REFORMED AND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

name given to various of the churches that share a common origin in the Reformation in 16th-century Switzerland. Reformed is the term identifying churches regarded as Calvinistic in doctrine. The term presbyterian designates a collegial type of church government by pastors and by lay leaders called elders, or presbyters, from the New Testament term presbyteroi. Presbyters govern through a series of representative consistories, from the local congregation to area and national organizations, commonly termed sessions, presbyteries, synods, and assemblies. A slogan for the Lutheran Reformation was by faith alone. Reformed Christians added the principle to God alone the glory. Reformed Christians emphasized that God's word alone and no mere human opinion should be the norm for faith. To God alone the glory determined attitudes toward church government and worship, the design and furnishing of church buildings, and even secular authority. Reformed churches are confessional in nature, and during the 16th and early 17th centuries a number of manifestos of faith were written. Some of these confessions were theses for debate, such as Zwingli's Sixty-Seven Articles of 1523. Others, such as the Zurich Consensus of 1549, sought unity between groups on controversial doctrines. The very names of the Geneva, Helvetic, French, Belgic, and Scots confessions indicate the relationship of Reformed churches to the rising sense of nationhood in 16th-century Europe. A harmony of confessions prepared in 1581 shows the agreement among national churches as well as between Reformed confessions and the Lutheran Augsburg Confession. Some national confessions had international significance. The Second Helvetic Confession became standard for churches in countries east of Switzerland. The Heidelberg Catechism had great importance in the churches of the Netherlands and wherever the Dutch settled. The Westminster Confession of Faith, produced in 1648 by a committee appointed by the English Parliament, had its greatest influence among Presbyterian and Congregational churches outside of England. Additional reading William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1988), which places Calvin in his contemporary context; John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (1954, reissued 1973), a comprehensive treatment of the rise and development of Presbyterian and Reformed churches, with an excellent bibliography; James Hastings Nichols, Corporate Worship in the Reformed Tradition (1968), an overview of the variety of forms developed in the Reformed tradition of the public worship of God; Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, rev. and ed. by Ernst Bizer (1950, reprinted 1978; originally published in German, 1861), a work enabling the reader to get beyond Calvin's Institutes to some acquaintance with other Reformed theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries; Robert McAfee Brown, Theology in a New Key: Responding to Liberation Themes (1978), and Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (1981), interpretations of Third World theology; John H. Leith, An Introduction to Reformed Tradition: A Way of Being the Christian Community, rev. ed. (1981); Arthur C. Cochrane (ed.), Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century (1966), 12 classic confessions of the 16th century, with historical introductions; and Thomas F. Torrance (ed. and trans.), The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church (1959), 10 catechisms of the 16th and 17th centuries. Useful periodicals include Reformed World (quarterly), published by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational), which reports on the life and work of Reformed and Presbyterian churches throughout the world; and American Presbyterians: Journal of Presbyterian History (quarterly), on all aspects of American Presbyterian history. James C. Spalding