NB: The post below contains some friendly intramural discussion between colleagues. It’s what scholars do. It’s how we make progress in understanding, by tossing things back and forth and gaining clarity along the way. This sort of thing troubles some people so let me explain briefly. Several years ago my dear friend and colleague Mike Horton published a series of academic volumes (see below) that experimental in nature. He was saying, in effect, “here’s what I’m thinking, what do you think?” They were an invitation to dialogue. So far I’ve read two of the four but as I teach history and not theology my attention is usually focused on older (dead) writers. A few of my students have asked me about this question and when I saw it on a sister blog (see below) I did a little digging and offered a comment and then thought I should do some more digging and expand that comment into a post to offer context.

I shared this post with Mike and we are quite agreed. He is looking for a way to signal the catholicity of the Reformed faith, that what we believe is the Christian faith. At the same time we want to signal that the Reformed doctrine and practice (the Reformed confession) is the most faithful expression of Christianity. Amen and amen! Thus, this is not a matter of theology (doctrine) or practice or piety. This is a question of rhetoric, i.e., how we should speak about a certain question.

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My dear friend and colleague Mike Horton, from whom I have learned more than I can say in a brief blog post—he was the first one to explain clearly in my hearing, in 1998, what it means to distinguish law and gospel in preaching—has argued in his award-winning volume, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology that we should not use the expression, “the Reformed faith.” He writes,

“In my view, it is inappropriate for us to refer to our [Reformed/Presbyterian] confession as the Reformed Faith. The Reformed churches did not (and do not) believe that they were confessing the Reformed Faith, but that they were confessing the ‘undoubted Christian Faith’ in their confessions and catechisms. (p. 123)

and

…we strive toward a catholic hearing of God’s Word. From this perspective we should not speak of a Reformed faith or an Orthodox theology or a Lutheran confession, but of a Christian faith, theology, and confession, from a Reformed, Orthodox, or Lutheran perspective (p. 210).

My friend and colleague at The Reformed Reader, Shane Lems, posted these quotations to explain why he doesn’t use the expression “the Reformed faith.” Here’s my reply (corrected and expanded). Shane and I have also been discussing this question cordially.

Brothers, I want to dissent a bit. I don’t disagree with the point Mike is making and we should probably say “Reformed tradition” or “Reformed confession” (hey, someone should write a book on that!) more than we do but when I say “Reformed faith” it’s just a shorthand way of saying “Reformed tradition” or “Reformed confession.” In other words, I don’t think it’s as inherently sectarian as or misleading as is being suggested.

First, the history: The expression “Reformed faith” goes back at least as far as the late 17th century.

• Johannes a Marck used it in his commentary on the Revelation (In apocalypsin iohannis commentarius seu analysis exegetica (Amsterdam, 1689), 143.
• Petrus van Mastricht used it in his Theoretico-practica theologia (Utrecht, 1699), 1055, 1066, in describing the history of the persecution of the Reformed in the NL under the Spanish and, I think, in reference to Lutheran/Reformed dialogues (p. 1067).

Usage of the expression does seem, however, to have gained steam in the 19th century. E.g., the 19th-century English translation of Beza’s biography of Calvin used the expression “the Reformed faith” to translate the expression “vera religione” (Iohannis Calvini vita a Theodoro Beza …. in Theodori Bezae Vezelii, volumen tractationum theologicarum, (Geneva, 1582, 367). Other searches bring up 19th century results. So, there is at least some precedent going back to the late 17th century for the expression.

There are parallel expressions from the classical period. Calvin used the expression “Reformed doctrine” in a letter to Heinrich Bullinger (28 March 1554).  He also used the expression “the Reformed religion” in a letter to Admiral de Coligny (16 April 1561). Several Dutch Reformed Church orders (church constitutions) used the same expression in a way that seems quite like the way we speak of  “the Reformed faith.” The church order of the Synod of Middelburg (1581) says:

43. No one shall be admitted to the Lord’s Supper except one who, according to the custom of the church which he joins, has made confession of the Reformed religion, who has testimony of godly behavior, without which  those who come from other churches shall not be admitted.

This language was repeated by a number of other church orders, including that of the Great Synod of Dort (1619).

Another place we see this expression is the Socinian Racovian Catechism (1605)

By means of a young man named William Trie, a native of Lyons, then residing at Geneva in consequence of having embraced the reformed religion, he procured some sheets of it to be conveyed to France, and put into the hands of the inquisitor at Lyons, with an intimation that the author was in his neighbourhood (p. xiv).

and again,

Sigismund the Second, who had permitted the open profession in his dominions of the Reformed religion of the schools both of Wittemberg and Geneva, naturally directed their views to that quarter (ibid, xviii).

What these instances suggest is that the phrase was well established and understood by 1605, but that still leaves the matters of truth, practice, and intent.

Is there such a thing as “the Reformed faith”? Yes and no. When doing the search for the expression “Reformed faith” (in Latin and in English) I also noticed the expression, ecclesia reformata. If we shouldn’t say “Reformed faith” should we also stop speaking of the Reformed Churches or Reformed Church? After all, aren’t we Christian Churches in the same sense in which we hold the Christian faith? We say “Reformed Church” and “Reformed faith” as a short hand way of saying, “that branch of the historic Christian Church that confesses and practices the Reformed theology, piety, and practice.” We need the shorthand because the long hand won’t fit on most church signs or bulletins.

There is a “Reformed faith” insofar as that shorthand expression refers to a particular theology, piety, and practice. Insofar as, however, that theology, piety, and practice is catholic (universal) it is not particular to the Reformed churches. So the question is really how to signal the one, i.e., that which unites us with the church in all times and places, and the many, i.e., that which distinguishes our theology, piety, and practice from other branches of the church and post-apostolic tradition.

The problem does not seem to be the expression per se but weaknesses inherent to shorthand expressions. We see this when “by faith alone” (sola fide) is shortened to “faith” as in the sentence, “I believe in justification by faith.” That’s a true sentence but potentially misleading since it omits what the confessional Reformed and Lutheran churches regard as an essential qualifier, “alone.” When we say, “Scripture is sufficient for faith and life” we mean, “sufficient for the Christian faith and the Christian life.” We don’t mean to signal that the Bible is to be used in ways that it was not intended to be used, e.g., as a flight manual. So, I take Mike’s argument as a salutary warning to speak more fully more often and to be careful when we do use the expression “the Reformed faith” lest we be unclear or misunderstood to be signaling claims that we don’t intend to make but I’m not sure that I’m quite ready to give up the expression altogether.