be elected through their being in Christ.[70] Reformed theologians who followed Barth, including Jürgen Moltmann, David Migliore, and Shirley Guthrie, have argued that the traditional Reformed concept of predestination is speculative and have proposed alternative models. These theologians claim that a properly trinitarian doctrine emphasizes God's freedom to love all people, rather than choosing some for salvation and others for damnation. God's justice towards and condemnation of sinful people is spoken of by these theologians as out of his love for them and a desire to reconcile them to himself.[71]

Five Points of Calvinism

Much attention surrounding Calvinism focuses on the "Five Points of Calvinism" (also called the doctrines of grace).[72] The five points have been summarized under the acrostic TULIP.[73] The five points are popularly said to summarize the Canons of Dort; however, there is no historical relationship between them, and some scholars argue that their language distorts the meaning of the Canons, Calvin's theology, and the theology of 17th-century Calvinistic orthodoxy, particularly in the language of total depravity and limited atonement.[74] The five points were more recently popularized in the 1963 booklet The Five Points of Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented by David N. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas. The origins of the five points and the acrostic are uncertain, but they appear to be outlined in the Counter Remonstrance of 1611, a lesser-known Reformed reply to the Arminians, which was written prior to the Canons of Dort.[75] The acrostic was used by Cleland Boyd McAfee as early as circa 1905.[76] An early printed appearance of the acrostic can be found in Loraine Boettner's 1932 book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.[77]


Protestant beliefs about salvation
This table summarizes the classical views of three Protestant beliefs about salvation.[78]
Topic Calvinism Lutheranism Arminianism
Human will Total depravity:[79] Humanity possesses "free will",[80] but it is in bondage to sin,[81] until it is "transformed".[82] Original Sin:[79] Humanity possesses free will in regard to "goods and possessions", but is sinful by nature and unable to contribute to its own salvation.[83][84][85] Total depravity: Humanity possesses freedom from necessity, but not "freedom from sin" unless enabled by "prevenient grace".[86]
Election Unconditional election. Unconditional election.[79][87] Conditional election in view of foreseen faith or unbelief.[88]
Justification and atonement Justification by faith alone. Various views regarding the extent of the atonement.[89] Justification for all men,[90] completed at Christ's death and effective through faith alone.[91][92][93][94] Justification made possible for all through Christ's death, but only completed upon choosing faith in Jesus.[95]
Conversion Monergistic,[96] through the means of grace, irresistible. Monergistic,[97][98] through the means of grace, resistible.[99] Synergistic, resistible due to the common grace of free will.[100][101]
Perseverance and apostasy Perseverance of the saints: the eternally elect in Christ will certainly persevere in faith.[102] Falling away is possible,[103] but God gives gospel assurance.[104][105] Preservation is conditional upon continued faith in Christ; with the possibility of a final apostasy.[106]

The central assertion of TULIP is that God saves every person upon whom he has mercy, and that his efforts are not frustrated by the unrighteousness or inability of humans.

  • Total depravity (also called radical corruption[107] or pervasive depravity) asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin, every person is enslaved to sin. People are not by nature inclined to love God, but rather to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God. Thus, all people by their own faculties are morally unable to choose to trust God for their salvation and be saved (the term "total" in this context refers to sin affecting every part of a person, not that every person is as evil as they could be).[108] This doctrine is derived from Calvin's interpretation of Augustine's explanation about Original Sin.[109] While the phrases "totally depraved" and "utterly perverse" were used by Calvin, what was meant was the inability to save oneself from sin rather than being absent of goodness. Phrases like "total depravity" cannot be found in the Canons of Dort, and the Canons as well as later Reformed orthodox theologians arguably offer a more moderate view of the nature of fallen humanity than Calvin.[110]
  • Unconditional election (also called sovereign election[111] or unconditional grace) asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, his choice is unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone. God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen. Those chosen receive salvation through Christ alone. Those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God.[112]
  • Limited atonement (also called definite atonement[113] or particular redemption) asserts that Jesus's substitutionary atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and in what it accomplished. This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus's death. Calvinists do not believe, however, that the atonement is limited in its value or power, but rather that the atonement is limited in the sense that it is intended for some and not all. Some Calvinists have summarized this as "The atonement is sufficient for all and efficient for the elect."[114]
  • Irresistible grace (also called effectual grace,[115] effectual calling, or efficacious grace) asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (that is, the elect) and overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to a saving faith. This means that when God sovereignly purposes to save someone, that individual certainly will be saved. The doctrine holds that this purposeful influence of God's Holy Spirit cannot be resisted, but that the Holy Spirit, "graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ." This is not to deny the fact that the Spirit's outward call (through the proclamation of the Gospel) can be, and often is, rejected by sinners; rather, it is that inward call which cannot be rejected.
  • Perseverance of the saints (also called preservation of the saints;[116] the "saints" being those whom God has predestined to salvation[b]) asserts that since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else, those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end. Those who apparently fall away either never had true faith to begin with (1 John 2:19), or, if they are saved but not presently walking in the Spirit, they will be divinely chastened (Hebrews 12:5–11) and will repent (1 John 3:6–9).[117]

Church

 
John Calvin on his deathbed with church members

Reformed Christians see the Christian Church as the community with which God has made the covenant of grace, a promise of eternal life and relationship with God. This covenant extends to those under the "old covenant" whom God chose, beginning with Abraham and Sarah.[118] The church is conceived of as both invisible and visible. The invisible church is the body of all believers, known only to God. The visible church is the institutional body which contains both members of the invisible church as well as those who appear to have faith in Christ, but are not truly part of God's elect.[119]

In order to identify the visible church, Reformed theologians have spoken of certain marks of the Church. For some, the only mark is the pure preaching of the gospel of Christ. Others, including John Calvin, also include the right administration of the sacraments. Others, such as those following the Scots Confession, include a third mark of rightly administered church discipline, or exercise of censure against unrepentant sinners. These marks allowed the Reformed to identify the church based on its conformity to the Bible rather than the Magisterium or church tradition.[119]

Worship

Regulative principle of worship

 
The Bay Psalm Book was used by the Pilgrims.

The regulative principle of worship is a teaching shared by some Calvinists and Anabaptists on how the Bible orders public worship. The substance of the doctrine regarding worship is that God institutes in the Scriptures everything he requires for worship in the Church and that everything else is prohibited. As the regulative principle is reflected in Calvin's own thought, it is driven by his evident antipathy toward the Roman Catholic Church and its worship practices, and it associates musical instruments with icons, which he considered violations of the Ten Commandments' prohibition of graven images.[120]

On this basis, many early Calvinists also eschewed musical instruments and advocated a cappella exclusive psalmody in worship,[121] though Calvin himself allowed other scriptural songs as well as psalms,[120] and this practice typified presbyterian worship and the worship of other Reformed churches for some time. The original Lord's Day service designed by John Calvin was a highly liturgical service with the Creed, Alms, Confession and Absolution, the Lord's supper, Doxologies, prayers, Psalms being sung, the Lords prayer being sung, Benedictions.[122]

Since the 19th century, however, some of the Reformed churches have modified their understanding of the regulative principle and make use of musical instruments, believing that Calvin and his early followers went beyond the biblical requirements[120] and that such things are circumstances of worship requiring biblically rooted wisdom, rather than an explicit command. Despite the protestations of those who hold to a strict view of the regulative principle, today hymns and musical instruments are in common use, as are contemporary worship music styles with elements such as worship bands.[123]

Sacraments

The Westminster Confession of Faith limits the sacraments to baptism and the Lord's Supper. Sacraments are denoted "signs and seals of the covenant of grace."[124] Westminster speaks of "a sacramental relation, or a sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified; whence it comes to pass that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other."[125] Baptism is for infant children of believers as well as believers, as it is for all the Reformed except Baptists and some Congregationalists. Baptism admits the baptized into the visible church, and in it all the benefits of Christ are offered to the baptized.[125] On the Lord's supper, Westminster takes a position between Lutheran sacramental union and Zwinglian memorialism: "the Lord's supper really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses."[124]

The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith does not use the term sacrament, but describes baptism and the Lord's supper as ordinances, as do most Baptists Calvinist or otherwise. Baptism is only for those who "actually profess repentance towards God", and not for the children of believers.[126] Baptists also insist on immersion or dipping, in contradistinction to other Reformed Christians.[127] The Baptist Confession describes the Lord's supper as "the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance", similarly to the Westminster Confession.[128] There is significant latitude in Baptist congregations regarding the Lord's supper, and many hold the Zwinglian view.

Logical order of God's decree

There are two schools of thought regarding the logical order of God's decree to ordain the fall of man: supralapsarianism (from the Latin: supra, "above", here meaning "before" + lapsus, "fall") and infralapsarianism (from the Latin: infra, "beneath", here meaning "after" + lapsus, "fall"). The former view, sometimes called "high Calvinism", argues that the Fall occurred partly to facilitate God's purpose to choose some individuals for salvation and some for damnation. Infralapsarianism, sometimes called "low Calvinism", is the position that, while the Fall was indeed planned, it was not planned with reference to who would be saved.

Supralapsarians believe that God chose which individuals to save logically prior to the decision to allow the race to fall and that the Fall serves as the means of realization of that prior decision to send some individuals to hell and others to heaven (that is, it provides the grounds of condemnation in the reprobate and the need for salvation in the elect). In contrast, infralapsarians hold that God planned the race to fall logically prior to the decision to save or damn any individuals because, it is argued, in order to be "saved", one must first need to be saved from something and therefore the decree of the Fall must precede predestination to salvation or damnation.

These two views vied with each other at the Synod of Dort, an international body representing Calvinist Christian churches from around Europe, and the judgments that came out of that council sided with infralapsarianism (Canons of Dort, First Point of Doctrine, Article 7). The Westminster Confession of Faith also teaches (in Hodge's words "clearly impl[ies]") the infralapsarian[129] view, but is sensitive to those holding to supralapsarianism.[130] The Lapsarian controversy has a few vocal proponents on each side today, but overall it does not receive much attention among modern Calvinists.

Reformed churches

The Reformed tradition is largely represented by the Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, Evangelical Anglican, Congregationalist, and Reformed Baptist denominational families.

Continental Reformed churches

Considered to be the oldest and most orthodox bearers of the Reformed faith, the continental Reformed Churches uphold the Helvetic Confessions and Heidelberg Catechism, which were adopted in Zurich and Heidelberg, respectively.[131] In the United States, immigrants belonging to the continental Reformed Churches joined the Dutch Reformed Church there, as well as the Anglican Church.[132]

Congregational churches

The Congregational churches are a part of the Reformed tradition founded under the influence of New England Puritanism.[133] The Savoy Declaration is the confession of faith held by the Congregationalist churches.[134] An example of a Christian denomination belonging to the Congregationalist tradition is the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.

Presbyterian churches

The Presbyterian churches are part of the Reformed tradition and were influenced by John Knox's teachings in the Church of Scotland. Presbyterianism upholds the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Evangelical Anglicanism

Historic Anglicanism is a part of the wider Reformed tradition, as "the founding documents of the Anglican church—the Book of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion—expresses a theology in keeping with the Reformed theology of the Swiss and South German Reformation."[135] The Most Rev. Peter Robinson, presiding bishop of the United Episcopal Church of North America, writes:[136]

Cranmer's personal journey of faith left its mark on the Church of England in the form of a Liturgy that remains to this day more closely allied to Lutheran practice, but that liturgy is couple to a doctrinal stance that is broadly, but decidedly Reformed. ... The 42 Articles of 1552 and the 39 Articles of 1563, both commit the Church of England to the fundamentals of the Reformed Faith. Both sets of Articles affirm the centrality of Scripture, and take a monergist position on Justification. Both sets of Articles affirm that the Church of England accepts the doctrine of predestination and election as a 'comfort to the faithful' but warn against over much speculation concerning that doctrine. Indeed a casual reading of the Wurttemburg Confession of 1551,[137] the Second Helvetic Confession, the Scots Confession of 1560, and the XXXIX Articles of Religion reveal them to be cut from the same bolt of cloth.[136]

Reformed Baptist churches

Reformed Baptist churches are Baptists (a Christian denominational family that teaches credobaptism rather than infant baptism) who adhere to Reformed theology as explicated in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.[138]

Variants in Reformed theology

Amyraldism

 
Moïse Amyraut formulated Amyraldism, a modified Calvinist theology regarding the nature of Christ's atonement.[139][140]

Amyraldism (or sometimes Amyraldianism, also known as the School of Saumur, hypothetical universalism,[141] post redemptionism,[142] moderate Calvinism,[143] or four-point Calvinism) is the belief that God, prior to his decree of election, decreed Christ's atonement for all alike if they believe, but seeing that none would believe on their own, he then elected those whom he will bring to faith in Christ, thereby preserving the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. The efficacy of the atonement remains limited to those who believe.

Named after its formulator Moses Amyraut, this doctrine is still viewed as a variety of Calvinism in that it maintains the particularity of sovereign grace in the application of the atonement. However, detractors like B. B. Warfield have termed it "an inconsistent and therefore unstable form of Calvinism."[144]

Hyper-Calvinism

Hyper-Calvinism first referred to a view that appeared among the early English Particular Baptists in the 18th century. Their system denied that the call of the gospel to "repent and believe" is directed to every single person and that it is the duty of every person to trust in Christ for salvation. The term also occasionally appears in both theological and secular controversial contexts, where it usually connotes a negative opinion about some variety of theological determinism, predestination, or a version of Evangelical Christianity or Calvinism that is deemed by the critic to be unenlightened, harsh, or extreme.

The Westminster Confession of Faith says that the gospel is to be freely offered to sinners, and the Larger Catechism makes clear that the gospel is offered to the non-elect.[145][146]

Neo-Calvinism

 
Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper initiated neo-Calvinism

Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is the movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper. James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders—split into the Reformed Church "West" and the Confessionalists; and the Neo-Calvinists—the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the Neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.[147]

Kuyper wanted to awaken the church from what he viewed as its pietistic slumber. He declared:

No single piece of our mental world is to be sealed off from the rest and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'[148]

This refrain has become something of a rallying call for Neo-Calvinists.

Christian Reconstructionism

Christian Reconstructionism is a fundamentalist[149] Calvinist theonomic movement that has remained rather obscure.[150] Founded by R. J. Rushdoony, the movement has had an important influence on the Christian Right in the United States.[151][152] The movement peaked in the 1990s.[153] However, it lives on in small denominations such as the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States and as a minority position in other denominations. Christian Reconstructionists are usually postmillennialists and followers of the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. They tend to support a decentralized political order resulting in laissez-faire capitalism.[154]

New Calvinism

New Calvinism is a growing perspective within conservative Evangelicalism that embraces the fundamentals of 16th century Calvinism while also trying to be relevant in the present day world.[155] In March 2009, Time magazine described the New Calvinism as one of the "10 ideas changing the world".[156] Some of the major figures who have been associated with the New Calvinism are John Piper,[155] Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler,[156] Mark Dever,[157] C. J. Mahaney, and Tim Keller.[158] New Calvinists have been criticized for blending Calvinist soteriology with popular Evangelical positions on the sacraments and continuationism and for rejecting tenants seen as crucial to the Reformed faith such as confessionalism and covenant theology.[159]

Social and economic influences

Calvin expressed himself on usury in a 1545 letter to a friend, Claude de Sachin, in which he criticized the use of certain passages of scripture invoked by people opposed to the charging of interest. He reinterpreted some of these passages, and suggested that others of them had been rendered irrelevant by changed conditions. He also dismissed the argument (based upon the writings of Aristotle) that it is wrong to charge interest for money because money itself is barren. He said that the walls and the roof of a house are barren, too, but it is permissible to charge someone for allowing him to use them. In the same way, money can be made fruitful.[160]

He qualified his view, however, by saying that money should be lent to people in dire need without hope of interest, while a modest interest rate of 5% should be permitted in relation to other borrowers.[161]

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism.[162]

Politics and society

 
Stephen Bocskay, leader of Hungarian Calvinists in anti-Habsburg rebellion and first Calvinist prince of Transylvania (r. 1605–1606)
 
Reformed church in Koudekerk aan den Rijn (Netherlands), 19th century

Calvin's concepts of God and man led to ideas which were gradually put into practice after his death, in particular in the fields of politics and society. After their fight for independence from Spain (1579), the Netherlands, under Calvinist leadership, granted asylum to religious minorities, e.g. French Huguenots, English Independents (Congregationalists), and Jews from Spain and Portugal. The ancestors of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza were Portuguese Jews. Aware of the trial against Galileo, René Descartes lived in the Netherlands, out of reach of the Inquisition, from 1628 to 1649.[163] Pierre Bayle, a Reformed Frenchman, also felt safer in the Netherlands than in his home country. He was the first prominent philosopher who demanded tolerance for atheists. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) was able to publish a rather liberal interpretation of the Bible and his ideas about natural law in the Netherlands.[164][165] Moreover, the Calvinist Dutch authorities allowed the printing of books that could not be published elsewhere, such as Galileo's Discorsi (1638).[166]

 
The burning of the Guernsey Martyrs during the Marian persecutions in 1556

Alongside the liberal development of the Netherlands came the rise of modern democracy in England and North America. In the Middle Ages, state and church had been closely connected. Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms separated state and church in principle.[167] His doctrine of the priesthood of all believers raised the laity to the same level as the clergy.[168] Going one step further, Calvin included elected laymen (church elders, presbyters) in his concept of church government. The Huguenots added synods whose members were also elected by the congregations. The other Reformed churches took over this system of church self-government, which was essentially a representative democracy.[169] Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists are organized in a similar way. These denominations and the Anglican Church were influenced by Calvin's theology in varying degrees.[170][171]

In another factor in the rise of democracy in the Anglo-American world, Calvin favored a mixture of democracy and aristocracy as the best form of government (mixed government). He appreciated the advantages of democracy.[172] His political thought aimed to safeguard the rights and freedoms of ordinary men and women. In order to minimize the misuse of political power he suggested dividing it among several institutions in a system of checks and balances (separation of powers).[citation needed] Finally, Calvin taught that if worldly rulers rise up against God they should be put down. In this way, he and his followers stood in the vanguard of resistance to political absolutism and furthered the cause of democracy.[173] The Congregationalists who founded Plymouth Colony (1620) and Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628) were convinced that the democratic form of government was the will of God.[174][175] Enjoying self-rule, they practiced separation of powers.[176][177] Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, founded by Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and William Penn, respectively, combined democratic government with a limited freedom of religion that did not extend to Catholics (Congregationalism being the established, tax-supported religion in Connecticut.[178] These colonies became safe havens for persecuted religious minorities, including Jews.[179][180][181])

 
The Grote Kerk in Haarlem, Dutch Republic, c. 1665

In England, Baptists Thomas Helwys (c. 1575 – c. 1616), and John Smyth (c. 1554–c.  1612) influenced the liberal political thought of the Presbyterian poet and politician John Milton (1608–1674) and of the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704),[citation needed] who in turn had both a strong impact on the political development in their home country (English Civil War of 1642–1651, Glorious Revolution of 1688) as well as in North America.[182][183] The ideological basis of the American Revolution was largely provided by the radical Whigs, who had been inspired by Milton, Locke, James Harrington (1611–1677), Algernon Sidney (1623–1683), and other thinkers. The Whigs' "perceptions of politics attracted widespread support in America because they revived the traditional concerns of a Protestantism that had always verged on Puritanism".[184] The United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and (American) Bill of Rights initiated a tradition of human and civil rights that continued in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the constitutions of numerous countries around the world, e. g. Latin America, Japan, India, Germany, and other European countries. It is also echoed in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[185]

In the 19th century, churches based on or influenced by Calvin's theology became deeply involved in social reforms, e.g. the abolition of slavery (William Wilberforce, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and others), women suffrage, and prison reforms.[186][187] Members of these churches formed co-operatives to help the impoverished masses.[188] The founders of the Red Cross Movement, including Henry Dunant, were Reformed Christians. Their movement also initiated the Geneva Conventions.[189][190][191] Others view Calvinist influence as not always being solely positive. The Boers and Afrikaner Calvinists combined ideas from Calvinism and Kuyperian theology to justify apartheid in South Africa.[192] As late as 1974 the majority of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa was convinced that their theological stances (including the story of the Tower of Babel) could justify apartheid.[193] In 1990 the Dutch Reformed Church document Church and Society maintained that although they were changing their stance on apartheid, they believed that within apartheid and under God's sovereign guidance, "...everything was not without significance, but was of service to the Kingdom of God."[194] These views were not universal and were condemned by many Calvinists outside South Africa. Pressure from both outside and inside the Dutch Reformed Calvinist church helped reverse apartheid in South Africa.[citation needed]

Throughout the world, the Reformed churches operate hospitals, homes for handicapped or elderly people, and educational institutions on all levels. For example, American Congregationalists founded Harvard (1636), Yale (1701), and about a dozen other colleges.[195] A particular stream of influence of Calvinism concerns art. Visual art cemented society in the first modern nation state, the Netherlands, and also Neo-Calvinism put much weight on this aspect of life. Hans Rookmaaker is the most prolific example. In literature one can think of Marilynne Robinson. In her non-fiction she powerfully demonstrates the modernity of Calvin's thinking, calling him a humanist scholar (pg 174, The Death of Adam).

See also

Doctrine

Related

Opposing views

Notes

  1. ^ Protestantism in Indonesia is largely a result of Calvinist and Lutheran missionary efforts during the colonial period.[23]
  2. ^ See Romans 1:7; 8:29–30 ESV.

References

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  31. ^ a b Allen 2010, p. 31.
  32. ^ Farley & Hodgson 1994, p. 77.
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  39. ^ Allen 2010, p. 48.
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  42. ^ Allen 2010, p. 55.
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  44. ^ a b Allen 2010, pp. 61–62.
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  46. ^ McKim 2001, p. 29.
  47. ^ Horton 2011a, pp. 298–299.
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  50. ^ Stroup 1996, p. 142.
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  62. ^ a b Allen 2010, pp. 77–78.
  63. ^ a b McKim 2001, p. 114.
  64. ^ Allen 2010, p. 80.
  65. ^ McKim 2001, p. 113.
  66. ^ Allen 2010, p. 84.
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  68. ^ Calvin, John (1994). Institutes of the Christian Religion. Eerdmans. p. 2206.
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  71. ^ Guthrie 2008, pp. 47–49.
  72. ^ Lawson, Steven (18 March 2019). "TULIP and The Doctrines of Grace". Ligonier Ministries. from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021. In reality, these five doctrines of grace form one comprehensive body of truth concerning salvation.
  73. ^ Sproul, R. C. (2016). What Is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. p. 32. ISBN 9780801018466.
  74. ^ Muller, Richard A. (2012). Calvin and the Reformed Tradition (Ebook ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. pp. 50–51.
    • Stewart, Kenneth J. (2008). "The Points of Calvinism: Retrospect and Prospect" (PDF). Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology. 26 (2): 189. (PDF) from the original on 2 February 2012.
  75. ^ Document translated in DeJong, Peter Y. (1968). Crisis In The Reformed Churches: Essays in Commemoration of the Synod of Dort (1618–1619). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformed Fellowship, Inc. pp. 52–58..
  76. ^ William H. Wail (1913). The Five Points of Calvinism Historically Considered, The New Outlook 104 (1913).
  77. ^ Boettner, Loraine. (PDF). Bloomingtonrpchurch.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 May 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2013. The Five Points may be more easily remembered if they are associated with the word T-U-L-I-P; T, Total Inability; U, Unconditional Election; L, Limited Atonement; I, Irresistible (Efficacious) Grace; and P, Perseverance of the Saints.
  78. ^ Table drawn from, though not copied, from Lange, Lyle W. God So Loved the World: A Study of Christian Doctrine. Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2006. p. 448.
  79. ^ a b c . WELS Topical Q&A. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 26 January 2015. Both (Lutherans and Calvinists) agree on the devastating nature of the fall and that man by nature has no power to aid in his conversions...and that election to salvation is by grace. In Lutheranism the German term for election is Gnadenwahl, election by grace--there is no other kind.
  80. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.23.2.
  81. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, II.3.5.
  82. ^ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, III.3.6.
  83. ^ . WELS Topical Q&A. [P]eople by nature are dead in their transgressions and sin and therefore have no ability to decide of Christ (Ephesians 2:1, 5). We do not choose Christ, rather he chose us (John 15:16) We believe that human beings are purely passive in conversion.
  84. ^ Augsburg Confessional, Article XVIII, Of Free Will, saying: "(M)an's will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14); but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word."
  85. ^ Henry Cole, trans., Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 66. The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated "free-will" by Cole. However Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Westminster, 1969) chose "free choice" as their translation.
  86. ^ Stanglin, Keith D.; McCall, Thomas H. (15 November 2012). Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace. New York: OUP USA. pp. 157–158.
  87. ^ The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Lutheran Church, XI. Election. "Predestination" means "God's ordination to salvation".
  88. ^ Olson, Roger E. (2009). Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. p. 63. Arminians accepts divine election, [but] they believe it is conditional.
  89. ^ The Westminster Confession, III:6, says that only the "elect" are "effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved." However in his Calvin and the Reformed Tradition (Baker, 2012), 45, Richard A. Muller observes that "a sizeable body of literature has interpreted Calvin as teaching "limited atonement", but "an equally sizeable body . . . [interprets] Calvin as teaching "unlimited atonement".
  90. ^ . WELS Topical Q&A. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 29 January 2015. Romans 3:23-24, 5:9, 18 are other passages that lead us to say that it is most appropriate and accurate to say that universal justification is a finished fact. God has forgiven the sins of the whole world whether people believe it or not. He has done more than "made forgiveness possible." All this is for the sake of the perfect substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.
  91. ^ "IV. Justification by Grace through Faith". This We Believe. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Retrieved 5 February 2015. We believe that God has justified all sinners, that is, he has declared them righteous for the sake of Christ. This is the central message of Scripture upon which the very existence of the church depends. It is a message relevant to people of all times and places, of all races and social levels, for "the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men" (Romans 5:18]). All need forgiveness of sins before God, and Scripture proclaims that all have been justified, for "the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men" (Romans 5:18). We believe that individuals receive this free gift of forgiveness not on the basis of their own works, but only through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). ... On the other hand, although Jesus died for all, Scripture says that "whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:16). Unbelievers forfeit the forgiveness won for them by Christ (John 8:24).
  92. ^ Becker, Siegbert W. "Objective Justification" (PDF). Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. p. 1. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  93. ^ . WELS Topical Q&A. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 5 February 2015. Christ paid for all our sins. God the Father has therefore forgiven them. But to benefit from this verdict we need to hear about it and trust in it. If I deposit money in the bank for you, to benefit from it you need to hear about it and use it. Christ has paid for your sins, but to benefit from it you need to hear about it and believe in it. We need to have faith but we should not think of faith as our contribution. It is a gift of God which the Holy Spirit works in us.
  94. ^ Augsburg Confession, Article V, Of Justification. People "cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. ..."
  95. ^ Stanglin, Keith D.; McCall, Thomas H. (15 November 2012). Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace. New York: OUP USA. p. 136. Faith is a condition of justification
  96. ^ Paul ChulHong Kang, Justification: The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness from Reformation Theology to the American Great Awakening and the Korean Revivals (Peter Lang, 2006), 70, note 171. Calvin generally defends Augustine's "monergistic view".
  97. ^ Diehl, Walter A. "The Age of Accountability". Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. Retrieved 10 February 2015. In full accord with Scripture the Lutheran Confessions teach monergism. "In this manner, too, the Holy Scriptures ascribe conversion, faith in Christ, regeneration, renewal and all the belongs to their efficacious beginning and completion, not to the human powers of the natural free will, neither entirely, nor half, nor in any, even the least or most inconsiderable part, but in solidum, that is, entirely, solely, to the divine working and the Holy Ghost" (Trigl. 891, F.C., Sol. Decl., II, 25).
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  100. ^ Olson, Roger E. (2009). Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. p. 18. Arminian synergism" refers to "evangelical synergism, which affirms the prevenience of grace.
  101. ^ Olson, Roger E. (2009). Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. p. 165. [Arminius]' evangelical synergism reserves all the power, ability and efficacy in salvation to grace, but allows humans the God-granted ability to resist or not resist it. The only "contribution" humans make is nonresistance to grace.
  102. ^ The Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch XVII, "Of the Perseverance of the Saints".
  103. ^ . WELS Topical Q&A. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2015. People can fall from faith. The Bible warns, "If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). Some among the Galatians had believed for a while, but had fallen into soul-destroying error. Paul warned them, "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace" (Galatians 5:4). In his explanation of the parable of the sower, Jesus says, "Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in time of testing they fall away" (Luke 8:13). According to Jesus a person can believe for a while and then fall away. While they believed they possessed eternal salvation, but when they fell from faith they lost God's gracious gift.
  104. ^ . WELS Topical Q&A. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2015. We cannot contribute one speck to our salvation, but by our own arrogance or carelessness we can throw it away. Therefore, Scripture urges us repeatedly to fight the good fight of faith (Ephesians 6 and 2 Timothy 4 for example). My sins threaten and weaken my faith, but the Spirit through the gospel in word and sacraments strengthens and preserves my faith. That's why Lutherans typically speak of God's preservation of faith and not the perseverance of the saints. The key is not our perseverance but the Spirit's preservation.
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  106. ^ Demarest, Bruce A. (1997). The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation. Crossway Books. p. 35. Many Arminians deny the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
  107. ^ Sproul, R. C. (25 March 2017). "TULIP and Reformed Theology: Total Depravity". Ligonier Ministries. from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021. I like to replace the term total depravity with my favorite designation, which is radical corruption. Ironically, the word radical has its roots in the Latin word for “root,” which is radix, and it can be translated root or core.
  108. ^ Steele, David; Thomas, Curtis (1963). The Five Points of Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented. p. 25. ISBN 9780875524443. The adjective 'total' does not mean that each sinner is as totally or completely corrupt in his actions and thoughts as it is possible for him to be. Instead, the word 'total' is used to indicate that the "whole" of man's being has been affected by sin
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  111. ^ Sproul, R. C. (1 April 2017). "TULIP and Reformed Theology: Unconditional Election". Ligonier Ministries. from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021. Unconditional election is another term that I think can be a bit misleading, so I prefer to use the term sovereign election.
  112. ^ WCF 1646.
  113. ^ Sproul, R. C. (8 April 2017). "TULIP and Reformed Theology: Limited Atonement". Ligonier Ministries. from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021. I prefer not to use the term limited atonement because it is misleading. I rather speak of definite redemption or definite atonement, which communicates that God the Father designed the work of redemption specifically with a view to providing salvation for the elect, and that Christ died for His sheep and laid down His life for those the Father had given to Him.
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Bibliography

  • Allen, R. Michael (2010). Reformed Theology. Doing Theology. New York: T&T Clark. ISBN 9780567034304.
  • Bagchi, David V. N.; Steinmetz, David Curtis, eds. (2004), The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521776627
  • Busch, Eberhard (December 2008). Visser, Douwe (ed.). "Reformed Identity" (PDF). Reformed World. 58 (4): 207–218. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  • Cottret, Bernard (2000) [1995], Calvin: Biographie [Calvin: A Biography] (in French), Translated by M. Wallace McDonald, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, ISBN 0802831591.
  • Cross, Frank Leslie; Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.). Oxford: University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001. ISBN 9780192802903.
  • DeVries, Dawn (2003). "Rethinking the Scripture Principle". In Alston, Wallace M. Jr.; Welker, Michael (eds.). Reformed Theology: Identity and Ecumenicity. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 294–310. ISBN 9780802847768.
  • Farley, Edward; Hodgson, Peter C. (1994). "Scripture and Tradition". In Hodgson, Peter C.; King, Robert H. (eds.). Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
  • Furcha, E. J., ed. (1985), Huldrych Zwingli, 1484–1531: A Legacy of Radical Reform: Papers from the 1984 International Zwingli Symposium McGill University, Montreal: Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, ISBN 0771701241.
  • Guthrie, Shirlie C. Jr. (2008). Always Being Reformed (Second ed.). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.
  • Holder, R. Ward (2004), "Calvin's heritage", in McKim, Donald K. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521016728
  • Gäbler, Ulrich (1986), Huldrych Zwingli: His Life and Work, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ISBN 0800607619
  • Ganoczy, Alexandre (2004), "Calvin's life", in McKim, Donald K. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521016728
  • Horton, Michael (2011a). The Christian Faith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. ISBN 978-0310286042.
  • Horton, Michael (2011b), For Calvinism, Zondervan Books, ISBN 9780310324652, retrieved 17 January 2013
  • McGrath, Alister E. (1990), A Life of John Calvin, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, ISBN 0631163980
  • McKim, Donald K. (2001). Introducing the Reformed Faith. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.
  • Montgomery, Daniel, and Timothy Paul Jones. (2014). PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780310513896.
  • Muller, Richard A. (2004). "John Calvin and later Calvinism". In Bagchi, David; Steinmetz, David C (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521776622.
  • ———————— (9 November 1993). Confessing the Reformed Faith: Our Identity in Unity and Diversity. North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council. Escondido, CA: Westminster Seminary California.
  • Parker, T. H. L. (2006), John Calvin: A Biography, Oxford: Lion Hudson plc, ISBN 9780745952284.
  • Pettegree, Andrew (2004), "The spread of Calvin's thought", in McKim, Donald K. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521016728
  • Stephens, W. P. (1986), The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 0198266774.
  • Stroup, George W. (1996). Reformed Reader. Vol. 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox.
  • Stroup, George W. (2003). "Reformed Identity in an Ecumenical World". In Alston, Wallace M. Jr.; Welker, Michael (eds.). Reformed Theology: Identity and Ecumenicity. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 257–270.
  • Weisse, Wolfram; Anthonissen, Carel Aaron (2004). Maintaining Apartheid Or Promoting Change?: The Role of the Dutch Reformed Church in a Phase of Increasing Conflict in South Africa. Waxmann Verlag.
  • Westminster Confession of Faith . 1646 – via Wikisource.

Further reading

  • Alston, Wallace M. Jr.; Welker, Michael, eds. (2003). Reformed Theology: Identity and Ecumenicity. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 9780802847768.
  • Balserak, Jon (2017). Calvinism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198753711.
  • Benedict, Philip (2002). Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300105070.
  • Bratt, James D. (1984) Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture excerpt and text search
  • Eire, Carlos (2017). Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300111927.
  • Hart, D.G. (2013). Calvinism: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, excerpt and text search
  • McNeill, John Thomas (1967) [1954]. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195007435.
  • Leith, John H. (1980). An Introduction to the Reformed Tradition: A Way of Being the Christian Community. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780804204798.
  • Muller, Richard A. (2001). The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195151688.
  • ———————— (2003). After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195157017.
  • Picken, Stuart D.B. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Calvinism. ISBN 9780810872240.
  • Small, Joseph D., ed. (2005). Conversations with the Confessions: Dialogue in the Reformed Tradition. Geneva Press. ISBN 9780664502485.

External links

calvinism, reformed, church, redirects, here, reformed, churches, originating, continental, europe, continental, reformed, protestantism, theology, john, calvin, himself, theology, john, calvin, also, called, reformed, tradition, reformed, protestantism, refor. Reformed church redirects here For Reformed churches originating in continental Europe see Continental Reformed Protestantism For the theology of John Calvin himself see Theology of John Calvin Calvinism also called the Reformed Tradition Reformed Protestantism Reformed Christianity 1 or simply Reformed 2 is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation era theologians It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible Statues of William Farel John Calvin Theodore Beza and John Knox at the International Monument to the Reformation in Geneva Switzerland They were among the most influential theologians that helped develop the Reformed tradition Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century Calvinists differ from Lutherans another major branch of the Reformation on the spiritual real presence of Christ in the Lord s Supper theories of worship the purpose and meaning of baptism and the use of God s law for believers among other points 3 4 The label Calvinism can be misleading because the religious tradition it denotes has always been diverse with a wide range of influences rather than a single founder however almost all of them drew heavily from the writings of Augustine of Hippo twelve hundred years prior to the Reformation 5 The namesake and founder of the movement French reformer John Calvin embraced Protestant beliefs in the late 1520s or early 1530s as the earliest notions of later Reformed tradition were already espoused by Huldrych Zwingli The movement was first called Calvinism in the early 1550s by Lutherans who opposed it Many in the tradition find it either a nondescript or inappropriate term and prefer the term Reformed 6 2 The most important Reformed theologians include Calvin Zwingli Martin Bucer William Farel Heinrich Bullinger Peter Martyr Vermigli Theodore Beza and John Knox In the twentieth century Abraham Kuyper Herman Bavinck B B Warfield J Gresham Machen Louis Berkhof Karl Barth Martyn Lloyd Jones Cornelius Van Til R C Sproul and J I Packer were influential Contemporary Reformed theologians include Albert Mohler John MacArthur Tim Keller John Piper Joel Beeke and Michael Horton The Reformed tradition is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Presbyterian Evangelical Anglican Congregationalist and Reformed Baptist denominations Several forms of ecclesiastical polity are exercised by a group of Reformed churches including presbyterian congregationalist and some episcopal The biggest Reformed association is the World Communion of Reformed Churches with more than 100 million members in 211 member denominations around the world 7 8 More conservative Reformed federations include the World Reformed Fellowship and the International Conference of Reformed Churches Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2 1 Spread 3 Theology 3 1 Revelation and scripture 3 2 Covenant theology 3 3 God 3 4 Christ and atonement 3 5 Sin 3 6 Salvation 3 7 Predestination 3 7 1 Five Points of Calvinism 3 8 Church 3 9 Worship 3 9 1 Regulative principle of worship 3 10 Sacraments 3 11 Logical order of God s decree 4 Reformed churches 4 1 Continental Reformed churches 4 2 Congregational churches 4 3 Presbyterian churches 4 4 Evangelical Anglicanism 4 5 Reformed Baptist churches 5 Variants in Reformed theology 5 1 Amyraldism 5 2 Hyper Calvinism 5 3 Neo Calvinism 5 4 Christian Reconstructionism 5 5 New Calvinism 6 Social and economic influences 7 Politics and society 8 See also 8 1 Doctrine 8 2 Related 8 3 Opposing views 9 Notes 10 References 11 Bibliography 12 Further reading 13 External linksEtymology EditCalvinism is named after John Calvin and was first used by a Lutheran theologian in 1552 Even though a common practice of the Roman Catholic Church was to name what it viewed as heresy after its founder the term originated in Lutheran circles Calvin denounced the designation himself They could attach us no greater insult than this word Calvinism It is not hard to guess where such a deadly hatred comes from that they hold against me John Calvin Lecons ou commentaires et expositions sur les revelations du prophete Jeremie 1565 9 Despite its negative connotation this designation became increasingly popular in order to distinguish Calvinists from Lutherans and newer Protestant branches that emerged later The vast majority of churches that trace their history back to Calvin including Presbyterians Congregationalists and other Calvinist churches do not use it themselves because the designation Reformed is more generally accepted and preferred especially in the English speaking world These churches claim to be in accordance with John Calvin s own words renewed accordingly with the true order of gospel Since the Arminian controversy the Reformed tradition as a branch of Protestantism distinguished from Lutheranism divided into two groups Arminians and Calvinists 10 11 However it is now rare to call Arminians a part of the Reformed tradition with the majority of Arminians today being members of the Methodist Churches General Baptist Churches or Pentecostal churches While the Reformed theological tradition addresses all of the traditional topics of Christian theology the word Calvinism is sometimes used to refer to particular Calvinist views on soteriology and predestination which are summarized in part by the Five Points of Calvinism Some have also argued that Calvinism as a whole stresses the sovereignty or rule of God in all things including salvation History EditMain article History of Calvinism Calvin preached at St Pierre Cathedral in Geneva The first wave of reformist theologians include Huldrych Zwingli 1484 1531 Martin Bucer 1491 1551 Wolfgang Capito 1478 1541 John Oecolampadius 1482 1531 and Guillaume Farel 1489 1565 While from diverse academic backgrounds their work already contained key themes within Reformed theology especially the priority of scripture as a source of authority Scripture was also viewed as a unified whole which led to a covenantal theology of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord s Supper as visible signs of the covenant of grace Another shared perspective was their denial of the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist Each understood salvation to be by grace alone and affirmed a doctrine of unconditional election the teaching that some people are chosen by God to be saved Martin Luther and his successor Philipp Melanchthon were significant influences on these theologians and to a larger extent those who followed The doctrine of justification by faith alone also known as sola fide 12 was a direct inheritance from Luther 13 The second generation featured John Calvin 1509 1564 Heinrich Bullinger 1504 1575 Wolfgang Musculus 1497 1563 Peter Martyr Vermigli 1500 1562 and Andreas Hyperius 1511 1564 Written between 1536 and 1539 Calvin s Institutes of the Christian Religion was one of the most influential works of the era 14 Toward the middle of the 16th century these beliefs were formed into one consistent creed which would shape the future definition of the Reformed faith The 1549 Consensus Tigurinus unified Zwingli and Bullinger s memorialist theology of the Eucharist which taught that it was simply a reminder of Christ s death with Calvin s view of it as a means of grace with Christ actually present though spiritually rather than bodily as in Catholic doctrine The document demonstrates the diversity as well as unity in early Reformed theology giving it a stability that enabled it to spread rapidly throughout Europe This stands in marked contrast to the bitter controversy experienced by Lutherans prior to the 1579 Formula of Concord 15 Cover of Calvin s magnum opus Institutes of the Christian Religion Due to Calvin s missionary work in France his programme of reform eventually reached the French speaking provinces of the Netherlands Calvinism was adopted in the Electorate of the Palatinate under Frederick III which led to the formulation of the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563 This and the Belgic Confession were adopted as confessional standards in the first synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1571 In 1573 William the Silent joined the Calvinist Church Calvinism was declared the official religion of the Kingdom of Navarre by the queen regnant Jeanne d Albret after her conversion in 1560 Leading divines either Calvinist or those sympathetic to Calvinism settled in England including Martin Bucer Peter Martyr and Jan Laski as did John Knox in Scotland During the First English Civil War English and Scots Presbyterians produced the Westminster Confession which became the confessional standard for Presbyterians in the English speaking world Having established itself in Europe the movement continued to spread to areas including North America South Africa and Korea 16 While Calvin did not live to see the foundation of his work grow into an international movement his death allowed his ideas to spread far beyond their city of origin and their borders and to establish their own distinct character 17 Spread Edit Early Calvinism was known for simple unadorned churches as shown in this 1661 painting of the interior of the Oude Kerk Amsterdam Although much of Calvin s work was in Geneva his publications spread his ideas of a correctly Reformed church to many parts of Europe In Switzerland some cantons are still Reformed and some are Catholic Calvinism became the dominant doctrine within the Church of Scotland the Dutch Republic some communities in Flanders and parts of Germany especially those adjacent to the Netherlands in the Palatinate Kassel and Lippe spread by Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus among others Protected by the local nobility Calvinism became a significant religion in Eastern Hungary and Hungarian speaking areas of Transylvania Today there are about 3 5 million Hungarian Reformed people worldwide 18 It was influential in France Lithuania and Poland before being mostly erased during the Counter Reformation In Poland a faction called the Polish Brethren broke away from Calvinism on January 22 1556 when Piotr of Goniadz a Polish student spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity during the general synod of the Reformed churches of Poland held in the village of Secemin 19 Calvinism gained some popularity in Scandinavia especially Sweden but was rejected in favor of Lutheranism after the Synod of Uppsala in 1593 20 Abandoned Calvinist church in Lapczyna Wola Poland Many 17th century European settlers in the North America were Calvinist in doctrine who emigrated because of arguments over church structure like the Pilgrim Fathers or were forced into exile such as the French Huguenots Dutch and French Calvinist settlers were also among the first European colonizers of South Africa beginning in the 17th century who became known as Boers or Afrikaners Sierra Leone was largely colonized by Calvinist settlers from Nova Scotia many of whom were Black Loyalists who fought for the British Empire during the American War of Independence John Marrant had organized a congregation there under the auspices of the Huntingdon Connection Some of the largest Calvinist communions were started by 19th and 20th century missionaries Especially large are those in Indonesia Korea and Nigeria In South Korea there are 20 000 Presbyterian congregations with about 9 10 million church members scattered in more than 100 Presbyterian denominations In South Korea Presbyterianism is the largest Christian denomination 21 A 2011 report of the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life estimated that members of Presbyterian or Reformed churches make up 7 of the estimated 801 million Protestants globally or approximately 56 million people 22 Though the broadly defined Reformed faith is much larger as it constitutes Congregationalist 0 5 most of the United and uniting churches unions of different denominations 7 2 and most likely some of the other Protestant denominations 38 2 All three are distinct categories from Presbyterian or Reformed 7 in this report Calvinist church in Semarang Indonesia a The Reformed family of churches is one of the largest Christian denominations According to adherents com the Reformed Presbyterian Congregational United churches represent 75 million believers worldwide 24 The World Communion of Reformed Churches which includes some United Churches most of these are primarily Reformed see Uniting and united churches for details has 80 million believers 25 WCRC is the third largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches 24 Many conservative Reformed churches which are strongly Calvinistic formed the World Reformed Fellowship which has about 70 member denominations Most are not part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches because of its ecumenical attire The International Conference of Reformed Churches is another conservative association Church of Tuvalu is an officially established state church in the Calvinist tradition Theology EditRevelation and scripture Edit See also General revelation Biblical inspiration and Sola scriptura Reformed theologians believe that God communicates knowledge of himself to people through the Word of God People are not able to know anything about God except through this self revelation With the exception of general revelation of God His invisible attributes His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse Romans 1 20 Speculation about anything which God has not revealed through his Word is not warranted The knowledge people have of God is different from that which they have of anything else because God is infinite and finite people are incapable of comprehending an infinite being While the knowledge revealed by God to people is never incorrect it is also never comprehensive 26 The seal of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America an early American Presbyterian church According to Reformed theologians God s self revelation is always through his son Jesus Christ because Christ is the only mediator between God and people Revelation of God through Christ comes through two basic channels The first is creation and providence which is God s creating and continuing to work in the world This action of God gives everyone knowledge about God but this knowledge is only sufficient to make people culpable for their sin it does not include knowledge of the gospel The second channel through which God reveals himself is redemption which is the gospel of salvation from condemnation which is punishment for sin 27 In Reformed theology the Word of God takes several forms Jesus Christ himself is the Word Incarnate The prophecies about him said to be found in the Old Testament and the ministry of the apostles who saw him and communicated his message are also the Word of God Further the preaching of ministers about God is the very Word of God because God is considered to be speaking through them God also speaks through human writers in the Bible which is composed of texts set apart by God for self revelation 28 Reformed theologians emphasize the Bible as a uniquely important means by which God communicates with people People gain knowledge of God from the Bible which cannot be gained in any other way 29 Reformed theologians affirm that the Bible is true but differences emerge among them over the meaning and extent of its truthfulness 30 Conservative followers of the Princeton theologians take the view that the Bible is true and inerrant or incapable of error or falsehood in every place 31 This view is very similar to that of Catholic orthodoxy as well as modern Evangelicalism 32 Another view influenced by the teaching of Karl Barth and neo orthodoxy is found in the Presbyterian Church U S A s Confession of 1967 Those who take this view believe the Bible to be the primary source of our knowledge of God but also that some parts of the Bible may be false not witnesses to Christ and not normative for today s church 31 In this view Christ is the revelation of God and the scriptures witness to this revelation rather than being the revelation itself 33 Covenant theology Edit Fall of Man by Jacob Jordaens See also Covenant theology Reformed theologians use the concept of covenant to describe the way God enters fellowship with people in history 34 The concept of covenant is so prominent in Reformed theology that Reformed theology as a whole is sometimes called covenant theology 35 However sixteenth and seventeenth century theologians developed a particular theological system called covenant theology or federal theology which many conservative Reformed churches continue to affirm today 34 This framework orders God s life with people primarily in two covenants the covenant of works and the covenant of grace 36 The covenant of works is made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden The terms of the covenant are that God provides a blessed life in the garden on condition that Adam and Eve obey God s law perfectly Because Adam and Eve broke the covenant by eating the forbidden fruit they became subject to death and were banished from the garden This sin was passed down to all mankind because all people are said to be in Adam as a covenantal or federal head Federal theologians usually infer that Adam and Eve would have gained immortality had they obeyed perfectly 37 A second covenant called the covenant of grace is said to have been made immediately following Adam and Eve s sin In it God graciously offers salvation from death on condition of faith in God This covenant is administered in different ways throughout the Old and New Testaments but retains the substance of being free of a requirement of perfect obedience 38 Through the influence of Karl Barth many contemporary Reformed theologians have discarded the covenant of works along with other concepts of federal theology Barth saw the covenant of works as disconnected from Christ and the gospel and rejected the idea that God works with people in this way Instead Barth argued that God always interacts with people under the covenant of grace and that the covenant of grace is free of all conditions whatsoever Barth s theology and that which follows him has been called monocovenantal as opposed to the bi covenantal scheme of classical federal theology 39 Conservative contemporary Reformed theologians such as John Murray have also rejected the idea of covenants based on law rather than grace Michael Horton however has defended the covenant of works as combining principles of law and love 40 God Edit See also God in Christianity and Trinity For the most part the Reformed tradition did not modify the medieval consensus on the doctrine of God 41 God s character is described primarily using three adjectives eternal infinite and unchangeable 42 Reformed theologians such as Shirley Guthrie have proposed that rather than conceiving of God in terms of his attributes and freedom to do as he pleases the doctrine of God is to be based on God s work in history and his freedom to live with and empower people 43 The Shield of the Trinity diagrams the classic doctrine of the Trinity Traditionally Reformed theologians have also followed the medieval tradition going back to before the early church councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon on the doctrine of the Trinity God is affirmed to be one God in three persons Father Son and Holy Spirit The Son Christ is held to be eternally begotten by the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and Son 44 However contemporary theologians have been critical of aspects of Western views here as well Drawing on the Eastern tradition these Reformed theologians have proposed a social trinitarianism where the persons of the Trinity only exist in their life together as persons in relationship 44 Contemporary Reformed confessions such as the Barmen Confession and Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church USA have avoided language about the attributes of God and have emphasized his work of reconciliation and empowerment of people 45 Feminist theologian Letty Russell used the image of partnership for the persons of the Trinity According to Russell thinking this way encourages Christians to interact in terms of fellowship rather than reciprocity 46 Conservative Reformed theologian Michael Horton however has argued that social trinitarianism is untenable because it abandons the essential unity of God in favor of a community of separate beings 47 Christ and atonement Edit See also Christ Hypostatic union Extra calvinisticum Substitutionary atonement and Threefold office Reformed theologians affirm the historic Christian belief that Christ is eternally one person with a divine and a human nature Reformed Christians have especially emphasized that Christ truly became human so that people could be saved 48 Christ s human nature has been a point of contention between Reformed and Lutheran Christology In accord with the belief that finite humans cannot comprehend infinite divinity Reformed theologians hold that Christ s human body cannot be in multiple locations at the same time Because Lutherans believe that Christ is bodily present in the Eucharist they hold that Christ is bodily present in many locations simultaneously For Reformed Christians such a belief denies that Christ actually became human 49 Some contemporary Reformed theologians have moved away from the traditional language of one person in two natures viewing it as unintelligible to contemporary people Instead theologians tend to emphasize Jesus context and particularity as a first century Jew 50 John Calvin and many Reformed theologians who followed him describe Christ s work of redemption in terms of three offices prophet priest and king Christ is said to be a prophet in that he teaches perfect doctrine a priest in that he intercedes to the Father on believers behalf and offered himself as a sacrifice for sin and a king in that he rules the church and fights on believers behalf The threefold office links the work of Christ to God s work in ancient Israel 51 Many but not all Reformed theologians continue to make use of the threefold office as a framework because of its emphasis on the connection of Christ s work to Israel They have however often reinterpreted the meaning of each of the offices 52 For example Karl Barth interpreted Christ s prophetic office in terms of political engagement on behalf of the poor 53 Christians believe Jesus death and resurrection makes it possible for believers to receive forgiveness for sin and reconciliation with God through the atonement Reformed Protestants generally subscribe to a particular view of the atonement called penal substitutionary atonement which explains Christ s death as a sacrificial payment for sin Christ is believed to have died in place of the believer who is accounted righteous as a result of this sacrificial payment 54 Sin Edit See also Christian views on sin Total depravity and Original sin In Christian theology people are created good and in the image of God but have become corrupted by sin which causes them to be imperfect and overly self interested 55 Reformed Christians following the tradition of Augustine of Hippo believe that this corruption of human nature was brought on by Adam and Eve s first sin a doctrine called original sin Although earlier Christian authors taught the elements of physical death moral weakness and a sin propensity within original sin Augustine was the first Christian to add the concept of inherited guilt reatus from Adam whereby every infant is born eternally damned and humans lack any residual ability to respond to God 56 Reformed theologians emphasize that this sinfulness affects all of a person s nature including their will This view that sin so dominates people that they are unable to avoid sin has been called total depravity 57 As a consequence every one of their descendants inherited a stain of corruption and depravity This condition innate to all humans is known in Christian theology as original sin Calvin thought original sin was a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature extending to all the parts of the soul Calvin asserted people were so warped by original sin that everything which our mind conceives meditates plans and resolves is always evil The depraved condition of every human being is not the result of sins people commit during their lives Instead before we are born while we are in our mother s womb we are in God s sight defiled and polluted Calvin thought people were justly condemned to hell because their corrupted state is naturally hateful to God 58 In colloquial English the term total depravity can be easily misunderstood to mean that people are absent of any goodness or unable to do any good However the Reformed teaching is actually that while people continue to bear God s image and may do things that appear outwardly good their sinful intentions affect all of their nature and actions so that they are not pleasing to God 59 From a Calvinist viewpoint a person who has sinned was predestined to sin and no matter what a person does they will go to Heaven or Hell based on that determination There is no repenting from sin since the most evil thing is the sinner s own actions thoughts and words 60 Some contemporary theologians in the Reformed tradition such as those associated with the PC USA s Confession of 1967 have emphasized the social character of human sinfulness These theologians have sought to bring attention to issues of environmental economic and political justice as areas of human life that have been affected by sin 61 Salvation Edit The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrating forgiveness See also Sola fide Justification theology and Sanctification Reformed theologians along with other Protestants believe salvation from punishment for sin is to be given to all those who have faith in Christ 62 Faith is not purely intellectual but involves trust in God s promise to save 63 Protestants do not hold there to be any other requirement for salvation but that faith alone is sufficient 62 Justification is the part of salvation where God pardons the sin of those who believe in Christ It is historically held by Protestants to be the most important article of Christian faith though more recently it is sometimes given less importance out of ecumenical concerns 64 People are not on their own able even to fully repent of their sin or prepare themselves to repent because of their sinfulness Therefore justification is held to arise solely from God s free and gracious act 65 Sanctification is the part of salvation in which God makes the believer holy by enabling them to exercise greater love for God and for other people 66 The good works accomplished by believers as they are sanctified are considered to be the necessary outworking of the believer s salvation though they do not cause the believer to be saved 63 Sanctification like justification is by faith because doing good works is simply living as the son of God one has become 67 Predestination Edit Main article Predestination in Calvinism Reformed theologians teach that sin so affects human nature that they are unable even to exercise faith in Christ by their own will While people are said to retain will in that they willfully sin they are unable not to sin because of the corruption of their nature due to original sin Reformed Christians believe that God predestined some people to be saved and others were predestined to eternal damnation 68 This choice by God to save some is held to be unconditional and not based on any characteristic or action on the part of the person chosen This view is opposed to the Arminian view that God s choice of whom to save is conditional or based on his foreknowledge of who would respond positively to God 69 Karl Barth reinterpreted the Reformed doctrine of predestination to apply only to Christ Individual people are only said to be elected through their being in Christ 70 Reformed theologians who followed Barth including Jurgen Moltmann David Migliore and Shirley Guthrie have argued that the traditional Reformed concept of predestination is speculative and have proposed alternative models These theologians claim that a properly trinitarian doctrine emphasizes God s freedom to love all people rather than choosing some for salvation and others for damnation God s justice towards and condemnation of sinful people is spoken of by these theologians as out of his love for them and a desire to reconcile them to himself 71 Five Points of Calvinism Edit Much attention surrounding Calvinism focuses on the Five Points of Calvinism also called the doctrines of grace 72 The five points have been summarized under the acrostic TULIP 73 The five points are popularly said to summarize the Canons of Dort however there is no historical relationship between them and some scholars argue that their language distorts the meaning of the Canons Calvin s theology and the theology of 17th century Calvinistic orthodoxy particularly in the language of total depravity and limited atonement 74 The five points were more recently popularized in the 1963 booklet The Five Points of Calvinism Defined Defended Documented by David N Steele and Curtis C Thomas The origins of the five points and the acrostic are uncertain but they appear to be outlined in the Counter Remonstrance of 1611 a lesser known Reformed reply to the Arminians which was written prior to the Canons of Dort 75 The acrostic was used by Cleland Boyd McAfee as early as circa 1905 76 An early printed appearance of the acrostic can be found in Loraine Boettner s 1932 book The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 77 Protestant beliefs about salvationThis table summarizes the classical views of three Protestant beliefs about salvation 78 Topic Calvinism Lutheranism ArminianismHuman will Total depravity 79 Humanity possesses free will 80 but it is in bondage to sin 81 until it is transformed 82 Original Sin 79 Humanity possesses free will in regard to goods and possessions but is sinful by nature and unable to contribute to its own salvation 83 84 85 Total depravity Humanity possesses freedom from necessity but not freedom from sin unless enabled by prevenient grace 86 Election Unconditional election Unconditional election 79 87 Conditional election in view of foreseen faith or unbelief 88 Justification and atonement Justification by faith alone Various views regarding the extent of the atonement 89 Justification for all men 90 completed at Christ s death and effective through faith alone 91 92 93 94 Justification made possible for all through Christ s death but only completed upon choosing faith in Jesus 95 Conversion Monergistic 96 through the means of grace irresistible Monergistic 97 98 through the means of grace resistible 99 Synergistic resistible due to the common grace of free will 100 101 Perseverance and apostasy Perseverance of the saints the eternally elect in Christ will certainly persevere in faith 102 Falling away is possible 103 but God gives gospel assurance 104 105 Preservation is conditional upon continued faith in Christ with the possibility of a final apostasy 106 The central assertion of TULIP is that God saves every person upon whom he has mercy and that his efforts are not frustrated by the unrighteousness or inability of humans Total depravity also called radical corruption 107 or pervasive depravity asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin every person is enslaved to sin People are not by nature inclined to love God but rather to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God Thus all people by their own faculties are morally unable to choose to trust God for their salvation and be saved the term total in this context refers to sin affecting every part of a person not that every person is as evil as they could be 108 This doctrine is derived from Calvin s interpretation of Augustine s explanation about Original Sin 109 While the phrases totally depraved and utterly perverse were used by Calvin what was meant was the inability to save oneself from sin rather than being absent of goodness Phrases like total depravity cannot be found in the Canons of Dort and the Canons as well as later Reformed orthodox theologians arguably offer a more moderate view of the nature of fallen humanity than Calvin 110 Unconditional election also called sovereign election 111 or unconditional grace asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue merit or faith in those people rather his choice is unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen Those chosen receive salvation through Christ alone Those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God 112 Limited atonement also called definite atonement 113 or particular redemption asserts that Jesus s substitutionary atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and in what it accomplished This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus s death Calvinists do not believe however that the atonement is limited in its value or power but rather that the atonement is limited in the sense that it is intended for some and not all Some Calvinists have summarized this as The atonement is sufficient for all and efficient for the elect 114 Irresistible grace also called effectual grace 115 effectual calling or efficacious grace asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save that is the elect and overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel bringing them to a saving faith This means that when God sovereignly purposes to save someone that individual certainly will be saved The doctrine holds that this purposeful influence of God s Holy Spirit cannot be resisted but that the Holy Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate to believe to repent to come freely and willingly to Christ This is not to deny the fact that the Spirit s outward call through the proclamation of the Gospel can be and often is rejected by sinners rather it is that inward call which cannot be rejected Perseverance of the saints also called preservation of the saints 116 the saints being those whom God has predestined to salvation b asserts that since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end Those who apparently fall away either never had true faith to begin with 1 John 2 19 or if they are saved but not presently walking in the Spirit they will be divinely chastened Hebrews 12 5 11 and will repent 1 John 3 6 9 117 Church Edit John Calvin on his deathbed with church members See also Protestant ecclesiology Reformed Christians see the Christian Church as the community with which God has made the covenant of grace a promise of eternal life and relationship with God This covenant extends to those under the old covenant whom God chose beginning with Abraham and Sarah 118 The church is conceived of as both invisible and visible The invisible church is the body of all believers known only to God The visible church is the institutional body which contains both members of the invisible church as well as those who appear to have faith in Christ but are not truly part of God s elect 119 In order to identify the visible church Reformed theologians have spoken of certain marks of the Church For some the only mark is the pure preaching of the gospel of Christ Others including John Calvin also include the right administration of the sacraments Others such as those following the Scots Confession include a third mark of rightly administered church discipline or exercise of censure against unrepentant sinners These marks allowed the Reformed to identify the church based on its conformity to the Bible rather than the Magisterium or church tradition 119 Worship Edit Main article Reformed worship Regulative principle of worship Edit Main article Regulative principle of worship The Bay Psalm Book was used by the Pilgrims The regulative principle of worship is a teaching shared by some Calvinists and Anabaptists on how the Bible orders public worship The substance of the doctrine regarding worship is that God institutes in the Scriptures everything he requires for worship in the Church and that everything else is prohibited As the regulative principle is reflected in Calvin s own thought it is driven by his evident antipathy toward the Roman Catholic Church and its worship practices and it associates musical instruments with icons which he considered violations of the Ten Commandments prohibition of graven images 120 On this basis many early Calvinists also eschewed musical instruments and advocated a cappella exclusive psalmody in worship 121 though Calvin himself allowed other scriptural songs as well as psalms 120 and this practice typified presbyterian worship and the worship of other Reformed churches for some time The original Lord s Day service designed by John Calvin was a highly liturgical service with the Creed Alms Confession and Absolution the Lord s supper Doxologies prayers Psalms being sung the Lords prayer being sung Benedictions 122 Since the 19th century however some of the Reformed churches have modified their understanding of the regulative principle and make use of musical instruments believing that Calvin and his early followers went beyond the biblical requirements 120 and that such things are circumstances of worship requiring biblically rooted wisdom rather than an explicit command Despite the protestations of those who hold to a strict view of the regulative principle today hymns and musical instruments are in common use as are contemporary worship music styles with elements such as worship bands 123 Sacraments Edit See also Reformed teaching on sacraments Reformed baptismal theology and Lord s Supper in Reformed theology The Westminster Confession of Faith limits the sacraments to baptism and the Lord s Supper Sacraments are denoted signs and seals of the covenant of grace 124 Westminster speaks of a sacramental relation or a sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified whence it comes to pass that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other 125 Baptism is for infant children of believers as well as believers as it is for all the Reformed except Baptists and some Congregationalists Baptism admits the baptized into the visible church and in it all the benefits of Christ are offered to the baptized 125 On the Lord s supper Westminster takes a position between Lutheran sacramental union and Zwinglian memorialism the Lord s supper really and indeed yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all benefits of his death the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in with or under the bread and wine yet as really but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses 124 The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith does not use the term sacrament but describes baptism and the Lord s supper as ordinances as do most Baptists Calvinist or otherwise Baptism is only for those who actually profess repentance towards God and not for the children of believers 126 Baptists also insist on immersion or dipping in contradistinction to other Reformed Christians 127 The Baptist Confession describes the Lord s supper as the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance similarly to the Westminster Confession 128 There is significant latitude in Baptist congregations regarding the Lord s supper and many hold the Zwinglian view Logical order of God s decree Edit Main article Logical order of God s decree There are two schools of thought regarding the logical order of God s decree to ordain the fall of man supralapsarianism from the Latin supra above here meaning before lapsus fall and infralapsarianism from the Latin infra beneath here meaning after lapsus fall The former view sometimes called high Calvinism argues that the Fall occurred partly to facilitate God s purpose to choose some individuals for salvation and some for damnation Infralapsarianism sometimes called low Calvinism is the position that while the Fall was indeed planned it was not planned with reference to who would be saved Supralapsarians believe that God chose which individuals to save logically prior to the decision to allow the race to fall and that the Fall serves as the means of realization of that prior decision to send some individuals to hell and others to heaven that is it provides the grounds of condemnation in the reprobate and the need for salvation in the elect In contrast infralapsarians hold that God planned the race to fall logically prior to the decision to save or damn any individuals because it is argued in order to be saved one must first need to be saved from something and therefore the decree of the Fall must precede predestination to salvation or damnation These two views vied with each other at the Synod of Dort an international body representing Calvinist Christian churches from around Europe and the judgments that came out of that council sided with infralapsarianism Canons of Dort First Point of Doctrine Article 7 The Westminster Confession of Faith also teaches in Hodge s words clearly impl ies the infralapsarian 129 view but is sensitive to those holding to supralapsarianism 130 The Lapsarian controversy has a few vocal proponents on each side today but overall it does not receive much attention among modern Calvinists Reformed churches EditThe Reformed tradition is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Presbyterian Evangelical Anglican Congregationalist and Reformed Baptist denominational families Continental Reformed churches Edit Main article Continental Reformed church Considered to be the oldest and most orthodox bearers of the Reformed faith the continental Reformed Churches uphold the Helvetic Confessions and Heidelberg Catechism which were adopted in Zurich and Heidelberg respectively 131 In the United States immigrants belonging to the continental Reformed Churches joined the Dutch Reformed Church there as well as the Anglican Church 132 Congregational churches Edit Main article Congregational church The Congregational churches are a part of the Reformed tradition founded under the influence of New England Puritanism 133 The Savoy Declaration is the confession of faith held by the Congregationalist churches 134 An example of a Christian denomination belonging to the Congregationalist tradition is the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference Presbyterian churches Edit Main article Presbyterianism The Presbyterian churches are part of the Reformed tradition and were influenced by John Knox s teachings in the Church of Scotland Presbyterianism upholds the Westminster Confession of Faith Evangelical Anglicanism Edit Main article Evangelical Anglicanism Historic Anglicanism is a part of the wider Reformed tradition as the founding documents of the Anglican church the Book of Homilies the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion expresses a theology in keeping with the Reformed theology of the Swiss and South German Reformation 135 The Most Rev Peter Robinson presiding bishop of the United Episcopal Church of North America writes 136 Cranmer s personal journey of faith left its mark on the Church of England in the form of a Liturgy that remains to this day more closely allied to Lutheran practice but that liturgy is couple to a doctrinal stance that is broadly but decidedly Reformed The 42 Articles of 1552 and the 39 Articles of 1563 both commit the Church of England to the fundamentals of the Reformed Faith Both sets of Articles affirm the centrality of Scripture and take a monergist position on Justification Both sets of Articles affirm that the Church of England accepts the doctrine of predestination and election as a comfort to the faithful but warn against over much speculation concerning that doctrine Indeed a casual reading of the Wurttemburg Confession of 1551 137 the Second Helvetic Confession the Scots Confession of 1560 and the XXXIX Articles of Religion reveal them to be cut from the same bolt of cloth 136 Reformed Baptist churches Edit Main article Reformed Baptist Reformed Baptist churches are Baptists a Christian denominational family that teaches credobaptism rather than infant baptism who adhere to Reformed theology as explicated in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith 138 Variants in Reformed theology EditAmyraldism Edit Moise Amyraut formulated Amyraldism a modified Calvinist theology regarding the nature of Christ s atonement 139 140 Main article Amyraldism Amyraldism or sometimes Amyraldianism also known as the School of Saumur hypothetical universalism 141 post redemptionism 142 moderate Calvinism 143 or four point Calvinism is the belief that God prior to his decree of election decreed Christ s atonement for all alike if they believe but seeing that none would believe on their own he then elected those whom he will bring to faith in Christ thereby preserving the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election The efficacy of the atonement remains limited to those who believe Named after its formulator Moses Amyraut this doctrine is still viewed as a variety of Calvinism in that it maintains the particularity of sovereign grace in the application of the atonement However detractors like B B Warfield have termed it an inconsistent and therefore unstable form of Calvinism 144 Hyper Calvinism Edit Main article Hyper Calvinism Hyper Calvinism first referred to a view that appeared among the early English Particular Baptists in the 18th century Their system denied that the call of the gospel to repent and believe is directed to every single person and that it is the duty of every person to trust in Christ for salvation The term also occasionally appears in both theological and secular controversial contexts where it usually connotes a negative opinion about some variety of theological determinism predestination or a version of Evangelical Christianity or Calvinism that is deemed by the critic to be unenlightened harsh or extreme The Westminster Confession of Faith says that the gospel is to be freely offered to sinners and the Larger Catechism makes clear that the gospel is offered to the non elect 145 146 Neo Calvinism Edit Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper initiated neo Calvinism Main article Neo Calvinism Neo Calvinism a form of Dutch Calvinism is the movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism The Seceders split into the Reformed Church West and the Confessionalists and the Neo Calvinists the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the Neo Calvinists usually supralapsarian 147 Kuyper wanted to awaken the church from what he viewed as its pietistic slumber He declared No single piece of our mental world is to be sealed off from the rest and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry Mine 148 This refrain has become something of a rallying call for Neo Calvinists Christian Reconstructionism Edit Main article Christian Reconstructionism Christian Reconstructionism is a fundamentalist 149 Calvinist theonomic movement that has remained rather obscure 150 Founded by R J Rushdoony the movement has had an important influence on the Christian Right in the United States 151 152 The movement peaked in the 1990s 153 However it lives on in small denominations such as the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States and as a minority position in other denominations Christian Reconstructionists are usually postmillennialists and followers of the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til They tend to support a decentralized political order resulting in laissez faire capitalism 154 New Calvinism Edit Main article New Calvinism New Calvinism is a growing perspective within conservative Evangelicalism that embraces the fundamentals of 16th century Calvinism while also trying to be relevant in the present day world 155 In March 2009 Time magazine described the New Calvinism as one of the 10 ideas changing the world 156 Some of the major figures who have been associated with the New Calvinism are John Piper 155 Mark Driscoll Al Mohler 156 Mark Dever 157 C J Mahaney and Tim Keller 158 New Calvinists have been criticized for blending Calvinist soteriology with popular Evangelical positions on the sacraments and continuationism and for rejecting tenants seen as crucial to the Reformed faith such as confessionalism and covenant theology 159 Social and economic influences EditSee also Protestant work ethic Calvin expressed himself on usury in a 1545 letter to a friend Claude de Sachin in which he criticized the use of certain passages of scripture invoked by people opposed to the charging of interest He reinterpreted some of these passages and suggested that others of them had been rendered irrelevant by changed conditions He also dismissed the argument based upon the writings of Aristotle that it is wrong to charge interest for money because money itself is barren He said that the walls and the roof of a house are barren too but it is permissible to charge someone for allowing him to use them In the same way money can be made fruitful 160 He qualified his view however by saying that money should be lent to people in dire need without hope of interest while a modest interest rate of 5 should be permitted in relation to other borrowers 161 In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Max Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant particularly Calvinist ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment In other words the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism 162 Politics and society Edit Stephen Bocskay leader of Hungarian Calvinists in anti Habsburg rebellion and first Calvinist prince of Transylvania r 1605 1606 Reformed church in Koudekerk aan den Rijn Netherlands 19th century Calvin s concepts of God and man led to ideas which were gradually put into practice after his death in particular in the fields of politics and society After their fight for independence from Spain 1579 the Netherlands under Calvinist leadership granted asylum to religious minorities e g French Huguenots English Independents Congregationalists and Jews from Spain and Portugal The ancestors of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza were Portuguese Jews Aware of the trial against Galileo Rene Descartes lived in the Netherlands out of reach of the Inquisition from 1628 to 1649 163 Pierre Bayle a Reformed Frenchman also felt safer in the Netherlands than in his home country He was the first prominent philosopher who demanded tolerance for atheists Hugo Grotius 1583 1645 was able to publish a rather liberal interpretation of the Bible and his ideas about natural law in the Netherlands 164 165 Moreover the Calvinist Dutch authorities allowed the printing of books that could not be published elsewhere such as Galileo s Discorsi 1638 166 The burning of the Guernsey Martyrs during the Marian persecutions in 1556 Alongside the liberal development of the Netherlands came the rise of modern democracy in England and North America In the Middle Ages state and church had been closely connected Martin Luther s doctrine of the two kingdoms separated state and church in principle 167 His doctrine of the priesthood of all believers raised the laity to the same level as the clergy 168 Going one step further Calvin included elected laymen church elders presbyters in his concept of church government The Huguenots added synods whose members were also elected by the congregations The other Reformed churches took over this system of church self government which was essentially a representative democracy 169 Baptists Quakers and Methodists are organized in a similar way These denominations and the Anglican Church were influenced by Calvin s theology in varying degrees 170 171 In another factor in the rise of democracy in the Anglo American world Calvin favored a mixture of democracy and aristocracy as the best form of government mixed government He appreciated the advantages of democracy 172 His political thought aimed to safeguard the rights and freedoms of ordinary men and women In order to minimize the misuse of political power he suggested dividing it among several institutions in a system of checks and balances separation of powers citation needed Finally Calvin taught that if worldly rulers rise up against God they should be put down In this way he and his followers stood in the vanguard of resistance to political absolutism and furthered the cause of democracy 173 The Congregationalists who founded Plymouth Colony 1620 and Massachusetts Bay Colony 1628 were convinced that the democratic form of government was the will of God 174 175 Enjoying self rule they practiced separation of powers 176 177 Rhode Island Connecticut and Pennsylvania founded by Roger Williams Thomas Hooker and William Penn respectively combined democratic government with a limited freedom of religion that did not extend to Catholics Congregationalism being the established tax supported religion in Connecticut 178 These colonies became safe havens for persecuted religious minorities including Jews 179 180 181 The Grote Kerk in Haarlem Dutch Republic c 1665 In England Baptists Thomas Helwys c 1575 c 1616 and John Smyth c 1554 c 1612 influenced the liberal political thought of the Presbyterian poet and politician John Milton 1608 1674 and of the philosopher John Locke 1632 1704 citation needed who in turn had both a strong impact on the political development in their home country English Civil War of 1642 1651 Glorious Revolution of 1688 as well as in North America 182 183 The ideological basis of the American Revolution was largely provided by the radical Whigs who had been inspired by Milton Locke James Harrington 1611 1677 Algernon Sidney 1623 1683 and other thinkers The Whigs perceptions of politics attracted widespread support in America because they revived the traditional concerns of a Protestantism that had always verged on Puritanism 184 The United States Declaration of Independence the United States Constitution and American Bill of Rights initiated a tradition of human and civil rights that continued in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the constitutions of numerous countries around the world e g Latin America Japan India Germany and other European countries It is also echoed in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 185 In the 19th century churches based on or influenced by Calvin s theology became deeply involved in social reforms e g the abolition of slavery William Wilberforce Harriet Beecher Stowe Abraham Lincoln and others women suffrage and prison reforms 186 187 Members of these churches formed co operatives to help the impoverished masses 188 The founders of the Red Cross Movement including Henry Dunant were Reformed Christians Their movement also initiated the Geneva Conventions 189 190 191 Others view Calvinist influence as not always being solely positive The Boers and Afrikaner Calvinists combined ideas from Calvinism and Kuyperian theology to justify apartheid in South Africa 192 As late as 1974 the majority of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa was convinced that their theological stances including the story of the Tower of Babel could justify apartheid 193 In 1990 the Dutch Reformed Church document Church and Society maintained that although they were changing their stance on apartheid they believed that within apartheid and under God s sovereign guidance everything was not without significance but was of service to the Kingdom of God 194 These views were not universal and were condemned by many Calvinists outside South Africa Pressure from both outside and inside the Dutch Reformed Calvinist church helped reverse apartheid in South Africa citation needed Throughout the world the Reformed churches operate hospitals homes for handicapped or elderly people and educational institutions on all levels For example American Congregationalists founded Harvard 1636 Yale 1701 and about a dozen other colleges 195 A particular stream of influence of Calvinism concerns art Visual art cemented society in the first modern nation state the Netherlands and also Neo Calvinism put much weight on this aspect of life Hans Rookmaaker is the most prolific example In literature one can think of Marilynne Robinson In her non fiction she powerfully demonstrates the modernity of Calvin s thinking calling him a humanist scholar pg 174 The Death of Adam See also Edit Calvinism portal Christianity portal Religion portalList of Calvinist educational institutions in North America List of Reformed denominations Synod of Jerusalem 1672 Eastern Orthodox council rejecting Calvinist beliefs Criticism of Protestantism The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 1905 Max Weber s analysis of Calvinism s influence on society and economicsDoctrine Edit Common grace Reformed confessions of faithRelated Edit Boer Calvinists Boere Afrikaners that hold to Reformed theology Huguenots followers of Calvinism in France originating in the 16th and 17th century Pilgrims English Separatists who left Europe for America in search of religious toleration eventually settling in New England Presbyterians Calvinists in Scotland Ireland and England Puritans English Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England Continental Reformed church Calvinist churches originating in continental Europe Waldensians Italian Protestants preceded Calvinism but today identify with Reformed theologyOpposing views Edit Amyraldism Arminianism Catholicism Augustinianism Christian universalism Eastern Orthodoxy Palamism Free Grace theology Open theism Lutheranism Molinism SocinianismNotes Edit Protestantism in Indonesia is largely a result of Calvinist and Lutheran missionary efforts during the colonial period 23 See Romans 1 7 8 29 30 ESV References Edit Manetsch Scott M 23 May 2022 Switzerland s Original Reformer Was Creative Combative and Frequently Controversial Christianity Today Archived from the original on 22 November 2022 Retrieved 22 November 2022 a b Muller 2004 p 130 Schaff Philip Protestantism New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge Vol IX pp 297 299 Muller Richard A 2006 Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology 1st ed Baker Book House pp 320 321 ISBN 978 0801020643 Hill Graham Augustine s Influence on Calvin Luther and Zwingli The Global Church Project Archived from the original on 17 August 2020 Retrieved 3 December 2019 Hagglund Bengt 2007 Teologins Historia History of Theology in German Translated by Gene J Lund Fourth Revised ed Saint Louis Concordia Publishing House Theology and Communion Wcrc ch Archived from the original on 20 December 2013 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Member Churches Wcrc ch Archived from the original on 12 April 2014 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Bernard Cottret 22 May 2003 Calvin A Biography A amp C Black p 239 ISBN 978 0 567 53035 6 Reformed Churches Christian Cyclopedia Gonzalez Justo L The Story of Christianity Vol Two The Reformation to the Present Day New York HarperCollins 1985 reprint Peabody Prince Press 2008 180 Sola Fide Lutheran Reformation 16 June 2016 Retrieved 6 October 2020 Muller 2004 pp 131 132 Muller 2004 p 132 Muller 2004 p 135 Holder 2004 pp 246 256 McGrath 1990 pp 198 199 Pettegree 2004 p 222 The Reformed Church Hungarian Reformed Church of Australia Archived from the original on 22 February 2014 Retrieved 8 February 2014 Hewett Phillip 2004 Racovia An Early Liberal Religious Community Blackstone Editions pp 21 22 ISBN 978 0972501750 The Reformation in Germany And Scandinavia Vlib iue it Retrieved 5 December 2013 Chris Meehan 4 October 2010 Touched by Devotion in South Korea Christian Reformed Church Archived from the original on 9 July 2017 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Pew Research Center s Forum on Religion and Public Life 19 December 2011 Global Christianity PDF pp 21 70 archived from the original PDF on 23 July 2013 retrieved 20 November 2015 Goh Robbie B H 2005 Christianity in Southeast Asia Institute of Southeast Asian Studies p 80 ISBN 9812302972 a b Major Branches of Religions Archived from the original on 19 August 1999 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint unfit URL link WCRC History World Communion of Reformed Churches Archived from the original on 7 July 2011 Retrieved 7 July 2011 The World Alliance of Reformed Churches WARC and the Reformed Ecumenical Council REC have merged to form a new body representing more than 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide Allen 2010 pp 18 20 Allen 2010 pp 22 23 Allen 2010 pp 24 25 McKim 2001 p 12 Allen 2010 p 28 a b Allen 2010 p 31 Farley amp Hodgson 1994 p 77 McKim 2001 p 20 a b Allen 2010 pp 34 35 McKim 2001 p 230 n 28 Allen 2010 p 44 Allen 2010 pp 41 42 Allen 2010 p 43 Allen 2010 p 48 Horton 2011a pp 420 421 Allen 2010 p 54 Allen 2010 p 55 Allen 2010 pp 57 58 a b Allen 2010 pp 61 62 Guthrie 2008 pp 32 33 McKim 2001 p 29 Horton 2011a pp 298 299 McKim 2001 p 82 Allen 2010 pp 65 66 Stroup 1996 p 142 McKim 2001 p 94 Stroup 1996 p 156 157 Stroup 1996 p 164 McKim 2001 p 93 McKim 2001 p 66 Wilson Kenneth 2018 Augustine s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to Non fee Free Will A Comprehensive Methodology Tubingen Mohr Siebeck pp 35 37 93 127 140 146 150 153 221 231 233 279 280 295 ISBN 9783161557538 McKim 2001 pp 71 72 Calvin John 1989 Institutes of the Christian Religion Grand Rapids Michigan Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company pp 1 214 220 1 244 Muller Richard A 2012 Calvin and the Reformed Tradition Ebook ed Grand Rapids MI Baker Academic p 51 Sin A Calvinist Viewpoint Learn Theology Retrieved 7 December 2020 McKim 2001 p 73 a b Allen 2010 pp 77 78 a b McKim 2001 p 114 Allen 2010 p 80 McKim 2001 p 113 Allen 2010 p 84 Allen 2010 p 85 Calvin John 1994 Institutes of the Christian Religion Eerdmans p 2206 Allen 2010 pp 100 101 McKim 2001 pp 229 230 Guthrie 2008 pp 47 49 Lawson Steven 18 March 2019 TULIP and The Doctrines of Grace Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 21 January 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 In reality these five doctrines of grace form one comprehensive body of truth concerning salvation Sproul R C 2016 What Is Reformed Theology Understanding the Basics Grand Rapids MI Baker Books p 32 ISBN 9780801018466 Muller Richard A 2012 Calvin and the Reformed Tradition Ebook ed Grand Rapids MI Baker Academic pp 50 51 Stewart Kenneth J 2008 The Points of Calvinism Retrospect and Prospect PDF Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 26 2 189 Archived PDF from the original on 2 February 2012 Document translated in DeJong Peter Y 1968 Crisis In The Reformed Churches Essays in Commemoration of the Synod of Dort 1618 1619 Grand Rapids MI Reformed Fellowship Inc pp 52 58 William H Wail 1913 The Five Points of Calvinism Historically Considered The New Outlook 104 1913 Boettner Loraine The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination PDF Bloomingtonrpchurch org Archived from the original PDF on 27 May 2014 Retrieved 5 December 2013 The Five Points may be more easily remembered if they are associated with the word T U L I P T Total Inability U Unconditional Election L Limited Atonement I Irresistible Efficacious Grace and P Perseverance of the Saints Table drawn from though not copied from Lange Lyle W God So Loved the World A Study of Christian Doctrine Milwaukee Northwestern Publishing House 2006 p 448 a b c Calvinism and Lutheranism Compared WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 7 February 2009 Retrieved 26 January 2015 Both Lutherans and Calvinists agree on the devastating nature of the fall and that man by nature has no power to aid in his conversions and that election to salvation is by grace In Lutheranism the German term for election is Gnadenwahl election by grace there is no other kind John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 23 2 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge II 3 5 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion trans Henry Beveridge III 3 6 WELS vs Assembly of God WELS Topical Q amp A P eople by nature are dead in their transgressions and sin and therefore have no ability to decide of Christ Ephesians 2 1 5 We do not choose Christ rather he chose us John 15 16 We believe that human beings are purely passive in conversion Augsburg Confessional Article XVIII Of Free Will saying M an s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness and to work things subject to reason But it has no power without the Holy Ghost to work the righteousness of God that is spiritual righteousness since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 1 Cor 2 14 but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word Henry Cole trans Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will London T Bensley 1823 66 The controversial term liberum arbitrium was translated free will by Cole However Ernest Gordon Rupp and Philip Saville Watson Luther and Erasmus Free Will and Salvation Westminster 1969 chose free choice as their translation Stanglin Keith D McCall Thomas H 15 November 2012 Jacob Arminius Theologian of Grace New York OUP USA pp 157 158 The Book of Concord The Confessions of the Lutheran Church XI Election Predestination means God s ordination to salvation Olson Roger E 2009 Arminian Theology Myths and Realities Downers Grove InterVarsity Press p 63 Arminians accepts divine election but they believe it is conditional The Westminster Confession III 6 says that only the elect are effectually called justified adopted sanctified and saved However in his Calvin and the Reformed Tradition Baker 2012 45 Richard A Muller observes that a sizeable body of literature has interpreted Calvin as teaching limited atonement but an equally sizeable body interprets Calvin as teaching unlimited atonement Justification Salvation WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 27 September 2009 Retrieved 29 January 2015 Romans 3 23 24 5 9 18 are other passages that lead us to say that it is most appropriate and accurate to say that universal justification is a finished fact God has forgiven the sins of the whole world whether people believe it or not He has done more than made forgiveness possible All this is for the sake of the perfect substitutionary work of Jesus Christ IV Justification by Grace through Faith This We Believe Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Retrieved 5 February 2015 We believe that God has justified all sinners that is he has declared them righteous for the sake of Christ This is the central message of Scripture upon which the very existence of the church depends It is a message relevant to people of all times and places of all races and social levels for the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men Romans 5 18 All need forgiveness of sins before God and Scripture proclaims that all have been justified for the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men Romans 5 18 We believe that individuals receive this free gift of forgiveness not on the basis of their own works but only through faith Ephesians 2 8 9 On the other hand although Jesus died for all Scripture says that whoever does not believe will be condemned Mark 16 16 Unbelievers forfeit the forgiveness won for them by Christ John 8 24 Becker Siegbert W Objective Justification PDF Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary p 1 Retrieved 26 January 2015 Universal Justification WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 27 September 2009 Retrieved 5 February 2015 Christ paid for all our sins God the Father has therefore forgiven them But to benefit from this verdict we need to hear about it and trust in it If I deposit money in the bank for you to benefit from it you need to hear about it and use it Christ has paid for your sins but to benefit from it you need to hear about it and believe in it We need to have faith but we should not think of faith as our contribution It is a gift of God which the Holy Spirit works in us Augsburg Confession Article V Of Justification People cannot be justified before God by their own strength merits or works but are freely justified for Christ s sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ s sake Stanglin Keith D McCall Thomas H 15 November 2012 Jacob Arminius Theologian of Grace New York OUP USA p 136 Faith is a condition of justification Paul ChulHong Kang Justification The Imputation of Christ s Righteousness from Reformation Theology to the American Great Awakening and the Korean Revivals Peter Lang 2006 70 note 171 Calvin generally defends Augustine s monergistic view Diehl Walter A The Age of Accountability Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Retrieved 10 February 2015 In full accord with Scripture the Lutheran Confessions teach monergism In this manner too the Holy Scriptures ascribe conversion faith in Christ regeneration renewal and all the belongs to their efficacious beginning and completion not to the human powers of the natural free will neither entirely nor half nor in any even the least or most inconsiderable part but in solidum that is entirely solely to the divine working and the Holy Ghost Trigl 891 F C Sol Decl II 25 Monergism thefreedictionary com Calvinism and Lutheranism Compared WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 7 February 2009 Retrieved 9 February 2015 Olson Roger E 2009 Arminian Theology Myths and Realities Downers Grove InterVarsity Press p 18 Arminian synergism refers to evangelical synergism which affirms the prevenience of grace Olson Roger E 2009 Arminian Theology Myths and Realities Downers Grove InterVarsity Press p 165 Arminius evangelical synergism reserves all the power ability and efficacy in salvation to grace but allows humans the God granted ability to resist or not resist it The only contribution humans make is nonresistance to grace The Westminster Confession of Faith Ch XVII Of the Perseverance of the Saints Once saved always saved WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 27 September 2009 Retrieved 7 February 2015 People can fall from faith The Bible warns If you think you are standing firm be careful that you don t fall 1 Corinthians 10 12 Some among the Galatians had believed for a while but had fallen into soul destroying error Paul warned them You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ you have fallen away from grace Galatians 5 4 In his explanation of the parable of the sower Jesus says Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it but they have no root They believe for a while but in time of testing they fall away Luke 8 13 According to Jesus a person can believe for a while and then fall away While they believed they possessed eternal salvation but when they fell from faith they lost God s gracious gift Perseverence of the Saints Once Saved Always Saved WELS Topical Q amp A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archived from the original on 27 September 2009 Retrieved 7 February 2015 We cannot contribute one speck to our salvation but by our own arrogance or carelessness we can throw it away Therefore Scripture urges us repeatedly to fight the good fight of faith Ephesians 6 and 2 Timothy 4 for example My sins threaten and weaken my faith but the Spirit through the gospel in word and sacraments strengthens and preserves my faith That s why Lutherans typically speak of God s preservation of faith and not the perseverance of the saints The key is not our perseverance but the Spirit s preservation Demarest Bruce A 1997 The Cross and Salvation The Doctrine of Salvation Crossway Books pp 437 438 Demarest Bruce A 1997 The Cross and Salvation The Doctrine of Salvation Crossway Books p 35 Many Arminians deny the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints Sproul R C 25 March 2017 TULIP and Reformed Theology Total Depravity Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 I like to replace the term total depravity with my favorite designation which is radical corruption Ironically the word radical has its roots in the Latin word for root which is radix and it can be translated root or core Steele David Thomas Curtis 1963 The Five Points of Calvinism Defined Defended Documented p 25 ISBN 9780875524443 The adjective total does not mean that each sinner is as totally or completely corrupt in his actions and thoughts as it is possible for him to be Instead the word total is used to indicate that the whole of man s being has been affected by sin Livingstone Elizabeth A 2005 Original sin The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church 3rd ed Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780192802903 Muller Richard A 2012 Was Calvin a Calvinist Calvin and the Reformed Tradition Ebook ed Grand Rapids MI Baker Academic p 51 ISBN 978144124254 9 Sproul R C 1 April 2017 TULIP and Reformed Theology Unconditional Election Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 Unconditional election is another term that I think can be a bit misleading so I prefer to use the term sovereign election WCF 1646 Sproul R C 8 April 2017 TULIP and Reformed Theology Limited Atonement Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 I prefer not to use the term limited atonement because it is misleading I rather speak of definite redemption or definite atonement which communicates that God the Father designed the work of redemption specifically with a view to providing salvation for the elect and that Christ died for His sheep and laid down His life for those the Father had given to Him The Five Points of Calvinism TULIP Calvinistcorner com Archived from the original on 3 March 2020 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Sproul R C 15 April 2017 TULIP and Reformed Theology Irresistible Grace Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 I have a little bit of a problem using the term irresistible grace not because I don t believe this classical doctrine but because it is misleading to many people Therefore I prefer the term effectual grace because the irresistible grace of God effects what God intends it to effect Sproul R C 22 April 2017 TULIP and Reformed Theology Perseverance of the Saints Ligonier Ministries Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 Retrieved 5 August 2021 I think this little catchphrase perseverance of the saints is dangerously misleading It suggests that the perseverance is something that we do perhaps in and of ourselves So I prefer the term the preservation of the saints because the process by which we are kept in a state of grace is something that is accomplished by God Loraine Boettner The Perseverance of the Saints The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination McKim 2001 p 125 a b McKim 2001 p 126 a b c John Barber 25 June 2006 Luther and Calvin on Music and Worship Reformed Perspectives Magazine 8 26 Retrieved 6 May 2008 Brian Schwertley 1998 Musical Instruments in the Public Worship of God Archived from the original on 20 January 2013 Retrieved 16 November 2007 Maxwell William D 1936 An Outline of Christian Worship Its Development and Forms London Oxford University Press John Frame 1996 Worship in Spirit and Truth Phillipsburg NJ P amp R Pub ISBN 0875522424 a b WCF 1646 XXVII I a b WCF 1646 XXVII II 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith Ch 28 Sec 2 via Wikisource 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith Ch 28 Sec 4 via Wikisource WCF 1646 XXIX VII Hodge Charles 1871 Systematic Theology Volume II Supralapsarianism Christian Classics Ethereal Library Retrieved 4 June 2007 Hodge Charles 1871 Systematic Theology Volume II Infralapsarianism Christian Classics Ethereal Library Retrieved 4 June 2007 Schaff Philip 1898 History of the Christian Church Modern Christianity the Swiss Reformation 2d ed rev C Scribner s p 222 Conkin Paul Keith 1995 The Uneasy Center Reformed Christianity in Antebellum America University of North Carolina Press ISBN 9780807844922 Partly because of clustered patterns of settlement and intense ethnic and linguistic identities Reformed German and Dutch congregations resisted the lure of assimilation although many Dutch Reformed Christians in the Hudson Valley joined Anglican congregations Queen Edward L Prothero Stephen R Shattuck Gardiner H 2009 Encyclopedia of American Religious History Infobase Publishing p 818 ISBN 9780816066605 Retrieved 31 October 2012 Next in size and historical importance is the United Church of Christ which is the historic continuation of the Congregational churches founded under the influence of New England Puritanism The United Church of Christ also subsumed the third major Reformed group the German Reformed which then known as the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the Congregationalists in 1957 Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America ABC CLIO 2006 p 534 ISBN 9781576076781 Jensen Michael P 7 January 2015 9 Things You Should Really Know About Anglicanism The Gospel Coalition Retrieved 3 February 2020 a b Robinson Peter 2 August 2012 The Reformed Face of Anglicanism The Old High Churchman Retrieved 3 February 2020 Cross amp Livingstone 2005 p 751 Hicks Tom 30 March 2017 What is a Reformed Baptist Founders Ministries Retrieved 3 February 2020 Iustitia Dei A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification p 269 Alister E McGrath 2005 The importance of this threefold scheme derives from its adoption by Moses Amyraut as the basis of his distinctive theology Amyraut s hypothetical universalism and his doctrine of the triple covenant between God and humanity is Hubert Cunliffe Jones A History of Christian Doctrine p 436 2006 The appointment of John Cameron a peripatetic Scottish scholar to be a professor in the Academy in 1618 introduced a stimulating teacher to the scene and when in 1626 his pupil Moses Amyraut Amyraldus was called to be a minister Systematic Theology Volume II Christian Classics Ethereal Library Ccel org 21 July 2005 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Benjamin B Warfield Works vol V Calvin and Calvinism pp 364 365 and vol VI The Westminster Assembly and Its Work pp 138 144 Michael Horton in J Matthew Pinson ed Four Views on Eternal Security 113 Warfield B B The Plan of Salvation Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1973 WCF 1646 VII III Westminster Larger Catechism Question 68 via Wikisource James Bratt Dutch Calvinism in Modern America Wipf and Stock original Eerdmans 1984 James E McGoldrick Abraham Kuyper God s Renaissance Man Welwyn UK Evangelical Press 2000 Duncan J Ligon III 15 October 1994 Moses Law for Modern Government Annual national meeting of the Social Science History Association Atlanta Archived from the original on 30 November 2012 Retrieved 23 August 2013 Ingersoll Julie 2013 Religiously Motivated Violence in the Abortion Debate In Juergensmeyer Mark Kitts Margo Jerryson Michael eds Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence New York Oxford University Press pp 316 317 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780199759996 013 0020 ISBN 9780199759996 Clarkson Frederick 1995 Christian Reconstructionism In Berlet Chip ed Eyes Right Challenging the Right Wing Backlash Boston South End Press p 73 ISBN 9780896085237 Ingersoll Julie 2009 Mobilizing Evangelicals Christian Reconstructionism and the Roots of the Religious Right In Brint Steven Schroedel Jean Reith eds Evangelicals and Democracy in America Religion and politics Vol 2 New York Russell Sage Foundation p 180 ISBN 9780871540683 Worthen Molly 2008 The Chalcedon Problem Rousas John Rushdoony and the Origins of Christian Reconstructionism Church History 77 2 399 437 doi 10 1017 S0009640708000590 S2CID 153625926 North Gary DeMar Gary 1991 Christian Reconstruction What it Is what it Isn t Tyler TX Institute for Christian Economics p 81 a b Collin 22 September 2006 Young Restless Reformed Christianity Today Retrieved 13 March 2009 a b David van Biema 2009 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now The New Calvinism Time Archived from the original on 14 March 2009 Retrieved 13 March 2009 Burek Josh 27 March 2010 Christian faith Calvinism is back The Christian Science Monitor Retrieved 16 March 2011 Chew David June 2010 Tim Keller and the New Calvinist idea of Gospel eco systems Christian Research Network Archived from the original on 11 October 2011 Clark R Scott 15 March 2009 Calvinism Old and New Archived from the original on 1 July 2015 The letter is quoted in Le Van Baumer Franklin ed 1978 Main Currents of Western Thought Readings in Western Europe Intellectual History from the Middle Ages to the Present New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 0300022336 See Haas Guenther H 1997 The Concept of Equity in Calvin s Ethics Waterloo Ont Wilfrid Laurier University Press pp 117ff ISBN 0889202850 McKinnon AM 2010 Elective affinities of the Protestant ethic Weber and the chemistry of capitalism PDF Sociological Theory 28 1 108 126 doi 10 1111 j 1467 9558 2009 01367 x hdl 2164 3035 S2CID 144579790 Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker Descartes Rene in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band II col 88 Karl Heussi Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte 11 Auflage 1956 Tubingen Germany p 396 397 H Knittermeyer Bayle Pierre in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band I col 947 Bertolt Brecht Leben des Galilei Bild 15 Heinrich Bornkamm Toleranz in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band VI col 941 B Lohse Priestertum in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band V col 579 580 Karl Heussi Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte p 325 Karl Heussi Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte pp 329 330 382 422 424 Avis Paul David Loup ed 1989 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Anglicanism Erastian or Apostolic An Anglican Consensus Calvinist Episcopalians Anglicanism and the Christian Church Theological Resources in Historical Perspective 2 ed London T amp T Clark published 2002 p 67 ISBN 9780567087454 Retrieved 29 January 2020 There existed also a genuine though not slavish theological affinity between the Anglican and continental theologies especially the Reformed Calvinist A moderate Calvinist view of the doctrines of grace the interlocking sequence of predestination election justification sanctification final perseverance glorification was we may say the norm Jan Weerda Calvin in Evangelisches Soziallexikon 3 Auflage 1958 Stuttgart Germany col 210 Clifton E Olmstead 1960 History of Religion in the United States Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs N J p 10 M Schmidt Pilgervater in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band V col 384 Clifton E Olmstead History of Religion in the United States p 18 Plymouth Colony Legal Structure Histarch uiuc edu 14 December 2007 Retrieved 5 December 2013 Weinstein Allen Rubel David 2002 The Story of America Freedom and Crisis from Settlement to Superpower New York DK Publishing Inc pp 56 62 ISBN 0789489031 Catholic Encyclopedia Connecticut www newadvent org Retrieved 2017 07 07 Clifton E Olmstead History of Religion in America pp 74 76 99 117 Hans Fantel 1974 William Penn Apostle of Dissent William Morrow and Co New York Edwin S Gaustad 1999 Liberty of Conscience Roger Williams in America Judson Press Valley Forge G Muller Schwefe Milton John in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band IV col 954 955 Karl Heussi Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte p 398 Middlekauff Robert 2005 The Glorious Cause The American Revolution 1763 1789 Revised and Enlarged ed New York Oxford University Press pp 52 136 ISBN 9780195315882 Douglas K Stevenson 1987 American Life and Institutions Stuttgart Germany p 34 Clifton E Olmstead History of Religion in the United States pp 353 375 M Schmidt Kongregationalismus in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band III col 1769 1771 Wilhelm Dietrich Genossenschaften in Evangelisches Soziallexikon 3 Auflage 1958 col 411 412 Ulrich Scheuner Genfer Konventionen in Evangelisches Soziallexikon 3 Auflage col 407 408 R Pfister Schweiz in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 Auflage Band V col 1614 1615 Dromi Shai M 2020 Above the fray The Red Cross and the making of the humanitarian NGO sector Chicago Univ of Chicago Press p 45 ISBN 9780226680101 Swart Ignatius 2012 Welfare Religion and Gender in Post apartheid South Africa Constructing a South North Dialogue African Sun Media p 326 ISBN 9781920338688 Retrieved 18 October 2016 Weisse amp Anthonissen 2004 pp 124 126 Weisse amp Anthonissen 2004 p 131 Clifton E Olmstead History of Religion in the United States pp 80 89 257 Bibliography EditAllen R Michael 2010 Reformed Theology Doing Theology New York T amp T Clark ISBN 9780567034304 Bagchi David V N Steinmetz David Curtis eds 2004 The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521776627 Busch Eberhard December 2008 Visser Douwe ed Reformed Identity PDF Reformed World 58 4 207 218 Retrieved 20 September 2014 Cottret Bernard 2000 1995 Calvin Biographie Calvin A Biography in French Translated by M Wallace McDonald Grand Rapids Michigan Wm B Eerdmans ISBN 0802831591 Cross Frank Leslie Livingstone Elizabeth A 2005 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 3rd ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 acref 9780192802903 001 0001 ISBN 9780192802903 DeVries Dawn 2003 Rethinking the Scripture Principle In Alston Wallace M Jr Welker Michael eds Reformed Theology Identity and Ecumenicity Grand Rapids MI William B Eerdmans Publishing Company pp 294 310 ISBN 9780802847768 Farley Edward Hodgson Peter C 1994 Scripture and Tradition In Hodgson Peter C King Robert H eds Christian Theology An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks Minneapolis Fortress Press Furcha E J ed 1985 Huldrych Zwingli 1484 1531 A Legacy of Radical Reform Papers from the 1984 International Zwingli Symposium McGill University Montreal Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University ISBN 0771701241 Guthrie Shirlie C Jr 2008 Always Being Reformed Second ed Louisville KY Westminster John Knox Holder R Ward 2004 Calvin s heritage in McKim Donald K ed The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521016728 Gabler Ulrich 1986 Huldrych Zwingli His Life and Work Philadelphia Fortress Press ISBN 0800607619 Ganoczy Alexandre 2004 Calvin s life in McKim Donald K ed The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521016728 Horton Michael 2011a The Christian Faith Grand Rapids Zondervan ISBN 978 0310286042 Horton Michael 2011b For Calvinism Zondervan Books ISBN 9780310324652 retrieved 17 January 2013 McGrath Alister E 1990 A Life of John Calvin Oxford Basil Blackwell ISBN 0631163980 McKim Donald K 2001 Introducing the Reformed Faith Louisville KY Westminster John Knox Montgomery Daniel and Timothy Paul Jones 2014 PROOF Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace New York HarperCollins ISBN 9780310513896 Muller Richard A 2004 John Calvin and later Calvinism In Bagchi David Steinmetz David C eds The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521776622 9 November 1993 Confessing the Reformed Faith Our Identity in Unity and Diversity North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council Escondido CA Westminster Seminary California Parker T H L 2006 John Calvin A Biography Oxford Lion Hudson plc ISBN 9780745952284 Pettegree Andrew 2004 The spread of Calvin s thought in McKim Donald K ed The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521016728 Stephens W P 1986 The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 0198266774 Stroup George W 1996 Reformed Reader Vol 2 Louisville KY Westminster John Knox Stroup George W 2003 Reformed Identity in an Ecumenical World In Alston Wallace M Jr Welker Michael eds Reformed Theology Identity and Ecumenicity Grand Rapids MI William B Eerdmans Publishing Company pp 257 270 Weisse Wolfram Anthonissen Carel Aaron 2004 Maintaining Apartheid Or Promoting Change The Role of the Dutch Reformed Church in a Phase of Increasing Conflict in South Africa Waxmann Verlag Westminster Confession of Faith 1646 via Wikisource Further reading EditSee also Reformed systematic theology bibliography Alston Wallace M Jr Welker Michael eds 2003 Reformed Theology Identity and Ecumenicity Grand Rapids MI William B Eerdmans Publishing Company ISBN 9780802847768 Balserak Jon 2017 Calvinism A Very Short Introduction Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780198753711 Benedict Philip 2002 Christ s Churches Purely Reformed A Social History of Calvinism New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 9780300105070 Bratt James D 1984 Dutch Calvinism in Modern America A History of a Conservative Subculture excerpt and text search Eire Carlos 2017 Reformations The Early Modern World 1450 1650 New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 9780300111927 Hart D G 2013 Calvinism A History New Haven CT Yale University Press excerpt and text search McNeill John Thomas 1967 1954 The History and Character of Calvinism New York Oxford University Press ISBN 9780195007435 Leith John H 1980 An Introduction to the Reformed Tradition A Way of Being the Christian Community Westminster John Knox Press ISBN 9780804204798 Muller Richard A 2001 The Unaccommodated Calvin Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition Oxford University Press ISBN 9780195151688 2003 After Calvin Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition Oxford University Press ISBN 9780195157017 Picken Stuart D B 2011 Historical Dictionary of Calvinism ISBN 9780810872240 Small Joseph D ed 2005 Conversations with the Confessions Dialogue in the Reformed Tradition Geneva Press ISBN 9780664502485 External links EditCalvinism at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Texts from Wikisource Calvinism on In Our Time at the BBC Five Points of Calvinism by Robert Lewis Dabney Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Calvinism amp oldid 1129485034, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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