Portal:Reformed Christianity

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

A foundational event that divided the Reformed from the Lutheran tradition occurred in 1529 when reformer Huldrych Zwingli of Zürich broke with Martin Luther on the topic of the Lord's Supper. A separate Reformed tradition developed over several generations, especially in Switzerland, Scotland and the Netherlands.

In the seventeenth century, Jacobus Arminius and the Remonstrants were expelled from the Dutch Reformed Church over disputes regarding predestination and salvation, and from that time Arminians are usually considered to be a distinct tradition from the Reformed. This dispute produced the Canons of Dort, the basis for the "doctrines of grace" or "five points" of Calvinism.

Reformed theology emphasizes the authority of the Bible, the sovereignty of God, and covenant theology, a framework for understanding the Bible based on God's covenants with people. Reformed churches have emphasized simplicity in worship. Several forms of ecclesiastical polity are exercised by Reformed churches, including presbyterian, congregational, and some episcopal. (Full article...)

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John Wheelwright (c.1592–1679), was a Puritan clergyman in England and America, and was most noted for being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Antinomian Controversy, and for subsequently establishing the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he was raised in a family with substantial means, and received both a B.A. and M.A. at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he was a noted athlete and where Oliver Cromwell was a college friend. Ordained in 1619, he became the vicar of the church in Bilsby, Lincolnshire, and held this position for ten years until removed for simony.

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

Did you know...

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

...that the early American minister Francis Doughty had a proclivity for witch-hunting?

...that John Duncan, a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and missionary, was affectionately known as "Rabbi", due to his knowledge of Hebrew and his passion for the Jewish people?

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