not familiar with that texting acronysm: what does it mean?
Someone asked me that privately a month or so ago. This was my response:
>VM Catholic and don’t know what “the five point” plan is, or what “reformed church means, among other protestant denominations. Can you say, without to much trouble? Thanks, R.I’ll try.
The Wikipedia article on “Calvinism” looks to be not too bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism
For “the five points of Calvinism”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism#Five_points_of_Calvinism . It’s a mnemonic concocted by an unknown person in the early 20th century to summarize certain Calvinist distinctives in the area of soteriology.
Reformed Churches are those bodies that confess one or another set of reformed confessions, either the “Three Forms of Unity” or the “Westminster Standards”. These would be churches with “presbyterian” or “reformed” in their denominational label. There’s a history behind all that, depending mostly on how things played out in Britain vs. the continent, and then imported into North America with various immigrant groups.
The beliefs these confessions articulate play out in sometimes distinctive ways in reformed worship and polity. Kind of complicated to go into.
Rather than yammer on at length, I think I’d just point you to, first and preferred, the Heidelberg catechism (http://www.ccel.org/creeds/heidelberg-cat.html). That’s about an hour’s reading.
Then, if you’re still up to it, the Belgic confession (http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/belgic-confession-1561/).
interesting secular thought