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Westminster Confession
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it became and remains the "subordinate standard" of doctrine in the Church of Scotland and has been influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide. In 1643, the English Parliament called upon "learned, godly and judicious Divines", to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually representing a different language); multiple Wikisources make up the overall project of Wikisource. The project's aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts (its first text was the Déclaration universelle des Droits de l'Homme), it has expanded to become a general-content library. The project officially began in November 24, 2003 under the name Project Sourceberg, a play on the famous Project Gutenberg [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
William Farel
William Farel (1489 – 13 September 1565), Guilhem Farel or Guillaume Farel (French: [gijom faʁɛl]), was a French evangelist, and a founder of the Reformed Church in the cantons of Neuchâtel, Berne, Geneva, and Vaud in Switzerland. He is most often remembered for having persuaded John Calvin to remain in Geneva in 1536, and for persuading him to return there in 1541, after their expulsion in 1538 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
World Communion Of Reformed Churches
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Reformed churches in the world. It has 233 member denominations in 110 countries, together claiming 100 million people, thus being the third largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC). Among the biggest denominations in the WCRC are the Church of South India, Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Presbyterian Church of Korea, Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar, Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, Protestant Church in Indonesia, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Church of Cameroon, and the Protestant Church in the Netherlands [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
First Helvetic Confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that he believes the other party is not already aware of, and is frequently associated with an admission of a moral or legal wrong: In one sense it is the acknowledgment of having done something wrong, whether on purpose or not. Thus confessional texts usually provide information of a private nature previously unavailable. What a sinner tells a priest in the confessional, the documents criminals sign acknowledging what they have done, an autobiography in which the author acknowledges mistakes, and so on, are all examples of confessional texts.Not all confessions reveal wrongdoing, however [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)
The Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers were the English settlers who established the Plymouth Colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Their leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatist Puritans, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands. They held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs but, unlike most other Puritans, they maintained that their congregations should separate from the English state church. They eventually determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fund them. They established Plymouth Colony in 1620, which became the second successful English settlement in America, following the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Huldrych Zwingli
Huldrych Zwingli or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly center of Renaissance humanism. He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus. In 1519, Zwingli became the pastor of the Grossmünster in Zurich where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic Church. In his first public controversy in 1522, he attacked the custom of fasting during Lent. In his publications, he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, promoted clerical marriage, and attacked the use of images in places of worship. In 1525, Zwingli introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the Mass [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Martin Bucer
Martin Bucer (early German: Martin Butzer; 11 November 1491 – 28 February 1551) was a German Protestant reformer based in Strasbourg who influenced Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican doctrines and practices. Bucer was originally a member of the Dominican Order, but after meeting and being influenced by Martin Luther in 1518 he arranged for his monastic vows to be annulled. He then began to work for the Reformation, with the support of Franz von Sickingen. Bucer's efforts to reform the church in Wissembourg resulted in his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church, and he was forced to flee to Strasbourg. There he joined a team of reformers which included Matthew Zell, Wolfgang Capito, and Caspar Hedio. He acted as a mediator between the two leading reformers, Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, who differed on the doctrine of the eucharist [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Peter Martyr Vermigli
Peter Martyr Vermigli (8 September 1499 – 12 November 1562) was an Italian-born Reformed theologian. His early work as a reformer in Catholic Italy and his decision to flee for Protestant northern Europe influenced many other Italians to convert and flee as well. In England, he influenced the Edwardian Reformation, including the Eucharistic service of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. He was considered an authority on the Eucharist among the Reformed churches, and engaged in controversies on the subject by writing treatises. Vermigli's Loci Communes, a compilation of excerpts from his biblical commentaries organized by the topics of systematic theology, became a standard Reformed theological textbook. Born in Florence, Vermigli entered a religious order and was appointed to influential posts as abbot and prior [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Heinrich Bullinger Heinrich Bullinger (18 July 1504 – 17 September 1575) was a Swiss reformer, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Zurich church and pastor at Grossmünster. A much less controversial figure than John Calvin or Martin Luther, his importance has long been underestimated; recent research shows that he was one of the most influential theologians of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. |
Afrikaner Calvinism
Afrikaner Calvinism is a theoretical cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology similar to that espoused by proponents of the Jewish nation movement. A number of modern studies have argued that this gave rise to the Great Trek while serving to legimitise the subordination of other South African ethnic groups, thus laying the foundation for modern [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
John Knox
John Knox (c. 1513 – 24 November 1572) was a Scottish minister, theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He is the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Born in Giffordgate, Knox is believed to have been educated at the University of St Andrews and worked as a notary-priest. Influenced by early church reformers such as George Wishart, he joined the movement to reform the Scottish church. He was caught up in the ecclesiastical and political events that involved the murder of Cardinal David Beaton in 1546 and the intervention of the regent of Scotland Mary of Guise, a French noblewoman. He was taken prisoner by French forces the following year and exiled to England on his release in 1549. While in exile, Knox was licensed to work in the Church of England, where he rose in the ranks to serve King Edward VI of England as a royal chaplain [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza (Latin: Theodorus Beza; French: Théodore de Bèze or de Besze; June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605) was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Francis Turretin
Francis Turretin (17 October 1623 – 28 September 1687; also known as François Turretini and Francis Turrettin) was a Genevan-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian. Turretin is especially known as a zealous opponent of the theology of the Academy of Saumur (embodied by Moise Amyraut and called Amyraldianism), as an earnest defender of the Calvinistic orthodoxy represente [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Jonathan Edwards (theologian)
Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian. Like most of the Puritans, he held to the Reformed theology. His colonial followers later distinguished themselves from other Congregationalists as "New Lights" (endorsing the Great Awakening), as opposed to "Old Lights" (non-revivalists). Edwards is widely regarded as "one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians". Edwards' theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
Continental Reformed Church
A Continental Reformed church is a Reformed church that has its origin in the European continent. Prominent subgroups are the Dutch Reformed, the Swiss Reformed, the French Reformed (Huguenots), the Hungarian Reformed, and the Waldensian Church in Italy. The term is used to distinguish these churches from Presbyterian, Congregational or other Calvinist churches, which can trace their origin to the British Isles or elsewhere in the world. Continental Reformed churches are descended from the Protestant Reformation in respective European countries. Notably, their theology is largely derived from the Swiss Reformation, as Switzerland (specifically Geneva and Zürich) was a base for the most influential Reformed theologians of the era. It was inaugurated by Huldrych Zwingli, who formulated the first expression of the Reformed faith. Swiss Reformation was more fully articulated by Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] |
