[Gamecock]

GRPL Ping

[Alex Murphy]

John Calvin’s reflections on the Reformation are a good place to begin. In the course of his life, he wrote three important treatises defending and explaining the need for reform in the church. The first was a quite personal statement defending the reformation in Geneva, usually called “The Reply to Sadoleto” (1539). The second, “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (1543), was written at the request of Martin Bucer for presentation to Emperor Charles V at a meeting of the imperial Diet. The third treatise, “The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church” (1548), was written in response to the imperial victories over the Protestant princes and the imposition of the Augsburg Interim requiring Protestant conformity to certain Roman Catholic practices.

While there are differences among these treatises, reflecting the different occasions on which they were written, they really speak with one voice, giving us Calvin’s understanding of the basic concerns of the Reformation. These treatises show that for him the Reformation had five key concerns (not the traditional five points of Calvinism!).

• The first was that the Bible alone is the authority in the church for religious matters.
• The second was that the church must worship God purely, according to the Bible.
• The third was that justification is by grace alone through faith alone in the righteousness of Christ alone.
• The fourth was that the church must have a proper understanding of the two (and only two) sacraments instituted by Christ, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
• The fifth was that the true pastoral, teaching office must be restored in the church.

Ping for later

[HapaxLegamenon]

Wow, Protestants suddenly concerned with sacred tradition.

[SoFloFreeper]

Godfrey is an excellent teacher.

[Lee N. Field]

The third treatise, “The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church” (1548), was written in response to the imperial victories over the Protestant princes and the imposition of the Augsburg Interim requiring Protestant conformity to certain Roman Catholic practices.

Interesting. I had not heard of that one. I'll have to find a copy.

[ravenwolf]

Against this corruption, Calvin insisted that worship must be directed by the Word of God alone:

---

That is all we need, no more and no less.

[Cronos]

“It may be safe to say that the greatest event for Christendom in the last 1500 years was the Protestant Reformation.

Sorry, but from a historical point of view, that statement shows how blind westerners are -- even of their own history

there is no mention of the great conversions of Germanics, Vikings, Slavs, Hungarians, Neiman Mongols

There is no mention of the genocide of the Ancient Church of the East by Tamerlane (where he wiped out an entire Church which at one time was 1/3rd of the Christian peopulation)

Or the elimination of Christianity in Yemen, once a Christian land

Then the suppression of Orthodoxy under the Ottomans

Or on the positive sides, the expansion of Ethiopian Tewahod Christianity

Or just in Western Europe, the rise of monasteries, storing knowledge during the barbarian invasions, the conversion of the Franks to Christianity etc.

The Reformation was an important historical event, but by no means the "greatest" historical event for Christendom in the past 1500 years.

[Cronos]

Also, this article talks purely of the Calvinistic point of view. It mentions nothing of Lutheran beliefs that retained and retains much of orthodoxy. And it mentions nothing of evangelicals or pentecostals or adventists etc. who have different belief, the radical reformers who calvin and luther etc. despised.

[boatbums]

Will read later.