Jump to content

Portal:Reformed Christianity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Portal:Calvinism)

The Reformed Christianity Portal

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

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

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

Selected article

James VI and I
James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI, and King of England and King of Ireland as James I. He ruled in Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, when he was only one year old, succeeding his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been forced to abdicate. Regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578. On 24 March 1603, as James I, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He then ruled England, Scotland and Ireland for 22 years, until his death at the age of 58. Towards the Puritan clergy, with whom he debated at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, James was at first strict in enforcing conformity, inducing a sense of persecution amongst many Puritans; but ejections and suspensions from livings became fewer as the reign wore on. A notable success of the Hampton Court Conference was the commissioning of a new translation of the Bible, completed in 1611, which became known as the King James Bible, considered a masterpiece of Jacobean prose. In Scotland, James attempted to bring the Scottish kirk "so neir as can be" to the English church and reestablish the episcopacy, a policy which met with strong opposition. In 1618, James's bishops forced his Five Articles of Perth through a General Assembly; but the rulings were widely resisted. James was to leave the church in Scotland divided at his death, a source of future problems for his son.

Selected images

Things to do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: